[Miss Marple]

A close look at Missouri voting results will show you that he actually did cost us that race. That's all I am going to say right now.

[Phsstpok]

My understanding is that the main shift in voting patterns this year in Missouri involved a very small up tick in Democrat votes (less than 1%), a very slightly more significant downturn in votes for Talent (about 2.4%) and a sharp increase in votes for the libertarian candidate, who went from less than 1% last time to nearly 3% this time. And the margin for McCaskill was about 2.5%.

So, the reason Talent lost was unfaithful Republican voters who wanted to "lodge a protest." I understand the sentiment, but I think it was an extremely foolish thing to do. If they'd wanted to send a message and have a real effect they should have defeated Talent in the primary with a more effective Republican candidate. But that requires real work and real involvement in the process.

Now the protest votes are going to have real consequences and, this time, real people are going to die, quite possibly in large numbers. Not a good plan.