At the risk of being called an elitist, two notes:

1. Maureen Dowd, in today's NY TIMES, tells two stories of when her father, who worked on FDR's security detail, visited WV before the war. One story was that his car was overturned by outraged Mountaineers because of its bumper sticker supporting Al Smith (a Catholic). The other was that he was asked by a Mountaineer why people kept saying that FDR (much beloved in WV, at least by this guy) was a cripple. He volunteered to beat anyone up who said so. Her father replied that FDR had a fine, athletic body, and the guy went away happy.

2. In a poll published about a week before the election, 31% of WV likely Democratic voters declared that they thought Clinton WOULD BE elected President this year -- both Obama and McCain trailed her in the high 20s.

I respect anyone's right to their opinion. But it seems to me that what we're dealing with here are people who simply do not know very much about the world they live in. Clinton courted these voters, and their cousins in Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania, with an anti-intellectual campaign that mirrored the Republican campaigns of recent years, where style and "who would you rather have a beer with" trumped the fact that the Bush tax cuts gave the average West Virginia worker about 25 cents a week, while it cut the ground out from under the safety net which explains the attachment of West Virginians to FDR.

Can you spell cynical? What is more contemptible -- the man who speaks in conscending but sympathetic tones about "bitter" people or the woman who pretends to be one of them (in spite of a background that could hardly be more different) just long enough to take their votes and run?

It may well be true that Obama won't carry WV -- in fact, it would shock me if he did. But since John McCain's political handlers have played the "Bubba game" a lot longer and better than either of the Clintons, what makes her think SHE can, either?