I'm a little ashamed of my home state. The southwest has gone unhinged on Christian conservative, the southeast is not much better. Oh, well, they can always say they elected a dead Democrat (Carnahan, RIP) over Ashcroft.

Missouri has been trending Republican for awhile. Nate Silver argued that the state was not a bellwether anymore because its population was about 5 points more conservative than the American populace as a whole. Things change, and it's probably demographics at work. As Virginia and North Carolina have become more liberal, Missouri has become more conservative. Tennessee has become more conservative too. Optimistic Republicans can take heart in part of this news. If they can hold the deep South, including Louisiana( which voted for Clinton) and take a firm hold on vaguely southern states like Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and West Virginia, they have some foundation for launching a comeback in the Midwest and Mountain West. They're sailing against the wind, though, and the fact  that MO was so close is not a good  sign. It might be that the message that holds the South is the one that alienates other areas. They need a multi-pronged effort to get ahead, and boneheads like Palin and Huckabee won't get them to where to the promised land.

I *wanted* Obama to lose Missouri just so that every pundit in the land would stop attaching mystical significance to it in presidential races.  Perhaps it will also result in less frequent use of the word "bellweather."