If Barack Obama is elected president, he'll owe North Carolina some thanks for giving him a boost at a key moment. You may have noticed how, once the N.C. outcome was clear Tuesday night, the TV buzzards started circling over the Clinton campaign.

Specifically, Obama can start thinking about how to thank Durham County. Statewide, he got 56 percent of the Democratic vote; here, he got 75 percent. Statewide, he won by 222,000 votes; Durham accounted for more than 36,000 of that. The county, with 4.5 percent of the voters in the primary, gave him 16.3 percent of his victory margin. Don't forget us, Senator, OK?

The turnout was amazing -- more than 80,000, unheard of in a primary; the norm for a presidential year is around 30,000.

There's been some low grumbling this week from the cliques that usually determine who gets elected in Durham. Obama, the talk went, attracted a lot of new voters who didn't know much about who was running in other races, and this outpouring of democracy led to the election of some undeserving people.

Stuff a sock in it, I say. Americans have been putting accidental winners into office for centuries -- in city councils, legislatures, governor's offices and, yes, the White House. Some prove to be fools, others surprisingly able; some are destructive, others merely entertaining.

It's the price of democracy, the worst form of government, as Churchill said, "except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."