Blog Buzz: Mississippi, West Virginia, and Where Do We Go From Here

Our daily look at stories and topics lighting up the Internets today:

The GOP swing and Miss.

After the stunning (and not close) GOP loss of Mississippi's 1st district, conservatives worry that Republican leaders still haven't learned the lessons of 2006. 2006? Using a Battlestar Galactica-ism, NRO's Mark Krikorian tosses 1974 into the mix. In any case, RedState says it's time for House Republicans to sweep clean their campaign operation. Politico's Jonathan Martin says that this is another sign that the "Obama card"—tying a down-ballot Dem to Obama in places where he's unpopular—doesn't work. TNR's Noam Scheiber goes a step further, wondering if the GOP attempt to bring Obama into play flat backfired. And at Daily Kos, the titular blogger has a laugh at the expense of people who mocked DNC Chairman Howard Dean for playing in states like Mississippi.

Country road, get me out of here

Coming off Obama's trouncing in West Virginia, TPM's Josh Marshall is one of several bloggers today to display a map plotting where Clinton has scored her biggest (65 percent or more) victories, noting that it lines up almost perfectly with Appalachia—Obama's problem isn't race or class, they argue, but rather regional demographics and history. To the contrary, Buzz colleague Bonnie Erbe writes here at U.S. News, race is precisely what the problem is, like it or not. One way or another, NRO's Jim Geraghty writes, Obama is likely in for more of the same in neighboring Kentucky next week.

Kentuck-egon and beyond

The Fix's Chris Cillizza gives some free advice to the Obama campaign on where to go from here (the list includes both the Middle East and the Rust Belt). Fix also tallies the winners and losers from Tuesday's elections. Looking farther ahead, the Weekly Standard's Richelieu says betting on HRC in PR is a bad idea.

—Robert Schlesinger