New polls out today suggest Obama is in for a rough couple of weeks in West Virginia and Kentucky, which he'll have to weather by shaping perceptions in the media that the race is over.
In West Virginia, which votes tomorrow, he trails Clinton 60-24 in a Suffolk University poll. That's 36 points. Poll director David ;Paleologos: "Barack Obama may have to write off West Virginia come November." A plurality of Democrats there still think Hillary will be the next president.
Obama is visiting the state today and will be introduced at a Charleston rally by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, but ... good luck. The state is stacked against him demographically, and will put an exclamation point on Clinton's argument that he can't get white blue-collar votes.
Then, ">another new poll shows that he trails Clinton 58-31 in Kentucky, which votes next Tuesday. Little wonder why he's been campaigning since Friday in Oregon, which he hopes to win on the same day he loses Kentucky. If Oregon pushes him into a majority of pledged (elected) delegates, he will hope for a superdelegate surge that will give him the nomination and relegate Kentucky to the back pages.
Still, a couple of blowout losses on the eve of winning the nomination will be a sobering reminder of how much work Obama has to do.