Things to which we bid adieu...and hello to

• Adieu: West Virginia's historic reputation for tolerance. Recall that the state got started as a result of West Virginians not wanting to fight for the side of slaveowners with the rest of the Virginians. And they managed to give John Kennedy an (admittedly suspect) win over Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Democratic race. And now they're voting 2/3 against the overwhelming favorite for the nomination and saying stuff like this. I suppose it's not fair to say that West Virginia has really changed--surely, West Virginia still had an aversion to interracial marriage back in 1960. Wait, doesn't that kinda prove my original point?
  
  
• Hello: Travis Childers, Congressman-elect from the First District of Mississippi. He's a Democrat who won in a, shall we say, Republican-leaning district (it's Mississippi, for cryin' out loud!) and generally agreed with his Republican opponent on most issues. So this might not really be notable, except for the fact that one of the issues with which he differed with his opponent was the Iraq War. Childers ran hard against the Iraq War and talked about the need for a swift withdrawal. And he won. In Mississippi. I think that sound you hear now is the collective hearts of the congressional Republican caucus stopping.