Sen. Hillary Clinton put recent media speculation that she may drop out of the Democratic primary race to rest with her victory speech following the Mountain State primary last night. More properly put, the voters of West Virginia did. Lopsided is not strong enough of a word to describe the magnitude of Clinton's win in West Virginia. She bested her rival Sen. Barack Obama, by 41 percentage points, 67-26. The rout was complete. Clinton won every single county in the state, most by more than 20 points, as Obama was only able to break above 40% in one county. Clinton won men and women, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, college educated and non-college educated, rich and poor, all by large margins.

At her campaign victory rally, Clinton delivered her victory address in understated tones, but the implications in her rhetoric came through loud and clear. She still believes that she is the stronger candidate to face Sen. John McCain in the general election, and she intends to continue campaigning until the primary calendar is complete.

"There are some who have wanted to cut this race short. They say, "give up, it's too hard, the mountain is too high," but here in West Virginia, you know a thing or two about rough roads to the top of the mountain. We know from the Bible that faith can move mountains and, my friends, the faith of the Mountain State has moved me. I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard."

I just listened to Hillary's victory speech. As of right now she's leading 64-29%. Ouch! With numbers like that, this is the last time that West Virginia sees Barack Obama for, like, ever.

Hillary's speech was fairly unspectacular as usual, but in the first few paragraphs, I think she managed to squeeze in just about every West Virginia cliche about mountain people, going to the mountain, etc. Cringe worthy.

And then she started in with a rousing defense of why she's still in the race (remember, when you're explaining, you're losing) But she does have some valid points. She is the "strongest candidate" based on her ability to win swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That it has been since 1916 or so since a Democrat won without West Virginia. That's true, too, but it probably has more to do with West Virginia being a marginally leaning state, and Al Gore came within 300 votes of busting that record.

Anyway, it didn't sound to me like she was quitting, or even thinking about quitting. In her quest to stay in the race, she also received some unexpected support from Obama who stated that the race wasn't over yet. Hillary should send him a thank you card.

The Obama campaign doesn't talk about it much, but will admit when pressed that they started this process knowing that there was a small, but not insignificant, segment of the population that just will not vote for an African-American.

Running just below the surface in the campaign and in the media, is the undercurrent of racism still to be found in pockets around the country - rural, urban and suburban. While Senator Obama's message is inclusive and pan-racial, the workers on the ground have felt the sting that the campaign itself does not wish to highlight and the media has mostly ignored.

The Washington Post today has some harsh stories of field workers, phone bankers and surrogates having doors slammed in their faces, being called the most derogatory of racial terms and physically threatened.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

There's some very seemingly underhanded politicking going on in Oregon, but it seems to largely be going unnoticed by the national media, which is distracted with the ongoing Clinton-Obama fight.

Oregon's Democratic presidential primary will be held May 20 - the same day as the state GOP primary, which will decide who will run for the seat of outgoing six-term U.S. House Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley, who represents the 5th Congressional District. The GOP candidates are Kevin Mannix and Mike Erickson. The Rothenberg Political Report categorizes the race as a "pure tossup."

This week brought new accusations that have the distinct smell of smear.

The Oregonian reports today that Mannix actually sent a direct-mail appeal to 60,000 GOP voters, alleging that Erickson impregnated a woman eight years ago, then paid for her to have an abortion. The Mannix campaign is waving around a 2-year-old e-mail as proof - a message purportedly from a friend of the woman who had an abortion. The campaign sent that e-mail to voters. The Oregonian says the campaign mailing blacked out the last name and e-mail address of the author, identifying her as "Kristi" and her friend as "Tawnya. "

"I am convinced that the story is real," Mannix says in the May 12 mailer. "It is important that you, the voter, be aware of this situation. Rarely have I been confronted with such a difficult decision as to whether to proceed with something of this nature. But what is on the line here is the character of the person who will represent you in Congress.

"Many people have suggested to me that I allow some "other party" to share this information with you so that I can stand by and watch the situation develop. I believe it is important for me to take personal responsibility for sharing this story."

My prediction two weeks ago on Indiana and North Carolina proved to be total folly, today's foretelling will likely prove to be superfluous.

Today West Virginia Democrats cast their votes in a primary. They have 28 delegates.

Hillary Clinton will win West Virginia. And with a comfortable margin (8-10 points).

But it won't matter.

First Read's Domenico Montanaro makes a good point about why things aren't looking good for Hillary Clinton even though she'll win big in West Virginia today. The problem? Numbers:

Obama has now picked up 25 (with Romer would be 26) [superdelegates] this past week. That's more delegates than Clinton will net out of the West Virginia's 28 delegates at stake. And if Obama rolls out four more, he'd have gained more superdelegates in the past week than there are delegates at stake in West Virginia.

First Read is apparently sorely in need of a copy-editor, but the inference is a valid one. With the superdelegates now going over to Obama in droves, the remaining delegates that Clinton will net from West Virginia and Kentucky will be all but negated. Even James Carville seems to know the end is nigh.

If Hillary is imploding, nobody told the good folks in West (By God!) Virginia and Kentucky. She's still showing huge margins of support.

RealClearPolitics has the roundup:

Suffolk is out with a new poll in West Virginia (May 10-11) showing Clinton with a 36-point lead:

Clinton 60
Obama 24
Undecided 8

And Research 2000 has new numbers in Kentucky (May 7-9), where Clinton also enjoys a substantial 27-point lead over Obama:

Clinton 58
Obama 31
Undecided 11

Even with results like this, we probably won't see another shift in the race back to Hillary. These results are "baked in," they are expected, and in fact anything less than a 20 point margin may be looked on as a Hillary loss. Apart from some handwringing over Obama's lack of appeal to Appalachian voters, the Democrats will remind themselves that most Americans aren't from the hills and hollers, and that will be that.

And Kentucky and West Virginia will go red in the fall. The Democrats will just have to win without them, if they can.

Not long after MoveOn.org decided to endorse Barack Obama, the group announced a video ad contest: "Obama in 30 Seconds'.

5.5 million votes were cast for the 1,100 submissions and 15 finalists were selected. An eclectic group of 24 judges that included Ben Affleck, Jesse Jackson, Oliver Stone and Moby, chose the winner, "Obamacan" by David Gaw and Lance Mungia of Monrovia, CA.

MoveOn's donors have committed $200,000 to run this ad in selected markets.

London's Telegraph caught it and HuffPost brings it to our shores... Hillary Clinton referring to the next president as a "he." Oops.

Speaking to voters in the Appalachian state, she said: "All the kitchen table issues that everybody talks to me about are ones that the next president can actually do something about, if he actually cares about it." Realising her faux pas, she added: "More likely if she cares about it!"

Sometimes a verbal slip up is just a verbal slip up. I'm not going to get all Freudian on Hillary and suggest that in her mind the race is already over. Though her language in general over the past week has suggested that she's slowly facing up the realities of her impending loss:

Though Mrs Clinton continues to make her case as the best next president of the US, she has noticeably softened her tone on Mr. Obama in the past few days, after weeks of direct attacks on his readiness for the White House. She also much less regularly peppers her speeches with the phrase "When I am president..." - another sign that her inner conviction is fading.

For his part, it's clear that Barack Obama has moved on. It appears he's done with the primary states, realizing that this year the next president will indeed be a man. Obama headed for Missouri, sure to be up for grabs in November, where he's begun a full scale attack on John McCain's economic proposals.

The new ad airing in West Virginia by Barack Obama is a :30 second spot titled "Service." It makes sure to let the Mountain state voters know about his "Christian faith."