WVa no fan of Obama
West Virginia really, really, really doesn't like Barack Obama.
Anger -- even among members of his own party -- is so great at the president that more than 40 percent of Democratic voters next door cast ballots for a Texas felon over the president in the state's primary yesterday.
The WVa Secretary of State site shows 42% of the state's Democrats voted for Keith Judd in the state's primary yesterday to 58% for Obama. Judd is in a federal pen in Texas for making threats against the University of Mexico in 1999.
Judd was able to get on the state ballot by paying a $2,500 fee and filing a form known as a notarized certification of announcement, said Jake Glance, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office.
Attracting at least 15 percent of the vote would normally qualify a candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. But state Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarbro said no one has filed to be a delegate for Judd. The state party also believes that Judd has failed to file paperwork required of presidential candidates, but officials continue to research the matter, Scarbro said.
Even Sen. Joe Manchin won't say if he voted for the president or the inmate (or left the ballot blank):
Manchin, who refused to say whether he voted for Obama on Tuesday, said he's grateful that most voters look at the totality of his voting record, not whether he follows the party line.
"The people of West Virginia have been very, very keen in coming to the conclusion of who they're going to vote for, and they'll do it again," the two-term former governor said. "I think everyone knows I'm just West Virginia Joe. I don't just say what they want me to say. ... I'm going to speak out when it doesn't make sense. And if something does make sense, I don't care whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, I'm going to vote for it."
Obama lost the state to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the '08 WVa primary and again to John McCain in the general. His approval numbers there are the second worst of any state in the entire nation, according to some polls.
Republicans have been chipping away at the state. David McKinley was the first Republican to take WVa's northern tier congressional district in four decades in 2010, and the GOP is already targeting US Rep. Nick Rahall, an Obama supporter, in the south of the state.