US media considers Hillary's tenacity

Some US pundits and editorial writers focus on Hillary Clinton's determination to stay in the race, others suggest the Democratic primary race is petering out.

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Roger Simon, Politico

If a tree falls in the forest when everybody expects it to fall, does it make a sound?

Yes, says Hillary Clinton. It makes a deafening roar, says Hillary Clinton. She won the West Virginia primary by a kazillion percentage points Tuesday night, and that, she says, has to mean something!

Except the press doesn't think so. The press is unimpressed. This may be the first time in election history in which the press has withdrawn from a race before the candidate.

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Donna Brazile, CNN political contributor and super-delegate

I think Senator Obama will have to continue to work to reach out to the kind of voters who turned out in West Virginia today. But this is not a loss for Obama, it's a big win for Hillary Clinton, and I think that's the story coming out of tonight.

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Paul Brathwaite, Democratic strategist, ABC News

The dynamics of the race have become such that her win today doesn't necessarily change the playing field that much, given the few number of delegates at stake.

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Wall Street Journal

Hillary Clinton trounced Barack Obama in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary, as expected. But her negligible payback in convention delegates illustrates why her rival and her party are turning away from her candidacy to begin the fight against Republican John McCain.

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Major Garrett, Fox News political reporter

As the putative nominee with an earned media deluge of "he's the nominee," Obama nevertheless saw Clinton roll up huge margins in West Virginia and give Clinton not a comeback but a credible argument to continue (and that's the best outcome she could have achieved).

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Alvin S Felzenberg, National Review Online

In her victory statement in West Virginia, Hillary Clinton made clear that, in order to get her out of the race, Barack Obama is going to have to do something he has been unable to do up to now. He is going to have to knock Hillary out of this race - and decisively.

That has proved a hard thing for him to do in states Democrats most need in order to win in November. The message from Pennsylvania to Ohio to West Virginia is that Obama has yet to gain the confidence of Middle America. He cannot become president unless he does.

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The Swamp, Chicago Tribune

Welcome to the parallel universe. In this place, Hillary Clinton has as good a shot as ever to win the Democratic nomination, mathematics, delegate counts, and pundits be damned.

At least it sure seemed that way to hear her tell it Tuesday night here at the Charleston Civic Center¿ There was little recognition that her campaign remained against the ropes, or that the particular demographics of West Virginia made her victory a rather easy one.

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David Corn, CQ Politics

Not every primary matters. Especially West Virginia¿ A lot of states have played crucial roles in this nominating contest - far more so than in the Republican race - but the remaining primaries are unimportant.

The results in these contests cannot change the fact that Obama has pocketed more voter-determined delegates than Clinton, and that fact apparently is pushing several superdelegates each day to declare their loyalty to Obama.

...The Democratic primary, as red-hot as any recent primary contest, is petering out. Seemingly with a whimper, rather than a bang.