"Just a week ago, before the off-year elections, Democratic strategists were feeling bullish about their prospects in the South. In Louisiana, a Democrat had surpassed the state’s senior senator on October 24 in the first round of voting for the next governor. In Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, opinion polls showed Jack Conway, the state’s Democratic attorney general, holding a small but consistent lead over tea-party Republican Matt Bevin. Democrats had high hopes they could take advantage on November 3 of the divisions Bevin has caused among Republicans.But that wasn’t how things played out.Had the Democrats won in Kentucky and prevailed in Louisiana, my guess is we’d be hearing a lot of talk about a Democratic comeback, but it would merely have meant that Democrats in the South had returned to pre-Obama levels of toxicity. As it happens, it looks like Obama remains toxic in Kentucky and possibly—we’ll find out—in Louisiana, too. If Vitter wins, as a scandal-plagued Republican, we can declare Louisiana’s Democratic Party dead and gone. Suffice it to say, Democrats have a very long road back in the South, and it’s unclear when—or whether—they will take the first step."Charlie Cook