First off, Lame Duck Gov. One-Term Blunt is maaaad at claims made by Prof. Rick Warren that the “racist vote” cost Obama the state of Missouri.

In a statement today, Blunt called Warren’s claim “abhorrent” and one that should be “condemned by officials in both political parties.”

Blunt, who is leaving office in January, also described the statements as “detestable” and “absolutely incorrect.

a) A brief Google News search found no condemnations of this claim by Missouri Republican party chairman Doug Russell

b) If claiming racism here is detestable and abhorrent, i’m sure the Governor has a fitting word to describe when racists do racist things.

c) The election will likely come within 5000 votes. It’s far too early to make conclusions (and I have tried my best not to do that). But it seems like someone hit a nerve with Blunt.

Our Governor sure did morph into the dude who writes angry rants to the editor quickly, didn’t he? I guess he has a post-Gubernatorial career lined up.

But on to the maps!

As we can see here, some parts of Missouri which Obama ran behind Kerry were also parts of the state where McCain ran behind Bush. But by and large, the McCain/Bush map is a companion to the Obama/Kerry map. Although we can see a nice dark blue loss of Republican votes in West-Central Missouri.

But what about Ralph Nader?

Nader won .61% statewide, mainly because his worst counties in the state were the biggest counties. He won .52% in the 15 biggest counties, and .81% in the rest of the state.

For example

Boone County: 3.18% for Nader in 2000, 0.57% for Nader in 2008 (from 1st in 2000 to 102nd in 2008).

Worth County: 1.3% for Nader in 2000, 1.96% for Nader in 2008. (A leap from 15 to 23 votes! Enough to make Worth the best county for Nader, after being 61st best in 2000)

In conclusion, Nader won the protest vote from random parts of the state that weren’t his “strongholds” in 2000.