Message #81388

[Adrienne]

 
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“I can see where a lot of people think it’s over, but I don’t like to keep hearing it,” she said. “I just don’t want to see her give up, and I would like Kentucky to have a say.”

The next day, Clinton urged supporters, who had ponied up $100 or more to attend a rally at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom, to “just turn off the television, you will really enjoy this experience.”

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), a top Clinton backer, warmed up the midtown crowd, declaring journalists clueless in presenting Obama’s nomination as a fait accompli and chastising them for continually pestering Clinton about when she’ll quit the race.

“They don’t even know why we have conventions,” he said of members of the fourth estate. “They really can’t count, but they say math is against us.

“They don’t realize that this contest with two of the [most] historic [candidates] that we have ever had” has “millions of Americans … prepared to get involved.”

And Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, told voters during a campaign stop Friday in Madison, W.Va., that “all this stuff you are hearing about is an attempt to discourage you. That's what this is, pure and simple, hoping, ‘Well, Hillary can get 80 percent of the vote in West Virginia, and if only 100,000 people show up it is not enough.’ But if 600,000 people show up, and you say, 'We want a president,' then you will see the earth move.”

Media coverage suggesting Obama has wrapped up the nomination could have an effect on turnout in the six remaining contests, said Laurie Rhodebeck, a political science professor at the University of Louisville.

After West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, Puerto Rico — where Clinton is favored to win — votes June 1, and Montana and South Dakota — both of which are likely to go to Obama — votes June 3.

“It could cut both ways,” Rhodebeck said. “There are some people who are going to be so annoyed about being told [it’s over], they’ll be darned sure that they’re going to turn out to vote, if nothing else to prove the experts wrong. And they’ll be others — the typical marginal voter who is looking for any excuse not to come to the polls.”

Clinton supporters are “the group that’s most likely to be galvanized,” she said.

Nathan Smith, vice chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party and an uncommitted superdelegate, said supporters of both candidates in his state are miffed that the media has all but called the race before the Bluegrass State heads to the polls.

“Let me tell you, the people of Kentucky sure don’t see it as over,” Smith asserted. “I could care less what Wolf Blitzer thinks about this race.”