The mailbag this morning includes many voices telling me I’m underestimating the GOP’s loss in Mississippi’s first House District (although I’m wondering how “maybe catastrophic is the appropriate term” is soft-pedaling the news; and I note the Democrat was a pro-life, pro-gun social conservative) and that Obama’s in fine shape, and how irrelevant West Virginia is.
They seem to be echoing the thinking on I found on liberal blogs last night.
John Aravosis, who I think highly of, on AmericaBlog:
“Five months ago we all felt that we had 3 great candidates. Now, far too many of us loathe Hillary Clinton, and she has done her racist best to ensure that her supporters can’t stand Barack Obama either…
I actually can’t stand her or her husband any more. I defended her. I defended her husband. And now I’m actually wondering if the Republicans weren’t right about them. That’s how bad she has damaged her reputation. People who actually liked you, who actually helped you, who actually defended you, LOATHE you now. Call me a Clinton-hater all you like, but people like me were the ones who had your back. And we never will again.”
John adds, regarding Terry McAuliffe, “I’d vote for Hamas if it would get him off my TV.”
The Carpetbagger Report: “John Edwards — who dropped out of the race in January — got 7% of the vote. That’s quite a few West Virginians who seemed to be saying, “We don’t like the black guy or the woman from New York.” The first comment in response: “If stupid, white, rednecks are who we want to elect our next President then I guess Clinton has it sewn up but haven’t we had one of those running the country for the past 7 years?”
Still – Hillary shaves Obama’s popular vote total by 148,000 votes; can reiterate that he lost every county and topped 40 percent in only three counties out of 55. Her best counties were the ones that border Kentucky, suggesting that while he will probably win Oregon easily, she may be on course for a similar blowout in the neighboring state next week.
Obama’s fans are insisting that he can win the presidency without Appalachia – not merely West Virginia and Kentucky, but most of Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, the western part of Virginia, and half of Tennessee. They’re left insisting that there’s something unique about the white, working class voters in this region, an antipathy to Obama that is not shared by white, working class voters in Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, the upper Midwest and Mountain West.