Hillary Clinton trounced Barack Obama in West Virginia. With 95 percent reporting, she has 67 percent and he has 26 percent. Clinton received approximately 140,000 more votes than Obama. I don’t know why John Edwards was still on the ballot in WV, but he seems to have gotten almost 7 percent of the vote.

In her victory speech, Hillary mentioned Dalton Hatfield, an 11-year-old from Kentucky who sold his bike and video games to donate about $400 to the Clinton campaign. This prompted an Obama supporter to post an idiotic diary at Daily Kos, suggesting that Hillary had “sunk lower” than Richard Nixon did when he delivered his famous “Checkers” speech in 1952.

Clinton supporter Trix had the ultimate comeback:

 Something tells me that… (11+ / 0-)

Recommended by:

   Rimjob, dhonig, wader, desmoinesdem, homogenius, Lying eyes, rcald, Mikesco, Barry in MIA, lineatus, Namtrix

if this were a story about a kid selling his bike to donate the proceeds to Obama, you’d be going on and on about how inspiring Obama is to children.

Hillary Clinton turned me into a newt. I got better.

by Trix on Tue May 13, 2008 at 08:13:56 PM PDT

On the Republican side, John McCain only managed about 76 percent of the vote in WV, with 10 percent going for Mike Huckabee and 5 percent choosing Ron Paul.

I have to agree with isucyclones94, though, who commented in the previous thread that Democrat Travis Childers’ victory in the special election in Mississippi’s first Congressional district is the biggest story of the night.

This is a district with a partisan index of R+10, and the Republicans worked hard to link Childers to Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

Yet Childers won by a margin of 54-46. I totally agree with Jonathan Singer’s take on this outcome:

  1. I don’t want to go so far as to say that this is the end of the Republican Party, because it’s not. But this is as bad news as the GOP could possibly get at this point. They lost a district that leans 6 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in Illinois in March. They lost a district that leans 7 points more Republican than the nation as a whole earlier this month in Louisiana. Now they lost a district that leans 10 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in Mississippi. If they can’t win in Mississippi’s first congressional district, where can they win?

  2. The Republicans tried to make this election about two people: Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And despite running this type of campaign, they lost. While it is true that Childers distanced himself from his party (and implicitly from Obama), the fact is that the Obama/Wright smears simply DID NOT WORK. The Republicans are going to have to get a new game plan, and the establishment media are going to have to get a new meme. Sorry folks.

The head of the National Republican Congressional Committee didn’t even try to spin the loss (click the link for his full statement).

Also, in the Democratic primary for the open U.S. Senate seat from Nebraska, netroots hero Scott Kleeb beat Tony Raimondo by a large margin, 68-25. Kleeb came pretty close to winning Nebraska’s third Congressional district in 2006, despite a very strong Republican tilt in that district. Raimondo is a Republican who switched parties just so he could run for the U.S. Senate. Good for Kleeb.

In a state as red as Nebraska, Republicans are favored to hold this Senate seat, but Kleeb will make them work for it.