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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Arkansas-Kentucky Democratic Primaries: The Anti-Obama Registered Democratic Voters

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee in 2012, up for reelection and has been uncontested for the nomination itself. That does not mean that others have not placed themselves on the Democratic primary ballots in some states, just that Obama has the delegates needed so that he is not challenged for the nomination.

Knowing this, registered Democrats in Arkansas and Kentucky, still made their anti-Obama sentiment clear in a very public manner by going to voting booths and voting for another candidate, or when no candidate was listed, voting for "uncommitted."

In Arkansas, John Wolfe was on the ballot with Obama and received over 40 percent of the registered Democratic vote. In Kentucky, no candidate was listed against Obama so registered Democrats voted for "uncommitted."

Previously, in West Virginia,  a convicted felon serving 17 years in a penitentiary, by the name of Keith Judd, captured 41 percent of the Democratic primary vote.

On the Republican side, Gingrich and Santorum, who have both suspended their presidential campaigns and Paul who has stopped actively campaigning but has not suspended the campaign, were all still on the ballots.

ABC News does the comparison:

In Kentucky, Romney, who is expected to clinch the nomination after the Texas primary on May 29, received a higher percentage of the vote in the Republican presidential primary than Obama received in the Democratic presidential primary. With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 67 percent of the vote, while Obama had 58 percent — compared to “uncommitted,” which received 42 percent, according to The Associated Press.

[....]

In Arkansas, Obama has 61 percent of the vote with roughly 96 percent of precincts reporting. His Democratic challenger, John Wolfe, a lawyer from Tennessee, has 39 percent. Romney, comparatively, has received 68 percent of the vote, the AP reported.

Romney took more of the registered Republican primary voters than Obama was able to take with registered Democratic voters and Romney is still pulling away from a brutal Republican primary fight.

Kentucky Democrats did not think for a second that "uncommitted" was an actual candidate so there is no way to spin this in any direction but as 40-42  percent of registered Democrats making a very clear statement against Obama.

 Of Kentucky’s 120 counties,  in 67 of those counties  “Uncommitted” beat Obama.

Obama is not expected to be competitive in the above mentioned states in the general election anyway, so this is no more than bad optics for Obama. It just doesn't look good, during an election year, when registered Democrats from any state would rather vote for a candidate that doesn't even exist, is barely known or a convicted felon sitting in prison, than for Barack Obama, the candidate their party has chosen.

The headlines this has produced should be added to "Obama's Headline Train Wreck" from yesterday.