Obama Campaign Downplays West Virginia In Memo

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) campaign issued a memo before polls closed in West Virginia closed late Tuesday, downplaying the significance of the state's primary and claiming that if rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) won less than 80% of the vote, it would be seen as a loss.

"There is no question that Senator Clinton is going to win by huge margins in the upcoming primaries in West Virginia today and Kentucky next weeks," the campaign said in a memo. "The Clinton campaign has already been touting their margins in these states - In fact, Bill Clinton said that Hillary can win West Virginia with 80 percent-and the West Virginia Senate Majority Leader said Clinton needs to win by '80-20 or 90-10.'And in keeping large margins in perspective, it is worth noting that, while Senator Clinton will win big in West Virginia, Barack Obama won neighboring Virginia by 29 points."

"But with 49 contests behind us and only six to go - including several states where we expect to do well - Barack Obama leads in pledged delegates, contests won, and superdelegates," it added. "And for perspective, while 28 pledged delegates are up for grabs this evening, Obama has won the support of 27 superdelegates in the course of just the last week putting him less than 150 total delegates away from clinching the Democratic nomination."

Citing recent nationawide surveys, the campaign denied claims by Clinton that Obama was lagging behind in support among women, working class and white voters. It also downplayed the validity of exit polls that again said Democrats were not planning on uniting this November.

"To understand a potential general election match-up between Obama and McCain, the only analysis and data that should be considered valid are the current head-to-head National polls rather than extrapolating irrelevant assumptions from exit poll data in Democratic primaries," the Obama campaign said.

CNN had said the same day that exit polls once more revealed that Clinton and Obama supporters chose to either vote for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) or abstain from voting rather than vote for the rival Democrat this fall.