LAST MONDAY, twelve days after declaring victory, Alabama’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Don Siegelman conceded the election to Republican Bob Riley. But it almost didn’t turn out that way. If it hadn’t been for one woman, the Republican National Committee’s regional director Kelley McCullough, things might have gone terribly wrong for Riley.

On election night, while McCullough and other campaign workers scrambled to analyze vote totals called in by poll-watchers, she heard someone off-handedly mention that Riley had carried Baldwin County, a heavily Republican area, by a large margin– almost 22,000 votes. At the time, she didn’t think anything of it and hurried on.