NBC projected an Obama win in Virginia almost as soon as the polls closed. We’ll see what the numbers reveal, but that suggests Sen. Clinton was on the receiving end of a good old fashioned ass-kicking in that state. Maryland and D.C. still have their polls open. The talk seemed to be that Sen. Clinton would have a shot at Virginia. Even more surprising, however, is the fact that the Virginia race between Huckabee and McCain is still too close to call. This is supposed to be a coronation for McCain.

The analysts on MSNBC thought Obama was basically sucking the wind out of McCain’s sails. Virginia is an open primary. Obama has a good deal of appeal to independents. So, independents who might otherwise go vote for McCain figure McCain has it wrapped up and go ahead and vote for Obama in a race that’s more interesting.

Update Obama has swept Clinton in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. And, it looks like McCain will sweep Huckabee in those states as well.

I was watching some of the analysts. There was some hand wringing about how bad things were going to get for Obama once the mean old Republicans started after him. For some reason, I was reminded of a scene in the Watchmen comic book series. Rorschach, a vigilante super hero who thrives on violence toward criminals, finds himself locked in jail with a lot of the criminals he put away. The criminals are eager to do him harm and come after him. He does something particularly nasty to one of them and says, “You don’t understand. I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me.”

These folks are riffing off of the Obama “Yes We Can” YouTube video (of which, my wife and sister-in-law are big fans) and doing a similar McCain video.

Kos provided a state list from the Democratic primaries and the margins of victory:

The latest count of states won by popular vote, plus the margin of victory:

Clinton (10)

Arkansas +43
Oklahoma +24
New York +17
Massachusetts +15
Tennessee +13
California +10
New Jersey +10
Arizona +9
Nevada +6
New Hampshire +3

Obama (19)

Idaho +62
Alaska +50
Kansas +48
Washington +37
Georgia +36
Nebraska +36
Colorado +35
Minnesota +35
Illinois+32
South Carolina +32
North Dakota +24
Louisiana +21
Maine +18
Utah +18
Alabama +14
Delaware +10
Iowa +9
Connecticut +4
Missouri +1

And now, some presumably meaningless statistics – Clinton’s mean margin of victory: 15%. Obama’s mean margin of victory: 27.47%; Clinton’s median margin of victory: 11.5%; Obama’s median margin of victory: 32%.

On Saturday night, it looked like Huckabee might win all three Republican contests against presumed Republican nominee, John McCain. But something fishy happened in Washington State. With 87% of the vote in, McCain was up by less than 2% of the vote. Then the counting stopped, and the Washington state GOP declared McCain the winner. No real explanation has been proffered for the oddity. My suspicion is that the state GOP either on its own or with some persuasion from elsewhere decided it would be really, really embarrassing for the presumed nominee to have to deal with Sunday headlines screaming that he got shut out.

On Saturday, the Democrats had caucuses in Nebraska, Washington, and the Virgin Islands and a primary in Louisiana. Barack Obama won them all handily – crushing 2/3s margins in Nebraska and Washington, 90% of the vote in the Virgin Islands, and a slightly more competitive 53 – 39% win in Louisiana. Because of her ties to the party establishment, Clinton is still basically tied in terms of total delegates; but in terms of elected delegates, Obama is opening up a lead. These were relatively small states, and Clinton is expected to do much better in big states such as Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the near future, but any way you cut it, it’s a bad night when your best state is a 15 point loss.

Meanwhile, in the Republican primary, John McCain was supposed to be rallying the party around him as his nomination is all but assured. Despite being the presumptive nominee, he lost huge to Huckabee in Kansas, lost in Louisiana, and barely squeaked out a win in Washington State. Huckabee is seen to be out of range in terms of delegates. Not to be morbid, but if I were him, I’d be at least cognizant of the fact that John McCain is 71 years old. Furthermore, it’s clear that the Republicans aren’t at all comfortable with McCain as their nominee. As a minister, Huckabee presumably a believer in miracles. If I were him, I’d stick around until I was mathematically eliminated or until I got a really, really good deal from McCain. I don’t think they’d make a very complimentary President/Vice President combination. I think their negatives would have a higher synergistic effect than their positives. The right-wingers won’t be eager to go out to vote for McCain with or without Huckabee and the moderates will tend to be scared away by Huckabee.

I suspect this dynamic would be even more pronounced if McCain was facing Obama than if he was facing Clinton. I think Obama would be a bit more successful in sucking moderates away from McCain and the wingnuts wouldn’t get quite as lathered up about Obama as they would about Clinton. I tend to think either Clinton or Obama will beat McCain in the general election but that Obama might have longer coat tails in the down ballot races.

Mike Huckabee absolutely crushed John McCain in the Kansas primary today.

Huckabee had 60 percent to McCain’s 24 percent in the first clear matchup between the two since Mitt Romney dropped out of the race on Thursday. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 11 percent.

I know Kansas is a wingnut hotspot, what with its anti-evolution school curriculum and all that, but this can’t mean good things for John McCain. Even as the party’s presumptive nominee, he lost by a huge margin in a midwestern state. I’m not altogether certain the party is going to rally around him before the general election.

Meanwhile, there is a primary for both parties in Louisiana today, Washington state has caucuses, and Democrats in Nebraska are having a Democratic caucus today.

Ouch, this one’s gonna leave a mark on St. John the Nominee:

Sure this is unfair and snarky, but I’m GenX so I’ll indulge myself.

The “superdelegates” are those delegates to the Democratic National Party that are not selected through the primary or caucus process. They get their position by being elected party members or members of the party establishment. Near as I can figure, the Indiana based superdelegates are as follows:

Sen. Evan Bayh (IN)
DNC Joe Andrew (IN) – Former DNC national chairman
DNC Dan Parker – Indiana state Democratic Party chair
DNC Phoebe Crane – DNC member out of Whitestown, IN
DNC Bob Pastrick – DNC member and (I believe) former East Chicago mayor
(These folks have already apparently endorsed Hillary Clinton)

Rep. Peter Visclosky (IN-01)
Rep. Joe Donnelly (IN-02)
Rep. Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09)
Cordelia Lewis Burks – Indiana state Democratic Party vice-chair
Connie Thurman – DNC member out of Marion County
(These folks have apparently not endorsed anyone yet.)

The “committed” superdelegates are not under a formal obligation to stick with their commitments, though obviously it would probably be at least awkward to back out on whatever deal they made with the candidate to whom they pledged support. In recent history, these superdelegates have just been a formality – their votes haven’t made any more difference than Indiana’s Presidential primary has made. At the time the Clinton endorsements came out, there probably wasn’t any reason to think that this year would be much different. But, now things are shaping up to be interesting. I’d hope even the committed delegates would consider keeping their minds open in the event Indiana should go big for a fellow midwesterner as opposed to the Senator from New York. (Even if we do share a time zone with the former and not the latter. — You probably didn’t think I could work time into this.)

Update In the comments, Wilson points out that Andre Carson would be a superdelegate if he wins the IN-07 special election. From what I know, that’s correct, but the DNC rules seem like they can be pretty byzantine with respect to delegates, so there could well be some sort of an exception out there. Also, recently in the news — not with respect to Indiana, Joe Lieberman was stripped of his superdelegate status under the Zell Miller rule. Crazy Zell was a southern Democratic senator who not only endorsed the Republican candidate, but went so far as to give a vitriolic anti-Kerry speech at the Republican convention in 2004. Obviously you wouldn’t want such a Democratic official making big decisions at the Democratic convention.