What’s the matter with Kentucky?

Barack Obama is already explaining his anticipated loss to Hillary Clinton in the Kentucky primary this coming Tuesday. In part, Obama blames FOX News. In part, Obama invokes improbable geography:

Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in states such as Kentucky — where he trails Sen. Hillary Clinton by 27 points, according to a poll published earlier this week — and West Virginia, where voters chose Clinton over Obama by 40 points on Tuesday.

“What it says is that I’m not very well known in that part of the country,” Obama said. “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.”

Obama does not note that Illinois and Kentucky are close enough to each other that they share a border. The Illinois-Kentucky border was the subject of the 1991 Supreme Court case Illinois v. Kentucky. Arkansas is not far from Kentucky, but it is separated from Kentucky by Tennessee and Missouri.

Via Illinois reader George Stege.

JOHN adds: Maybe Obama thinks states 51 through 57 are located somewhere between Illinois and Kentucky. All I can say is, it’s a good thing for Obama he isn’t a Republican.

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