While doing backflips over liberal victories, the media overlooks a liberal defeat.

If you were watching the news out of Ohio today, you might not realize that there were three - one, two, three - referendums on their ballot yesterday. You might think that the referendum on Gov. Kasich’s collective bargaining reforms – similar to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s – was the only one.

But it wasn’t:

Voters in Ohio have approved a ballot measure intended to keep government from requiring Ohioans to participate in any health care system.

The vote was 66-34 against Obamacare-style mandates, which seems like an important news story.

But, no. Instead, we’re getting mostly this:

In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers. With nearly 95 percent of the votes counted late Tuesday, about 61 percent were to reject the law.

Granted, that is also an important news story. More important, arguably, than the first one.

So much more important, though, that the rejection of Obamacare-style mandates by two-thirds of Ohio voters doesn’t even rate a headline? Or at least a mention in the first three paragraphs of an Ohio election-night wrapup?

While we’re at it, here’s what seems like an even more important story: while the collective bargaining changes went down in a heap – 61% voting against – Obamacare went down even harder. Sixty-six percent of Ohio voters said no, we shouldn’t be forced to purchase health care whether we want to or not.

Sixty-six is a bigger number than sixty-one. More Ohio voters rejected Obamacare than rejected collective bargaining restrictions. Plus, that means a lot of voters voted with the majority on both – against Kasich, and against Obama.

Those wacky Ohioans, with their rounded edges and peaking middle.

But to read the news, the results were a huge blow to the GOP, and a huge boost for the Democrats. Just nothing more to see, here. Go figure.

UPDATE - the Weekly Standard:

A ballot measure that StateImpact Ohio (a creation of local public media and NPR) describes as “a referendum on a constitutional amendment…aimed at keeping the national health care reform law from taking [e]ffect” won in all 88 counties in Ohio. In 81 of the counties, it won by a margin of at least 20 percentage points. Statewide, it won by 32 points (66 to 34 percent).

At least somebody’s covering it. Hat tip Sister Toldja.