Tuesday night was historic for many reasons, and Southwest Virginia contributed to that. Longtime incumbent Democratic Rick Boucher went down to defeat in a district he had served for 28 years.

After years of easy re-elections and even a 18-point win in the Republican landslide year of 1994, Boucher couldn’t survive the tidal wave of 2010.

What happened? There’s a long list of things that went wrong for Boucher this year. Here’s my take.

1) Boucher took too much for granted for too long. He didn’t wake up to the challenge that faced him or the reality of the political environment until late August or early September. By that point, he had given his challenger, Republican Morgan Griffith, enough time to show viability which meant he got exposure and campaign cash. If Boucher had used his $2 million campaign warchest to define Griffith in July and early August, it’s possible the Salem delegate would have never gotten any traction and the national money would have gone elsewhere.

2) Boucher’s early endorsement of then candidate Obama didn’t help him either. This mistake dates back to 2008, but it’s still important. He misjudged his district and endorsed the Illinois senator over New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Boucher picked the candidate who ultimately won the Virginia primary, the Democratic nomination, and the White House. But he didn’t pick the candidate who won his district. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s only victory in all of Virginia came from Boucher’s 9th district. And she won easily there, 60% to 40%. This move alienated the longtime congressman from some Democrats in his district.

3) The Boucher/Obama pairing didn’t end there, as there were at least two or three other occasions when President Obama openly praised Boucher for his leadership and support of the Obama agenda. This gave the Griffith campaign the perfect opening to tie Boucher to the president, who is deeply unpopular in the 9th district.

4) Boucher claims he lost because of the influx of outside spending in the race. And there’s no doubt that he faced a barrage of ads from a slew of groups. In fact, for the first time in decades he was matched in campaign spending. But, that’s an important point, he was matched. It’s not like Boucher didn’t have enough money to get out his message. He had millions as well and he spent it.

5) No, the biggest thing that did in Rick Boucher was one vote. It wasn’t his opposition to health care reform. Nor was it vote for the stimulus plans and bailouts. No, it was his vote in favor of Cap and Trade. This was a fatal mistake in a coal-producing district. And, his challenger and the outside groups never let up on it. After thousands and thousands of votes, this one vote did him in. And, it was ultimately an unnecessary vote, as Cap and Trade never made it to the floor of the Senate and now with new leadership in Congress will likely never see the light of day.

Of course much of this is Monday morning quarterbacking, which is easy to do from my vantage point. But, for a politician as particular and careful as Rick Boucher, these are mistakes that I’m surprised he made.

And they are mistakes that gave the opposition an opening to defeat him by a surprisingly large margin.