Mi-ssi-ssi-ppi

Last night the 20th state to join the Union and the second state to join the Confederacy, a state that held436,631 men women and children in bondage in 1860, a state famous for its river, fried chicken, corn bread, breath taking views, mockingbirds, magnolias, honey bees, Grand Opera House, crawfish, folk dance, and large mouth bass, the home of John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Oprah, Morgan Freeman, Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Kermit T. Frog, William Faulkner, B.B. King, James Earl Jones, Elvis Presley, Tennessee Williams and Parker Posey, a state still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the one, the only, the Great State of Mississippi, held a presidential primary.

The result? With 99% of precincts reporting, askhodder.com is comfortable calling the state for Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has taken 61% to Senator Clinton's 37%, 19 delegates to 14. Here is a county by county break down with my apologies for the coloring, I had to make the map myself, counties carried by Obama are in blue, Clinton in brown.

By its self, this is likely not that interesting, but let's look at the same map, except we'll color the counties that President Bush won by at least 70% in yellow. If you noticed, the Clinton Campaign won all of them. Now let's take the same map and color the counties that the Kerry Campaign won in green. If you noticed, Mrs. Clinton only took one county carried by Mr. Kerry. See all three of these maps on the same page

What does this tell us? I talked this morning with a couple different Clinton Campaign staffers who argue that it shows she can win over conservative Democrats, and that Republicans are showing up for Mrs. Clinton. I think they are right about the second part, but not for the same reasons they do.

There are a dozen different polls out there that preview head-to-head match ups, in every Obama v McCain, Obama wins by double digits, and in every Clinton v McCain, it's very close, a statistical tie. I've said it before, national polls tell very little about how a presidential election will turn out, I'm not going to argue the merits of those polls, but rather the perception they give people who read them, the wikiality is that if Mr. Obama is the nominee, game over, if Mrs. Clinton is the nominee, game on (this is generally more true among Republicans, Democrats who support Mrs. Clinton think that she can pull it off and ignore those polls).

It's my contention that last night Republicans in Mississippi voted for Senator Clinton to try and give Senator McCain an easier opponent come November. Possibly even taking the advice of Rush Limbaugh and trying to "bloody up Obama ", of the mindset that the longer the primary goes on the better it is for the Republicans.

I don't think it's going to work though. I think that Mr. Obama has a lock on the nomination at this point, and really the longer the primary season goes on the better it is for the Democrats, it keeps them in the news. But also I think Mrs. Clinton's initial strength is part of what has pushed Mr. Obama to be the powerhouse candidate that he has become, the longer she stays in the better for him. With no opponent the McCain campaign has been relegated irrelevant until the Democrats have a nominee, which might just make Mr. McCain irrelevant until August, while people stay excited about the Democrats.

For more on how the race is shaping up, check out my next post on post Mississippi math.