Before I begin, I have in mind some commentary on yesterday’s article.  Earlier today and against my better judgement I watched a few minutes of CNN’s political coverage.  I was treated (if that’s the word) to CNN contributor and Democratic superdelegate Donna Brazile attempting to rebut the notion that superdelegates have too much power over the Democratic nomination.  From my perspective, she did a miserably poor job — rather than present any evidence that superdelegates wouldn’t abuse their power, she just asserted that popular votes for the Democratic nomination do count (despite appearances to the contrary).  You’ll pardon my skepticism.

On, then, to other things.

Obama beat Clinton in Virginia (64% to 35%), Maryland (61% to 35%), and DC (75% to 24%) — according to RealClearPolitics, at least.  McCain beat Huckabee in Virginia (50% to 41%), Maryland (55% to 30%), and DC (68% to 17%).

Virginia’s an interesting case.  First off, according to Ben Smith, Obama got more votes than all the Republican candidates combined.  (This led Justin Gardner to introduce me to the term “Obamacan”, apparently a portmanteau of “Obama” and “Republican”.)  Could Virginia go Democratic if Obama gets the nomination?  Virginia’s electoral college votes have been won by the Republicans as long as I’ve been alive; Obama may have a chance to change that.

Second, despite Obama’s appeal to Virginia’s independents, McCain gathered in enough of them to beat Huckabee, despite the latter scoring evangelical voters at a rate of three to one.  This lends some credibility to my notion from yesterday that independents who support Obama would flock to McCain if Clinton wins the nomination on superdelegates.  Heck, even if she doesn’t, her base in the nomination fight has always been “traditional” Democrats; McCain has a much better chance against her than he does against Obama (who has a habit of stealing his independent support — though New Hampshire makes a strong counterexample).

Once more, interesting times ahead.