Well, the West Virginia voters are heading to the polls today.  One has to wonder if there will be record numbers of voters in the Appalachian Mountain state.  Whether there is a record turn out or not, it is presumed and assumed that Clinton will have the greatest margin of victory she has enjoyed in this primary season.  But, will it be her last hurrah?  Probably not.

It could, however, give Clinton’s sputtering campaign one last chance to alter – or at least mute – the prevailing narrative that Obama’s nomination is inevitable.

And, perhaps more importantly, a massive margin of victory could bolster Clinton’s central argument to the superdelegates who will ultimately decide the nomination. Her campaign contends that Obama has serious problems with the blue collar and elderly whites who dominate West Virginia’s voter rolls – and who Team Clinton asserts will be key in a number of states if Democrats are to defeat presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

I can hardly wait for Katie Couric to break into whatever is the regularly scheduled program this evening at poll closing time and say something like… “with 0% of the precints reporting, CBS declares Senator Hillary Clinton the winner of the West Virginia primary.”

According to Politico, we should look for five things coming out of the primary.  (Thank goodness, they could find something!)

1.) How goes Mason County? In 1988 and 2000 – the last elections with no incumbent president on the ballot – the county of less than 30,000 residents on the Ohio border was within 5 percentage points of the actual statewide primary results.

2.) The Edwards protest vote. John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who ended his Democratic presidential campaign in January, remains on the ballot in West Virginia. And he polled at 4 percent in the Suffolk poll, primarily from men and independents.

3) Turnout in the southern coal fields, the northern panhandle and the Ohio River counties. These areas, home to some of the most unionized, blue collar, and economically distressed populations in the state, are Clinton country.

4.) Television coverage. The Clinton campaign blames the Obama-as-inevitable storyline partly on the saturation television coverage of last week’s huge Obama victory in North Carolina and unexpectedly narrow Clinton win in Indiana. Much of the analysis framed the night as a determinative moment in the campaign. Campaign aides were particularly peeved at Tim Russert’s declaration on MSNBC that “we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it” – even before the network called Indiana for Clinton.

5.) Fundraising bounce: Clinton’s campaign has been outspent in nearly every state by Obama’s fundraising juggernaut and the Clinton campaign acknowledged over the weekend it is $20 million in debt.

Well, that sets us up for an exciting evening, doesn’t it? 

Whatever happens this evening, whether Clinton wins the race by 20% or 30% or more, West Virginia is a small state that can’t significantly damage the Obama totals in delegates, Super Delegates, and popular vote.  It can possibly give Clinton some air time… what the media now calls “face time.”  And, that could be a good thing if Senator Clinton has learned anything about being a gracious healer.

It seems to me that it is at this point in the season that we can make our best judgments of a candidate’s character.  Whether there is hope for the Clinton campaign or whether she is floating on a cloud in a pipe dream, it is time for her to show that she can be a gracious competitor and a party uniter.  The same can be said for Obama. 

We are a few weeks away from the end of the primary season, and it is time for both candidates to put away the swords and to begin to show some of that “unity” both have talked about.  They can still compete fiercely down to the wire… and they probably will… but, let’s hope they can show us more civility than we have seen in the past month and a half.

And… oh, by the way…. Hillary wins West Virginia.  (You read it here!)