It was argued in 1964 that no Democrat had ever won the White House without the South, and that LBJ was committing political suicide by pushing for the Civil Rights Act. In the 1964 election, he DID lose a lot of the South -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina all voted for Goldwater. He still won the election.

The reason that no Democrat has won the White House without WV since 1916 is because it is -- or used to be -- so solidly Democratic that if the Dems lost the state, it meant things were going very, very badly. But I'm wondering if that's really true any more. The state went Republican in 2000 and 2004, and those were very close elections. If WV were still solidly Democratic, it should have gone for Gore and Kerry in those years.

In any case, there's still time for Obama to win it back. The reasons those polled West Virginians say they'll vote for McCain over him are all matters of image, not substance, and they're not even factually accurate. He isn't a Muslim, his wife's not an atheist, and he's a lot closer to being a "man of the people" than either Clinton or McCain. As for his policies, they will definitely benefit West Virginia more than McCain's will. We'll see. I am reasonably confident that West Virginia will go for Obama in the end anyway, but I'm completely certain that he can win the election without it if need be.