More on Mollohan

Sorry about the lack of posts today. Computer problems plus a deadline on the Alan Mollohan race in WVa have kept us busy.

Speaking of Mollohan, here's Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight:

Regardless of its national implications, this is a costly loss for Democrats. Although Mollohan voted against the Democrats on cap-and-trade -- a yea vote is nearly untenable in Coal Country -- and was a member of the Stupak Bloc, he voted with the Democrats on essentially all other key issues and rated as the 8th-most valuable Democrat overall, considering the conservativeness of his district. Oliverio, by contrast, seems opposed to the Democrats on nearly every issue, and has even hedged on whether or not he'd support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. He is basically riding on the coattails of the Democratic brand, which is still powerful in West Virginia even though the state has long been conservative on social issues and is increasingly becoming so on economic ones. National Democrats have virtually no reason to support him in the general election, which should probably be regarded as a toss-up in the absence of polling.