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Tom Tomorrow predicts the future.

February, 2009: Facing investigations into dozens of scandals, former president George W. Bush turns state’s evidence. He enters the federal witness protection program and is assigned a new identity as manager of a big-box home improvement store…

… and with Dubya’s executive experience, it’s all downhill from there.

(In an older cartoon, Mr. Tomorrow looks at the real cost of the War in Iraq. It’s not very funny.)

Via Eschaton, here, in pictures, is one view of the Bush Legacy.

It should be noted that Bush is still in office. I’m sure there’s lots more legacy to come.

Josh Marshall says Obama doesn’t really have a problem with “hard-working people” — you know, white people. But he does have a problem in Appalachia:

There’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama’s problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama’s problem isn’t with white working class voters or rural voters. It’s Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he’s getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.

If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.

In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he’s doing tonight in West Virginia.

Josh includes maps of Appalachia and of areas where Hillary Clinton has done especially well, and the fit is pretty impressive.

Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the lynchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.

This is history. But it shapes the region.

The region is overwhelmingly populated by the same demographic groups who have been Clinton’s strongest supporters, and Josh writes “it’s really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region.”

That may be true, but Appalachia would be a mighty big swath of voters to write off in November. How do we win them over?

Bad news for Republicans Tuesday night from away down south in Mississippi’s first Congressional district:

Democrats scored a remarkable upset victory on Tuesday in a special Congressional election in this conservative Southern district, sending a clear signal of national problems ahead for Republicans in the fall.

The Democrat, Travis Childers, a local courthouse official, pulled together a coalition of blacks, who turned out heavily, and old-line “yellow dog” Democrats, to beat his Republican opponent, Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the vote was 54 percent for Mr. Childers to 46 percent for Mr. Davis.

The seat had been in Republican hands since 1995, and the district, largely rural and stretching across the northern top of Mississippi, had been considered one of the safest in the country for President Bush’s party, as he won here with 62 percent of the vote in 2004.

Having lost a similar Congressional race this month in Louisiana, Republicans had worked desperately to win this contest, sending Vice President Dick Cheney to campaign for Mr. Davis, along with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas; President Bush and Senator John McCain recorded telephone messages that were sent to voters throughout the district.

Josh Marshall offers some perspective:

[T]he Republicans have lost three straight Republican districts to the Democrats in by-elections this year. Hastert’s district in Illinois, Louisiana 6th, and now Mississippi 1st. Each successively more Republican than the last. In Mississippi 1st, President Bush got 62% of the vote there in 2004.

Symbolic Number Update: On the symbolic level, this pulls the House GOP caucus down to 199 — below 200.

And here’s how the Republicans will spin it: the Democrats’ hopes for big gains in November are fading fast! That’s one more seat they can’t hope to gain in November!