Race and Kentucky

Hillary Clinton once more trounced Barack Obama in an Appalachian primary, winning Kentucky by a commanding 36 percentage points. As in West Virginia, at least 20% of voters claimed that their decision was influenced by race. Team Clinton is likely to cite the landslide victory in Kentucky as further evidence of Obama's "unelectability" - never mind that he won convincingly elsewhere in the Deep South.

Clinton's rhetorical attacks on Obama are unlikely to significantly defer his inevitable triumph in securing the nomination. But they do highlight vulnerabilities that he will have to address in the run-up to the general election. The only two Kentucky counties that went to Obama were Jefferson County and Fayette County, home to the state's two major urban centres. In the hollows and thinly-populated wilds of the rest of the state, Clinton reigned supreme. Is Obama's urbane charm lost on the thickets and brambles of much of the American interior? And will his campaign's efforts in the coming months to register black voters be enough to compensate for his lack of white rural support?