Victory for Webb, Fawcett goes down fighting

Barring something very odd happening in the recount Democrat challenger Jim Webb has taken Virginia by a small margin.

I soent the early hours of this morning in the company of Ken the Militant Moderate and various assorted Oxford students round at Richard Huzzey's gaff.

As well as watching the utterly bizarre Jim Pinkerton (who, I assume, is what Democratc bloggers mean when they call someone a 'wingnut') on Sky we were glued to the Virginia State elections site which added up the votes as the precincts reported. It was nailbit9ing stuff with Webb trailing by anywhere beteen 38 and 20,000 votes as the morning progressed.

I left Oxford at 4.30 ish and listened to the much more sensible Radio 4 coverage on my way home and arrived to put CNN on who were then showing a small Webb lead.

Having had a few hours kip I found Webb's victory speech which is very good and also a good demonstration of some of the differences between us and them. [It doesn't work in Firefox for me but does in Explorer]. Claiming victory at the earliest opportunity is always sensible in these situations as it immediately makes your opponent look like a sore loser if there is a rerun.


Sadly my namesake, and by far and away the better candidate, didn't make it in CO-05. although he did record a very respectable 13% swing from 2004.