Hillary writes her campaign a check for $5 million dollars from her personal funds. Her senior campaign staffers have agreed to work without pay. That’s a bad sign.
By the way, they still don’t know the results in New Mexico. When they went to bed last night, Hillary was up by less than 100 votes, out of 125,000 cast.
UPDATE: Some moron analysis of the Clinton self-donation over at Townhall:
Since leaving the White House, Clinton has earned more than $20 million in speaking fees from foreign sources in places like the People’s Republic of China and Dubai, according to her Senate financial disclosure forms. They also share a joint checking account according to those same forms.
If Hillary uses that foreign money to finance her campaign she will have successfully exploited a loophole in campaign finance rules that forbids the use of foreign money in U.S. elections.
I dunno about you, but it sounds like the beginning of another classic Clinton financial scandal.
Uh, no dear.
Listen, corporations can’t contribute to campaigns either. I, like millions of others, get paid by a corporation. If I, like millions of others, then donate some of that money to, say, the Obama campaign, is there a financial "scandal" at bay?
PHOENIX—The self-reflective New England Patriots issued a brief but enlightening statement concerning their nearly perfect season Monday, claiming that it is better to be a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without, and that greatness is measured not in successes but in failures. "What is perfection without fault? Nothing. How can one be perfect without the knowledge and experience that comes with failure? One cannot," the statement read in part. "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. So basically, we won." The Patriots added that it is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
January 31: A pair of undersea fiber optic cables (which provide Internet to the Middle East) are "accidentally" cut, presumably by some ship’s anchor.
February 3: A third cable is cut. Egyptian authorities revise their earlier speculation about a ship causing the first two cuts, not say "no ship was in the area.
February 4: A fourth undersea Internet and telephone cable is cut.
Chicago election officials Tuesday afternoon were trying to unravel the mystery of the incredible invisible ink.
It’s no Agatha Christie novel but a real case for election investigators sent to the 49th Ward’s 42nd precinct Tuesday morning, after 20 ballots were cast with "magic" invisible ink pens.
Election officials just smirked, shook their heads in disbelief and called it the most bizarre election snafu in recent memory.
Apparently, said city election board spokesman James Allen, the poll workers told incredulous voters—including one spouse of an election judge—that the stylus used for touch-screen voting was actually an inkless pen to fill out paper ballots.
"You spend months trying to prepare for every contingency," Allen said. "Trying to anticipate every possible way people might be confused . . . then this? Incredible."
Even the ballot scanning machine knew better, he said, rejecting all 20 ballots as blank.
"Each time, the judges overrode the scanner and recorded the vote," he said.
By 3 p.m., only five of the 20 voters had been contacted to return to recast their votes.
"I’m incredibly angry, and I feel so dumb," said Amy Carlton, 38, of Rogers Park. "And I am not a dumb person."
Carlton said all the judges at the polling place insisted that they had been trained in the use of the "magic" pens.
"I’ve voted before," Carlton said. "I was thinking, ‘This is crazy,’ but when someone in authority insists, what are you supposed to do?"
Election officials were encouraging any affected voters to call 312-269-7870. They said those voters can recast their votes if they return to the polling place.
What was going on? Were the judges idiots? Pulling a prank? Magic invisible pens? Whoever heard of such a thing?
Fans of the movie Groundhog Dog might enjoy this post by Dan Rubin, the screenwriter of the movie, which answers the above question.
The movie is one of my favorites, and it was clear to me that Bill Murray’s character repeated the same day for a very very long time. After all, he went from being a non-musician to a proficient piano player. He became well-read in poetry. And so on.
The actual numbers are to be determined (New Mexico is still a question mark), but it looks like — no matter how you slice it — Obama won more delegates than Clinton yesterday. MSNBC says he picked up 840 to 849 delegates versus 829-838 for Clinton. They add:
Yet with Clinton’s overall superdelegate lead (259-170, based on the lists they’ve released to us), and when you toss in the 63-48 lead Obama had among pledged delegates going into Super Tuesday, it appears Clinton has about 70 more overall delegates than Obama does (1140-1150 for Clinton versus 1070 to 1080 for Obama). It’s that close, folks…
But as things stand now, Obama has a slight edge in pledged delegates (Dems who vote in primaries and caucuses), while Clinton has a slight edge in superdelegates (lawmakers, governors, DNC members, establishment types).
So what does this spell? B-R-O-K-E-R-E-D C-O-N-V-E-N-T-I-O-N. As Jonathan Cohn explains, it’s going to be tricky for either of them to get to the magic number of 2,025 delegate
In the remaining primaries and caucuses, only 1,787 delegates are at stake. So to win the nomination on pledged delegates alone, a candidate has to win 57 percent of those at stake. And that won’t be so easy to do.
Remember, the Democrats don’t have winner-take-all contests anymore. The primaries and caucuses award delegates with formulas that are based on proportional representation. In a situation where two candidates, each with solid funding, are running strong, it will be difficult to run up large margins. It’s entirely possible we’ll see a lot of results like last night, in which — after all the back-and-forth over who won which state — the two finished nearly even in delegates won.
So what happens in that increasingly likely event?
Ordinarily, a candidate emerges through the nominating process, and the superdelegates are along for the ride. This year, however, the pledged delegates probably won’t be sufficient to put either candidate over the top. And that favor Clinton.
I don’t expect many voters will like a brokered convention, where superdelegates — who don’t necessarily have to follow anything other than their own conscience — and — who are political "insiders" — get to choose the nominee.
Barack Obama seems well aware of this scenario, and explained his perspective at a press conference in Chicago this morning.
Obama also made some interesting comments about his route to the nomination, saying that he’ll amass a higher total of pledged delegates as a way of putting pressure on committed super-delegates to honor the Democratic process, forgo back-room politics, and back the candidate with the most public support.
“If this contest comes down to super-delegates, I think we’re going to be able to say that we have more pledged delegates — meaning that the Democratic voters have spoken,” Obama said. “And I think that those SD’s who are elected officials, party insiders, would have to think long and hard about how they approach the nomination when the people they claim to represent have said, `Obama’s our guy.’”
New Mexico is still too close to call. Apparently, the poll workers quit at 5:00 a.m., and decided to start fresh with the tallying today. When they quit, there was onyla 70 difference between the two.
Obviously, this is a moving train, especially when it comes to delegate counts. (See, e.g., California). But the result is what most people expected — Clinton having slightly more delegates than Obama. Other places are putting the current total at Clinton 670, Obama 650 with California still out. And Late last night NBC News predicted Obama 841, Clinton-837, (+/- 10 delegates).
Still, I think Obama has "bragging rights" in that he took more states, and — perhaps more importantly — more states of geographic diversity.
On the other hand, the Clinton campaign can rightfully say that Obama came into yesterday with a huge momentum, and that momentum is not stopped.
But really, neither side can claim victory. The word for the Democrats after Super Tuesday? "Stalemate". Keep playing.
I’m a little surprised by the media spin that Clinton’s victory in Massachusetts was a surprise (because, after all, Obama received the endorsements of the Kennedys and John Kerry). That’s all nonsense. First of all, as I’ve said, endorsements don’t persuade voters enough to have any real effect. Secondly, Clinton was always polling ahead — way ahead — of Obama in Massachusetts. So, she won a state that she was expected to win. Big deal.
What’s next? On Saturday, it’s Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington. Then on Sunday it’s Maine. Then Tuesday offers Maryland, DC, and Virginia. Then February 19 offers Wisconsin and Hawaii. Those states, taken as a whole, are favorable to Obama. Unfortuately, even combined, they don’t carry a ton of delegates. (The Carbpetbagger Report has a nice analysis).
On the GOP side, well, it was not the night that Romney needed. Mitt is meeting with his advisors to “consider their next steps.” If that means he’s dropping out, that leaves McCain and Huckabee. Huckabee, of course, won the hillbilly states last night, which is nice for him I suppose, but it’s not really going to get him the nomination. So I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of the GOP race.
Still, the conservatives despair, not just of McCain, but of their ideology. A typical reaction:
I think conservatives are going to have to work hard, these coming years, to grow a couple of new leaders of our own. And while we are at it, time to make greater inroads into the culture.
* I don’t listen to Rush as a rule, and today will be no exception, but I’m sure he’s going to be interesting today, what with McCain doing well yesterday.
* It’s odd. Obama seems to do much better in states with a large black population (e.g., South Carolina) or virtually no black population at all (e.g., Iowa, Minnesota). I guess that speaks well to the diversity of his appeal. Still one wonders why he’s not prevailing in states in between.
* You know, in light of the 45 tornado-related deaths that happened yesterday in Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky, I bet a lot of media people are kinda wishing that had avoided calling it "Tsunami Tuesday".
* Best large landscape summary I’ve read so far: "…in Dem terms, their choice on Super Duper Tuesday was deciding which candidate was Super Duper and which was merely Super. Over on the GOP side, it was a choice between Weak & Divisive or Weaker & Unacceptable."
* Obama’s speech last night was a master of triangulation. He was gracious and inspiring, but when he started talking about his "opponents", I couldn’t tell if he was referring to Hillary Clinton or John McCain. And then I realized — he’s intentionally keeping it vague, so that you will lump Hillary Clinton with John McCain. And from a rhetorical standpoint, it worked. Still, his South Carolina speech from a few weeks ago is the gold standard.
This Goggle gadget purports to track the progress of the candidates in each of the 24 states in today’s primaries. (If it ain’t working, it’s probably because there are no results)
Or you can watch this Google map and see people twitter in their Super Tuesday doings in real time.
UPDATE: I haven’t been following the news, but I had this to relate: I had a phone conference scheduled with someone who works in Atlanta. He had to postpoone the conference; he was out voting and that lines there are loooong (he says).
UPDATE: The first polls closed at 12:30 pm. The state was West Virginia, who held an Internet caucus kind of thing on the GOP side. The winner? Mike Huckabee.
Not sure what it means, but the Romney campaign is saying that the Huckabee win came as the result of some McCainery — i.e, "a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change."
Hmmm. Apparaently, in the first round of voting, Romney won, Huckabee was second, and McCain was a distant third. So the McCain caucusers were instructed to rally behind Huckabee. And in the second round of voting, Huckabee prevailed.
UPDATE (10:20 pm): Being at rehearsal, I thought I might miss something, but apparently not. Results are starting to roll in from the East Coast, and no huge surprises.
Obama is racking "wins" in Georgia, Connecticut, Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, North Dakota, and Delaware. And Minnesota. They just called that.
I think the Connecticut win is significant. It’s not an "upset" in that it was too close to call. But the fact that he pulled it out is an indication of a very good night for Obama.
Clinton carried Massachusetts, Arkansas, New York, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
Of course, it’s all about the delegate count, which turn on county wins, rather than state wins. And nobody’s reporting much about that. [UPDATE: 10:35 pm — the Obama camp is predicting a delegate win 606-534]
On the GOP side, Romney took Utah, Massachusetts. McCain took New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Delaware. Huckabee? Somewhat of a surprise, taking Alabama and West Viriginia. Doing well in Georgia.
Well this is an ever-evolving story that’s going to go on all night. I’ll sort it out with the rest of the country tomorrow. (Or as one writer at TPM says: "There are really too many states. My head hurts from trying to keep track of all of this.")
Okay, the spacing is screwy, but if you look hard at the Democratic side, you’ll notice that Clinton has 51% of the vote and 12 delegates. Obama has 45% of the vote, and thirteen delegates. So again, it’s not the popular vote; it’s the delegates (Nevada probably has superdelegates which go to the state winner, so in the end Hillary will come out on top).
By the way, if you’re looking for a website that compiles the results in one easy-to-read instantly-updated place, Politico beats out CNN and MSNBC.
INTERESTING SIDE STORY – WHO DO THE TROOPS SUPPORT?:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): I want to — and I want to tell you something, sir. I just finished having Thanksgiving with the troops, and their message to you is — the message of these brave men and women who are serving over there is: Let us win. Let us win. [Link]
Yet U.S. troops disagree. Yesterday, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that members of the military donated the most not to McCain, but to two anti-war candidates:
Individuals in the Army, Navy and Air Force made those branches of the armed services among the top contributors in the 4th Quarter, ranking No. 13, No. 18 and No. 21, respectively. In 2007, Republican Ron Paul, who opposes U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the top recipient of money from donors in the military, collecting at least $212,000 from them. Barack Obama, another war opponent, was second with about $94,000.
Somewhere in Kenya there is a small village named Nyangoma Kogalo. It is accessible only by a dirt road. Women work the fields of maize and sugar, as have thay have done for centuries.
And somewhere in that town is an 86 year old woman named Sarah, living in a modest house with a corrugated tin roof.
Many years ago, Sarah’s son went to the United States on a scholarship. He did well, and married a woman from Kansas. He later returned to Kenya where he became an economist for the Kenyan government.
That man, whose name is Barack Obama, had a son. And that son, named Barack Obama Jr., is running for President of the United States.
Barack Obama, Sr. died in a car accident in 1982, but his grandmother, still in that village, is "on pins and needles" about today’s results.
Pretty cool.
Pictured above: Sarah Hussein Obama, holding a photo of her and her grandson.
Well, today is — for political junkies — the equivalent of the Super Bowl. Today’s primary races amount to the biggest primary day in United States history. Even YouTube is getting into the act.
Let me speak first about the GOP side. It’s McCain Day. I think, within the next 24-48 hours, we will see Huckabee and Ron Paul drop from the race. Probably Romney, too. For all intents and purposes, the GOP race will be over.
The right is very divided over McCain, and at the center of the storm is that blowhard Rush Limbaugh. He’s been butchering McCain on his show for weeks, going so far as to say that he would prefer a Clinton in the White House over McCain. WaPo explains:
It may be the best sideshow in presidential politics: the nation’s top radio talker trying to take down the Republican front-runner in today’s Super Tuesday showdown.
Rush Limbaugh has been relentless in his criticism of John McCain, prompting suggestions that he may have to soften his stance if the Arizona senator wins the nomination and faces off against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But if that happens, Limbaugh said in an interview over the weekend, he would rather see the Democrats win the White House.
"If I believe the country will suffer with either Hillary, Obama or McCain, I would just as soon the Democrats take the hit . . . rather than a Republican causing the debacle," he said. "And I would prefer not to have conservative Republicans in the Congress paralyzed by having to support, out of party loyalty, a Republican president who is not conservative."
Limbaugh’s anti-McCain rhetoric is joined by that of conservative talk show hows Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. Bob Dole has intervened, sending a letter to Rush essentially urging Rush to tone down the rhetoric (for the interests of the party, country, etc.)
[UPDATE: The Limbaugh/Dole/McCain flap continues today, according to the folks at The Corner:
Limbaugh is ripping McCain a new one on his show right now, explaining the Bob Dole letter controversy and (properly) accusing McCain of mischaracterizing both what Dole wrote and what Romney said about it. He said that McCain’s behavior — turning any criticism of himself or Dole into an attack on a military veteran’s "service" — was disgraceful and evidence of the campaign’s worry about how things have been going the past few days.
But McCain seems to be inevitable. And the conservative base will have to deal with it.
And while that’s the "sideshow", the main show is, of course, on the Democratic side. 1,681 Democratic delegates, in 22 states (including American Samoa for the Dems), are up for grabs. It’s Hillary v. Barack. The media will be tempted to declare "winners" in each state, but the discerning citizen would do well to keep in mind that these primaries are mostly "proportional" and not "winner take all" (although some are)
The Washington Post, by the way, has a great state-by-state breakdown of delegates and waht’s at stake. Lookie here.
Take California. There are 441 delegates at stake, broken down by congressional district. The number of delegates varies a bit by district. Some districts have a little more strength than others. So even if you win the state, you might not get the lion’s share of delegates (especially if it is close).
Second, the allocation of delegates among the candidates depends on their share of the vote, so you could lose a district, and yet if you run a close second, you’re gonna get some delegates out of that district.
And finally, in many congressional districts in California, a Democrat does not receive more than 62% of the vote, he or she will receive the same number of delegates from that district as the he or she who finishes second.
So, unlike the general election, it’s not the percentage of votes that count. It’s the delegates.
Anyway, don’t expect a final result in California tonight. Not even by tomorrow morning.
Okay. So what do the polls say?
Everything. Compare, for example, these two "final polls" taken by SurveyUSA and Zogby.
Another thing to consider is that a large number of ballots have already been cast by mail. SurveyUSA gives those to Hillary by a wide margin, while the widely respected Field Poll registered a one-point edge to … Obama. In short, there simply isn’t any real way to know right now if any of these polls are accurately predicting the outcome.
According to campaign sources, polling and stealing off other analysts, Hillary Clinton has an edge in New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Obama has an edge in Idaho, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Alabama, Georgia, North Dakota and Illinois.
Anyway, you just never know how it’s going to play out. Obama, for example, is getting votes from the most unusual places.
Chris Bowers, in a rather heady piece, makes the argument that the Democratic nomination will eventually turn on the whims of superdelegates, who may not decide to go with the "rank-and-file".
No matter how you cut it, it’s close on the Dem side. Obama said he expects a “split decision.” I think that’s about right.
If I had to guess the delegate breakout when all is said, done, and counted, I would say 856 to Hillary, 823 to Obama, and 2 left to others (or uncommitted).
I don’t have anything to add to everybody else’s lack of perspective, so I’ll just defer to porn stars (yes, it’s safe for work, sorta kinda):
And finally, as someone else wrote: "If you live in one of the Super Awesome Tsunami Hurricane Megatron states that will decide it, you should probably get your fine self to a polling place."
