Does McAuliffe’s loss cap the end of the Clinton machine?

There are lots of reasons why Terry McAuliffe, national campaign director for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign last year, lost his own debut in electoral politics in Tuesday’s race for governor of Virginia.

First, there was the carpetbagger issue. Though he has lived in tony McLean, Va., with wife Dorothy and their children for 17 years, the fast-talking McAuliffe was raised in Syracuse, N.Y., and comports himself with the manic energy -- and speed-talking -- of a New Yorker.

Second, there was the fact that the victor, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, crushed his two Democratic opponents on Tuesday, winning the right to face Republican Robert McDonnell in the fall.

Deeds, a down-stater with ties to rural Virginia and a talented team, won nearly 50% in the three-man race, beating the better-financed McAuliffe and rival Brian Moran in every region of the state. And he bested them not only at the outside glad-handing game but at McAuliffe’s alleged strong card: the inside political game.

When Deeds, the only Democrat in the race not from the vote-rich, left-leaning northern Virginia suburbs of D.C., won the endorsement of the Washington Post on May 22, it must have been a huge wake-up call to the McAuliffe team.

There was even speculation that McAuliffe, as he did in directing Clinton’s campaign last year, waited too late to attack -- in this case, on Deeds’ record as a gun rights supporter.

Late in the campaign, relatives and survivors from Virginia Tech -- scene of that horrific mass shooting in 2007 that killed 32 -- issued a statement condemning Deeds’ stance. The question to the McAuliffe folks, who helped disseminate the statement: Why wait till election day?

But to many, some with more glee than others, the McAuliffe loss is the last nail in the coffin to the Clinton machine that once catapulted a little-known governor from Arkansas and his Ivy League-educated, ambitious wife into the White House.

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Hang on to that joke for 3 days

Funny lines are not unusual in Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue, even in his new gig as new host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” Last week was no exception.

“Speaking of President Obama,” O’Brien said, according to his Tuesday script, “earlier today, President Obama spoke at a town-hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis. Half of the Wisconsin crowd had never seen an African American, and the other half had never seen a skinny person.”

Unfortunately, reports of Obama’s Green Bay town-hall meeting, like Mark Twain’s death, were premature.

The town hall didn’t happen until Thursday.

Minutes before the show’s airtime on the East Coast on Tuesday, the show’s Los Angeles writers were scrambling to determine what, if anything, to do. Clipping out the error was one possibility. As it turned out, there was no snipping. They ran the joke as was.

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andrew.malcolm@latimes.com

Neuman writes for The Times.

Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics ( www.latimes.com/ticket “> www.latimes.com/ticket ), is a blend of commentary, analysis and news. These are selections from the last week.