Ugh. Well, at least he took Boston:

Hillary Clinton withstood a string of high-profile endorsements for Barack Obama to glide to a surprisingly decisive victory, while Mitt Romney held onto his Republican base to handily beat John McCain yesterday, in the most competitive and meaningful Massachusetts presidential primary in memory.

In one of the largest of voter turnouts in state presidential primaries, Clinton surged to a lead with the earliest returns last night, then never gave it up - in sharp contrast to the public surveys that had shown Obama closing in over the final week. With about 92 percent of the state's precincts reporting, she held a 56 percent to 41 percent lead. Clinton had 47 Massachusetts delegates to Obama's 29, according to preliminary counts.

Obama, who had the support of Governor Deval Patrick and Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, carried Boston by a small margin of under 10,000 votes, as Mayor Thomas M. Menino's political machine kept her close. Obama also did well in liberal, affluent suburbs.

But Clinton ran up comfortable margins in urban areas such as Quincy, Worcester, Fall River, Springfield, New Bedford, and other more conservative towns in the Merrimack Valley and South Shore.

"This is still Clinton country," Menino said in an interview last night. "Our campaign wasn't about speeches; it was about work. All we had was people making the phone calls, knocking on doors. We weren't involved in superstar campaigns; we were involved in workers campaigns."

I've been talking about the election with a number of my friends (I prefer thinking buddies to drinking buddies), and so far the overwhelming opinion is Obama FTW. I tend to agree, as do Michael Chabon and Lawrence Lessig, but at this point I honestly feel like I'd vote for the Democrats no matter who they ran this time around simply because I feel the Republican party needs to be sent a message – and I'm a registered Republican. I've never voted Republican, mind you, because so far I haven't seen the Republicans float a single candidate that actually represents what it means to be a Republican. I'll be voting Democrat both because the Democrats seem to be closer to what my opinion of good government happens to be, and because I honestly feel that the Republicans need to be punished for the last eight years of wanton profiteering and mismanagement. For me, the next election should be transformative, but I'd settle for punitive.

Asshats.