US News
PREVIEW: Clinton hopes West Virginia will throw her a lifeline
By DPA
May 10, 2008, 0:13 GMT

Washington - Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination may have been all but declared dead by national political pundits, but voters in West Virginia still see her as their champion.

And Clinton, locked in an uphill battle against rival Barack Obama, has cast her own hopes for a revival of her fortunes on the Appalachian state whose voters prefer her by wide margins.

Pressure has been mounting for Clinton to quit the Democratic presidential race and give Obama time to unite the party ahead of a general election fight in November, after he beat her handily in North Carolina's primary and she narrowly won in Indiana.

Obama leads in the key tally of delegates to the party's nominating convention in August, but Clinton has argued that her wins in populous, industrial states means she would make a stronger candidate against Republican John McCain.

The former first lady has vowed to keep going until the series of state-by-state nominating contests are completed on June 3.

Her appeal among working-class, white voters momentarily gave her campaign renewed life after a win in Pennsylvania last month, but the handful of small contests left give her little chance to catch up.

Still, her attraction has not faded, with many of her supporters reluctant to back Obama in the primary even though he will likely be the party's candidate.

'Why do I keep going? Because you keep going,' she has told supporters on the campaign trail.

Indeed, West Virginia, home to 1.8 million mostly white residents, is a Clinton stronghold.

She has sought to portray herself there as a champion for blue- collar workers in the mountainous coal-mining state, the type of voters she has said Obama alienated with remarks last month about 'bitter' people who 'cling to guns or religion' in the face of unfavourable political policies.

The state was long a Democratic stronghold, but twice went for George W Bush on issues, such as abortion and gun-ownership, that appealed to social conservatives.

A television ad running in West Virginia features her proclaiming, 'Standing up for people who weren't getting a fair shake, that's been the purpose of my life. And it will be the purpose of my presidency.'

An opinion poll released Friday by the American Research Group showed her with a more than 40 percentage point lead over Obama - 66 per cent of likely voters said they supported Clinton to 23 per cent for Obama.

She has continued to portray herself as a 'fighter' that has emerged from many uphill battles in politics throughout her life.

'Some in Washington wanted us to end our campaign - and then we won in New Hampshire,' Clinton said in West Virginia earlier this week. 'Then we had huge victories on Super Tuesday and then we won Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania and I was never supposed to win Indiana. Well, I want to be president of all 50 states.'

Only 28 delegates are up for grabs in West Virginia on Tuesday and not enough contests remain for her to catch Obama in pledged delegates awarded by voters. But she hopes a win there can show the so-called super delegates - party leaders who vote independently for the nominee - that she can still persevere.