by Michael Mathes
HOPKINSVILLE , United States (AFP) — Presidential primaries opened Tuesday in Kentucky and Oregon, giving Hillary Clinton a chance to widen her almost insurmountable delegate lead over Democratic rival Bernie Sanders who has vowed to slog on despite long odds.
Though Clinton holds a slim poll lead, Sanders was gunning for victory in Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, building on his win last week in neighboring West Virginia as he battles to keep his long-shot nomination bid alive.
West Virginia and Kentucky are linked to coal, as is much of Appalachia — the largely white, long-struggling eastern US region where many feel they have been given the cold shoulder in the lukewarm recovery from the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Voters in Oregon in the Pacific northwest also went to the polls Tuesday in Democratic and Republican primaries, where limited polling has indicated Clinton is ahead. In Kentucky it was just Democrats voting; Republicans have already held a caucus here.
Clinton sees Kentucky as an opportunity to appeal to working-class white men — a demographic where she has lagged both the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and her Democratic rival Sanders.
John Spenlau, 28, speaking to AFP Tuesday outside a voting station in rainy suburban Louisville, said he voted for Sanders.
“To be honest I don’t think he’s going to win the nomination but I prefer the idea of continued change,” Spenlau said, referring to Sanders’ proposals to upend what he calls an unfair political and economic system in the United States and fight income inequality, among other problems.
“Hillary would be a more stable candidate but I think that Bernie continues to push the envelope, towards a few more of the social programs that I believe in,” Spenlau said.
Coal country
No Democratic presidential candidate has won in Kentucky since 1980 except for Bill Clinton.
On Sunday the former first lady appeared to indicate her husband would play a role in her administration if she were elected, promising to put him “in charge of revitalizing the economy.”
As voting got underway, Trump fired off a series of nasty tweets at Clinton. One of them said “Crooked Hillary can’t close the deal with Bernie Sanders. Will be another bad day for her!”
On the idea of seeing Bill back in government, Trump reacted with ridicule, tweeting “Crooked Hillary said her husband is going to be in charge of the economy. If so, he should run, not her.”
The Clintons have struggled to contain the damage from comments Hillary made in March, when she said she expected to “put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business.”
She made the remark during a speech on renewable energy but the soundbite stung many in Appalachia.
In Fort Mitchell at the weekend she emphasized her determination to help coal country, saying: “We can’t and we must not walk away from them.”
‘Risky and dangerous’
Clinton made three stops in Kentucky on Sunday and another four Monday, shaking hands, taking selfies, offering hugs — and even chatting with Trump supporters who vowed never to vote for her.
Sanders has also been investing time in Kentucky. He was in the city of Paducah on Sunday and Bowling Green Monday, holding much bigger rallies — each more than 2,000 people.
But with the Democratic nomination in sight, Clinton is looking beyond the showdown with Sanders to position herself for a bruising general election campaign battle against Trump.
In a November face-off the billionaire appears destined to hold an advantage over Clinton, at least initially, with working-class whites.
At a rally in Hopkinsville, Clinton pummeled the “risky and dangerous” Trump, suggesting he is unqualified to handle tough foreign policy decisions.
She pointed to her work in late 2012 in helping to defuse sky-high tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, in part by negotiating at length with Egypt’s then-president Mohamed Morsi.
“Now ask yourself: how hard would it be for America’s secretary of state to negotiate with a Muslim leader if someone running for president — or heaven forbid were president — was spending a lot of his time denigrating the religion of the people we had to deal with in a flashpoint region?”
mlm-sg/dw/ec
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