Bill Clinton In West Virginia

(Photo courtesy of Bob Bird. Nice placement of the former president's latest book, which is destined to slip from the Top 10 of The New York Times' nonfiction bestseller list Sunday.)

The Mountain State's Democratic Party is boasting of record-breaking attendance and funds raised from Saturday's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner headlined by former President Bill Clinton.

As The Associated Press reports, Clinton was also the draw for events earlier in the evening for his wife's presidential bid and the re-election campaign of Gov. Joe Manchin.

Among other highlights from the annual dinner that attracts party faithful large and small:

* The Rev. Dennis Sparks of the West Virginia Council of Churches included digs at both state-sanctioned gambling and President Bush's Iraq policy in his opening invocation;

* U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., rode his "Big Daddy" moniker a little farther, during a lengthy speech that rivaled Clinton's for the crowd's affections. "You've still got it," Clinton later remarked.

* Clinton also recalled how he at times incurred Byrd's wrath (chronicled in Bob Woodward's The Agenda, among other places) during his presidency. "It's like God is giving you a personal notice of disapproval," Clinton said.

* Reps. Alan Mollohan, D-1st, and Nick Rahall, D-3rd, used their time onstage to endorse state Sen. John Unger as a challenger to Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd. This, despite Thornton Cooper's entry in the race, though Rahall and Mollohan had already embraced the Berkeley County Democrat earlier this year.

* The state party inducted Wylie Stowers to its Hall of Fame after 31 years as its Lincoln County chairman. When the latest round of election fraud allegations surfaced there in late 2004, he told AP, "There sure isn't any vote buying going on around here now... Maybe a hundred years ago." Just months earlier, his son, then-Circuit Clerk Greg Stowers, spread around $7,000 to do just that. The younger Stowers resigned office and pleaded guilty the following year.

WSAZ-TV has footage of Clinton's entire speech as well as a shorter video segment.

Others who covered Clinton include MetroNews (with audio), WCHS-TV (with embedded video), WOWK-TV (with video), and The Charleston Gazette.