The Note: Mountain Climbing

May 13, 2008 -- If Sen. Barack Obama has already locked down the nomination, why are the Democratic voters of West Virginia jiggling the keys?

Your spinmeisters' challenges on a seemingly anticlimactic day that could nonetheless mean something to this race:

- Camp Clinton wants us to think that a blowout in West Virginia matters, even if it won't do a thing to touch the delegate math.

- Obamaland wants us not to care that the probable Democratic nominee is about to get blown out in a swing state, since it won't do a thing to touch the delegate math.

- Team McCain just wants us to care about the math of the Democratic race to keep this race alive for as long as possible (and not pay so much attention to would-be spoilers).

Whether or not Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton can make the Mountain State shift the political plates -- and whether or not it matters at all at this point -- one candidate will have a stronger argument for her case to superdelegates with a big win, and the other will have a weaker argument for his case with a big loss.

If West Virginia comes in as expected -- as even Obama, oddly conceding defeat a day early, says he expects -- Clinton, D-N.Y., will have an excuse to stick around for a while, if that's what she's looking for.

"She and her chief political counselor, her husband, see the two coming primaries [in West Virginia and Kentucky] as crucial to strengthening her standing and, if it comes to it, to allowing her to leave the race on a high note," Patrick Healy writes in The New York Times. "Accumulating victories this late in the primary season -- as Mr. Obama looks so strong -- might also bolster a bid for the vice presidency, should she decide to seek it."

"Her campaign hopes a dramatic win will re-focus public attention on the Democratic contest, even though Obama and much of the national media seem intent on moving on to the general election," James Oliphant writes in the Chicago Tribune.

Barring a shocker, party insiders will learn again that Obama, D-Ill., has a very real problem with working-class Democrats, just in the off-chance that superdelegates are still paying attention to such things.

"Obama needs to be able to convince voters like these that he cares about them, shares their values, and will change their lives," ABC's Jake Tapper writes. "If these Democrats vote for Clinton, the presumptive loser, overwhelmingly -- as is predicted -- that indicates a real problem for Obama."

"As the Illinois senator shifts his focus to the general election, he must prove he can win over the state's working-class white voters," Amy Chozick writes in The Wall Street Journal.

Twenty-eight delegates are at stake in West Virginia. Polls opened at 6:30 am ET and close at 7:30 pm -- with early turnout "steady, not particularly heavy," per the Secretary of State's office. The forecast is overcast and foggy through much of the state, but no severe weather is expected.

The Democratic rank-and-file doesn't seem to mind the fun: "Pushing back against political punditry, more than six in 10 Democrats say there's no rush for Hillary Clinton to leave the presidential race -- even as Barack Obama consolidates his support for the nomination and scores solidly in general-election tests," ABC Polling Director Gary Langer writes.

Obama has a 12-point edge over Clinton nationally -- and just as important for the argument to the super-D's, he leads McCain 51-44 in a hypothetical head-to-head, compared to Clinton's 49-46 lead. (Obama, for the first time, is viewed as the "stronger leader.")

The party likes to dream: "Clinton continues as the preferred choice as Obama's running mate, with 39 percent of Democrats saying they'd like him to pick her if he's the nominee. That peaks at 59 percent of African-Americans, 47 percent of Clinton supporters and 42 percent of women (vs. 34 percent of men)," Langer writes.

In the new USA Today/Gallup Poll, 55 percent of Democrats say the race should go on, but the portion favoring a quick end is growing, up 12 points in a week to 35 percent.

As to whether it matters . . . Obama picked up four more supers on Monday, including a Clinton switcher. Your tally since last Tuesday: Obama is plus-24, Clinton is even. Obama's delegate edge is up to 181, per ABC's delegate scorecard -- and he's 151 away from clinching the nomination.

This makes it worse: Jack B. Johnson, one of Clinton's PLEDGED delegates from Maryland, is vowing to support Obama at the convention (and we thought it was Camp Clinton that was interested in poaching). "I cannot in good conscience go to the convention and not support Barack," Johnson, the Prince George's County executive (who's switched allegiances once before), tells The Washington Post's Rosalind S. Helderman.

A fresh super-D on Tuesday: Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., is endorsing Obama, per his campaign (putting Obama up 18 in the super category, just four days after passing Clinton for the first time, by ABC's count).

Obama spent barely four hours in West Virginia Monday -- and ready or not, he's in (almost) full general-election mode now. (Though McClatchy's Margaret Talev notices that he found a flag pin to affix to his lapel during his one and only campaign event in the state, and this time, it was billiards instead of bowling.)

Obama skips ahead to Missouri Tuesday afternoon, and has announced stops in Michigan and Florida (hard to miss that symbolism) in the coming weeks, even as the final primaries take place elsewhere, per ABC's Sunlen Miller.

"Looking past what is expected to be an easy win for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the West Virginia primary, Obama (Ill.) will embrace a two-track strategy that assumes she will continue to campaign aggressively in the remaining five primaries but allows him to increasingly shift his focus to the presumptive GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)," The Washington Post's Peter Slevin and Anne Kornblut write.

"His campaign is eager to begin engaging McCain more directly, hoping to etch his profile with the broader electorate before the Republican candidate does it for him."

Clinton is seeking to run up the score, as she tries to catch Obama in the popular vote -- and find a way to revive a race that's been declared dead. "This is going to be a crucial turning point in this election and I want you to know that if you stand up for me tomorrow then I will stand up for you," she said Monday in West Virginia, ABC's Eloise Harper reports.