(6:26) Polls close at 7:00, which is awfully early. I'm not sure if they close at the same time in the Central Time Zone (yes, the western end of the Panhandle really is as far west as Chicago), but it would be pretty bad if it did because it would only be 6 there. I guess you have to squeeze in voting between the poll opening and having to go to work because it's Tuesday.
Just before watching, Florida has 21 counties with populations over 200 000: these are Miami-Dade (2 253 362), Broward (1 623 018), Palm Beach (1 131 184), Hillsborough (998 948), Pinellas (921 482), Orange (896 344), Duval (778 879), Polk (483 924), Brevard (476 230), Volusia (443 343), Lee (440 888), Seminole (365 196), Pasco (344 765), Sarasota (325 957), Escambia (294 410), Manatee (264 002), Marion (258 916), Collier (251 377), Leon (239 452), Alachua (217 955), and Lake (210 528). The total population is 15 982 378 in the 2000 Census, the fourth largest in the United States, of which 16% is African-American and 20% is Latino.
The Latino population is concentrated in the southern part of the state, with Miami-Dade County being 18% African-American and 66% Latino (nearly half the state Latino total), Broward County being 21% African-American and 17% Latino, and Palm Beach County being 30% African-American and 18% Latino. In contrast, Duval County is 28% African-American and only 4% Latino.
The population of Florida is concentrated in coastal areas and in a central area between the coasts around Orlando. The four major metropolitan areas are Miami (the fourth largest urban area in the United States), which contains Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties (5 007 564, 31%), Tampa/St.Petersburg, which contains Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties (2 265 195, 14%), Orlando, which contains Orange, Seminole, and Osceola Counties (1 434 033, 9.0%), and Jacksonville, which contains Duval and Clay Counties (919 693, 5.8%). In Florida, suburban-type housing developments are very widespread and actually cover large parts of both coasts. One interesting cultural characteristic is that the western area, the Panhandle, resembles Georgia and Alabama more than it resembles peninsular Florida, but this is a small part of the total population. The Panhandle's major counties are Escambia (seat Pensacola) and Leon (seat Tallahassee).
This is the last Florida election conducted with electronic voting. The state voted to ban it after the 2006 elections, just six years after the 2000 voting debacle, but apparently not in this primary.
(7:03) As the polls close, I should mention that this will primarily focus on Republican results because the Democratic Party has stripped Florida of its delegates for an unauthorized early primary. The Republicans have only stripped half of the delegates, which the state party says will be the half which were to be allocated proportionally to the share of the vote, making Florida the first winner-take all state on the primary calendar. The Republican winner will be awarded all 57 delegates which the party leaders says will be allowed at the convention. In the Democratic primary, unlike in Michigan, all major candidates are on the ballot, so results will not be as totally ridiculous as they were there.
(7:16) MSNBC reports minor irregularities in Broward County involving nonfunctioning voting machines early in the morning and in Miami-Dade County involving incorrect party registrations which forced voters to vote in the other primary. The Miami-Dade irregularities were reported to affect both parties.
(7:28) Machine problems are also reported in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. One precinct in Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County was shut down for part of the day due to failure of all of its voting machines. However, nothing on the scale of the Horry County disaster in South Carolina seems to be out there.
(7:38) Results- with 1% reporting, the votes are McCain 32 679, Romney 32 435, Giuliani 18 837, Huckabee 16 784, and Paul 3 557. Two suburban counties have over 15% reporting and in those McCain leads Romney 31%-29% in Pasco County in the Tampa-St.Petersburg area and Romney leads 34%-32% in Osceola County in the Orlando area.
(7:42) 4% reporting- Romney 64 384, McCain 61 058, Giuliani 34 217, Huckabee 26 276, Paul 6 066. Volusia, Manatee, and St.Lucie Counties report narrow McCain leads with over 15% reporting.
(7:46) 7% reporting- McCain 85 404, Romney 83 705, Giuliani 43 244, Huckabee 32 900, Paul 8 415. Bradford County, a small rural county near Jacksonville, is the first county reporting a Huckabee lead. In major counties, Manatee and Sarasota report small McCain leads. Huckabee is not doing well in Leon County (Tallahassee) in the western region, with 16% as opposed to 40% for McCain and 29% for Romney. This is also the first large McCain lead reported.
(7:50) 10%- McCain 125 056, Romney 112 428, Giuliani 67 057, Huckabee 46 723, Paul 11 380.
Osceola County has flipped to McCain. At 8:00 the Central Time part of the Panhandle will have its polls close.
(8:00) CNN has projected Hillary the winner of the meaningless Democratic primary. With 15% reporting, the results are Hillary 214 759, Obama 119 334, and Edwards 63 495. The Republicans now have 15%- McCain 175 207, Romney 155 219, Giuliani 88 120, Huckabee 65 320, and Paul 16 387. Most reporting counties show a slight McCain lead except for rural counties around Jacksonville which show Romney or Huckabee leads.
(8:07) CNN exit polls are out. They predict a McCain win with 34%. The other candidates got- Romney 31%, Huckabee and Giuliani 15%, and Paul 4%. The report is that the Republican electorate is 56% male, a major gender imbalance. 35% of the Republican electorate was under 50 and a mere 7% under 30. Catholics, which in a Republican primary in Florida are probably mostly Latino (with some Yankees), favored McCain over Romney by 37% to 28% with Giuliani at 24% and Huckabee at 4%.
(8:25) With 30% reporting, we have McCain 294 934, Romney 285 270, Giuliani 133 669, Huckabee 117 882, and Paul 27 215. Romney leads in the lower Gulf coast area, famous as the home area of Porter Goss and Katherine Harris. He also has a slim lead in Orange County, containing Orlando, but elsewhere seems to be running behind McCain. Huckabee is leading in three minor northern counties in the sparsely populated area around the Suwannee River.
(8:39) 35% reporting, McCain 342 886, Romney 322 522, Giuliani 155 414, Huckabee 135 455, Paul 31 015. Another metropolitan center, Duval County, which is the city of Jacksonville, reports Romney leading McCain 40% to 27%.
(8:47) The Tampa/St.Petersburg area shows McCain ahead of Romney. Broward County in South Florida shows McCain with a larger lead.
(8:56) 46% reporting. McCain 404 294, Romney 366 298, Giuliani 177 601, Huckabee 153 928, Paul 36 140. With 31% reporting, Miami-Dade County's vote is McCain 38 030, Giuliani 26 046, Romney 11 062, Huckabee 4 786, and Paul 1 475. The very low Romney vote (13%) is very interesting. McCain also leads strongly in the other two South Florida counties with Romney barely leading Giuliani.
(9:04) Palm Beach County is jinxed! The partial result showing a large McCain lead with Giuliani and Romney nearly tied is replaced with 0% reporting on the NYT site. Oddly, CNN has 0% reporting with totals which are 10 661 McCain, 7 809 Romney, 5 206 Giuliani, 2 363 Huckabee, and 995 Paul. The same anomaly occurs on the Democratic side-Hillary 35 242, Obama 16 128, Edwards 5 807.
(9:13) Orange County, which contains Orlando, has 92% Republican reporting and 0% Democratic. CNN shows no county totals.
(9:15) CNN calls Florida for McCain. This would give him all 57 delegates if it stands up.
(9:28) 62% reporting- McCain 502 311, Romney 442 278, Giuliani 212 554, Huckabee 185 718, Paul 44 496.
(9:48) CNN reports new delegate totals: McCain 95, Romney 67, Huckabee 26, Paul 6, Giuliani 1. The number of delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday: 1 081. 1 174 are required to clinch the nomination.
(9:55) It looks like the sites are still accumulating Palm Beach results but are showing 0% reporting. The result is now McCain 23 216, Romney 17 204, Giuliani 9 880, Huckabee 4 948, and Paul 2 011. With 74% reporting, the state totals are McCain 581 995, Romney 505 017, Giuliani 241 826, Huckabee 215 862, and Paul 51 613.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Obama Must Be A Contender: We Meet His Colorful Friends
You know someone's being taken seriously in an election when they bring out the embarrassing friends.
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2008/01/syrianborn_back.php
Rezko ( pictured with Bill and Hillary Clinton) was reportedly a friend and a fund raiser of the Clintons
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2008/01/syrianborn_back.php
Syrian-born backer of Obama ordered to Jail
Tuesday, 29 January, 2008 @ 12:14 AM Beirut / Chicago - A federal judge sent accused Illinois political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko to jail today after federal prosecutors accused him of violating his bail terms by a convoluted series of financial transactions with Mideast banks.
Rezko has become an "Achilles heel" for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama after disclosures he and people associated with him had raised almost $200,000 for Obama and that Obama sought Rezko's "help and advice" in the purchase of a new home.
In a court hearing in Chicago, prosecutors detailed a $3.5 million wire transfer from a bank in Beirut, Lebanon that they said was moved through a series of accounts until it reached Rezko or some of his relatives who had posted property for his bond.
Under the terms of his agreement, prosecutors said in a filing with the court, Rezko was obligated to disclose any change in his financial status.
In court, prosecutors said Rezko had become a "flight risk" because of his secretive transactions in the Mideast.
According to the court filings, the money came from a company, General Mediterranean, owned by a British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was convicted in France on fraud charges.
The filing says when Auchi was unable to obtain a visa to visit the United States in 2005, Rezko intervened and "asked certain Illinois government officials" to appeal the State Department's ruling.
The officials who Rezko approached are not specified. Sen. Obama had just taken office as a U.S. senator in 2005, the same year he sought Rezko's help in the purchase of his home.
The senator has said he was unable to afford both the home and an empty lot next to it which were effectively being sold as a package. Rezko's wife ultimately bought the empty lot, closing the same day as Obama did on his home.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko (born 1955 in Aleppo, Syria) is a restaurateur and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois.
Rezko ( pictured with Bill and Hillary Clinton) was reportedly a friend and a fund raiser of the Clintons During a recent presidential debate Hillary chastised Obama for Rezko contributions . She described Rezko as a “ slum landlord”. When she was shown the picture with Rezko she denied ever meeting him.
Obama adviser David Axelrod responded to Clinton remarks by saying , “If they are standing there beaming with Tony Rezko it means they knew who Tony Rezko was. He was a player, a prominent figure raising money and about town.”
Sources: ABC News , Ya Libnan
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Uncontrolled Deorbit of Spy Satellite?
Recent reports indicate that a US surveillance satellite has lost power and is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry into the Earth's atmosphere in late February or March.
Since such satellites have the highest resolution when they are close to the ground, the satellites orbit at an altitude where there is significant atmospheric drag. To counteract this drag, the satellite is outfitted with a thruster, powered by the decomposition of liquid hydrazine fuel into nitrogen and hydrogen gas, to provide thrust which counteracts this drag. If the satellite loses power, it stops firing the thruster and the drag on the satellite causes it to sink deeper and deeper into the atmosphere, which increases drag. Eventually the satellite re-enters.
I would guess the risk of loss of data is pretty low here. All they have to do is design the satellite so that there won't be anything readable left upon reentry. I think we can do that. The memory shouldn't be too readable after being burnt up in the atmosphere, and modern spy satellites don't have any film. Hydrazine in the Earth's atmosphere would combine with nitrogen to form ammonia and be removed from the air by rain. It is conceivable that information could be gathered from debris about the materials used in the satellite which could be useful to people designing their own satellites.
The spacecraft, known as "USA 193", NROL-21, or object number 29651, was launched December 14, 2006, from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc in southern California. The orbital characteristics fit those of a "Lacrosse" Earth-observing radar satellite:
"Perigee: 354 km (219 mi). Apogee: 376 km (233 mi). Inclination: 58.50 deg. Period: 91.83 min. COSPAR: 2006-057A. USAF Sat Cat: 29651. Classifed NRO mission of uncertain objectives, possibly military observation with a mixed payload. The ground track nearly repeated every 2 days (30.92 revs), enabling frequent revisit of targets of interest. The first four Lacrosses behaved similarly (28.9 revs in 2 days). and Lacrosse 5 made 43.05 revs in 3 days. Keyholes nearly repeated every 4 days; NOSS every 4 days."
The orbital characteristics are well-known- in fact, amateur astronomers take pictures of them passing over all the time. In fact they even can take ones good enough to reveal that the solar panels aren't there. The one at the top of this post has panels- they extend from upper left to lower right.
Lacrosse radars are believed to offer radar images with one-meter resolution through clouds or at night, a major advantage in a time-critical mission such as bomb damage assessment. However, there are only five of the things and the other side knows where they all are, and each one passes over a given spot about once every two days.
South Carolina Strikes Back- the Democrats
(7:02) CNN projects Barack Obama wins, two minutes after the polls close. They report no results, but they have an exit poll. The Democratic primary electorate is claimed to be 61% female, which is pretty lopsided, and has 1905 respondents, but has no other data yet. It might take them a few minutes to get it up on the website. The New York Times reports heavy turnout, with about 350,000 votes expected versus 290,000 in 2004.
(7:17) I was wondering about the percentage of African-Americans in the Republican primary, so I looked at that CNN exit poll- and it isn't even asked. I would bet it's pretty small. Note that the state is 30% African-American, one of the highest percentages in the nation.
(8:01) The New York Times still hasn't reported a winner. With 8% of results in, it's Obama 22 243 (50.7%), Hillary 12 650 (28.8%), and Edwards 8 765 (20.0%). A few counties are over the 15% threshhold for county results- the main interesting result is that Edwards is leading by a sizeable margin in Oconee and Pickens counties, which are in the northwest corner of the state at the foot of the Appalachians. These are areas with substantial towns. Pickens County has a sizeable college campus, Clemson University.
(8:07) Up to 15% reporting. Obama 42 861 (52.8%), Hillary 22 402 (27.6%), Edwards 15 592 (19.2%). 15 counties are now over the 15% threshhold, and Obama is leading in twelve of them. However, there is one major county, Lexington County, reporting a slight lead for Clinton over Obama. This county is across to river from Columbia and is therefore heavily suburban, and is only 12.6% African-American, a very low number for South Carolina.
(8:16) 20% reporting: Obama 54 848 (52.4%), Hillary 28 583 (27.3%), Edwards 20 797 (19.9%).
The report of an Edwards lead in Pickens County has switched to an Obama lead (did Clemson's vote come in?) and a new county, Cherokee County, reports an Edwards lead. This is also in the west, and has a sizeable town.
(8:29) 40% reporting: Obama 111 317 (52.6%), Hillary 58 400 (27.6%), Edwards 40 882 (19.3%). 28 counties over 15% (about 2/3) with two Edwards leads and one Hillary lead. The Hillary lead is in Horry County, which contains Myrtle Beach and has both a low African-American population and a high Yankee population due to major population growth in the last few decades.
(8:57) CNN's exit poll shows 54% for Obama, 27% Hillary, and 19% Edwards. The electorate was 54% African-American and of those 79% voted for Obama, 18% for Hillary, 3% for Edwards. Of the 46% non-African-American part of the vote, 23% voted for Obama, 36% for Hillary, and 41% for Edwards.
The best funny result in the exit poll is that non-African Americans over the age of 60, only 15% voted for Obama, while non-African Americans under 30 voted 52% for Obama.
(9:31) CNN projects that Obama has won 15 delegates, Hillary 6, and Edwards 5. Their total selected delegate totals are Obama 59, Hillary 44, and Edwards 23.
(10:40) Best instant comment:
(7:17) I was wondering about the percentage of African-Americans in the Republican primary, so I looked at that CNN exit poll- and it isn't even asked. I would bet it's pretty small. Note that the state is 30% African-American, one of the highest percentages in the nation.
(8:01) The New York Times still hasn't reported a winner. With 8% of results in, it's Obama 22 243 (50.7%), Hillary 12 650 (28.8%), and Edwards 8 765 (20.0%). A few counties are over the 15% threshhold for county results- the main interesting result is that Edwards is leading by a sizeable margin in Oconee and Pickens counties, which are in the northwest corner of the state at the foot of the Appalachians. These are areas with substantial towns. Pickens County has a sizeable college campus, Clemson University.
(8:07) Up to 15% reporting. Obama 42 861 (52.8%), Hillary 22 402 (27.6%), Edwards 15 592 (19.2%). 15 counties are now over the 15% threshhold, and Obama is leading in twelve of them. However, there is one major county, Lexington County, reporting a slight lead for Clinton over Obama. This county is across to river from Columbia and is therefore heavily suburban, and is only 12.6% African-American, a very low number for South Carolina.
(8:16) 20% reporting: Obama 54 848 (52.4%), Hillary 28 583 (27.3%), Edwards 20 797 (19.9%).
The report of an Edwards lead in Pickens County has switched to an Obama lead (did Clemson's vote come in?) and a new county, Cherokee County, reports an Edwards lead. This is also in the west, and has a sizeable town.
(8:29) 40% reporting: Obama 111 317 (52.6%), Hillary 58 400 (27.6%), Edwards 40 882 (19.3%). 28 counties over 15% (about 2/3) with two Edwards leads and one Hillary lead. The Hillary lead is in Horry County, which contains Myrtle Beach and has both a low African-American population and a high Yankee population due to major population growth in the last few decades.
(8:57) CNN's exit poll shows 54% for Obama, 27% Hillary, and 19% Edwards. The electorate was 54% African-American and of those 79% voted for Obama, 18% for Hillary, 3% for Edwards. Of the 46% non-African-American part of the vote, 23% voted for Obama, 36% for Hillary, and 41% for Edwards.
The best funny result in the exit poll is that non-African Americans over the age of 60, only 15% voted for Obama, while non-African Americans under 30 voted 52% for Obama.
(9:31) CNN projects that Obama has won 15 delegates, Hillary 6, and Edwards 5. Their total selected delegate totals are Obama 59, Hillary 44, and Edwards 23.
(10:40) Best instant comment:
In last week's SC GOP primary, McCain and Huckabee (the top 2 finishers), got 147,283 and 132,440 votes respectively. That's a total of 279,723. Obama just pulled down 291,000 by himself. Here's the data.I'd say this is the game changer. Obama can now say that he's got the best ability to put southern states in play. Obama can attempt a true 50 state strategy. He probably would not win too many southern states, but winning a few absolutely obliterates the GOP's chances in November.
This also shows that George W Bush is a uniter after all: People are so fucking frustrated that even rednecks are willing to give a black guy a chance.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dysfunctional Electronic Voting Machines Give Giuliani 911 Votes
Dysfunctional voting machines in Horry County, South Carolina, returned a total of 911 votes for Rudy Giuliani.Horry primary results released
By Aliana Ramos - The Sun News
Horry County's republican primary results have been released, more than 36 hours after the polls officially closed.
The delay was a result of an election machine mix-up that happened Saturday after the machines were returned to the election office in Conway.
At first, election workers were unable to tell which machines came from what precinct but were able to use the machines' serial numbers to sort it out.
Usually, poll workers are able to take the information from the machines using a cartridge, but a state election commission programming error, did not allow workers to close the machines down properly,said Sandy Martin, director of the county's voter registration and election office.
The date on the machines had been programmed to the wrong date--Jan. 26. This is the date of the democratic presidential primary.
According to the county's unofficial results, U.S. Sen John McCain, Ariz.,won with 8,406 votes, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who had 7,265 votes and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who had 4,764 votes. Former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani had 911 votes and Ron Paul had 672 votes.
About 20 percent of Horry County's registered voters--25,944-- cast their ballots in the GOP primary.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Fatwas! Available Online!
Many radical Islamic movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India follow many teachings of the famous anticolonial madrasa founded in 1283 (AD 1867), Darululoom Deoband. Since this is now 1429, the Darululoom Deoband has a website with content in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, and English on their various programs. An interesting feature on the site is that one may request fatwas on theological dilemmas one may confront in life. From the explanation of the site:
Darul Ifta It is one of the most significant departments of Darul Uloom from which people all across the world question in their religious and social matters. Darul Uloom has issued fatwas from its inception but when questions started coming in bulks and it was hard for the teachers to reply them in their part time, Darul Uloom set up this department in 1310 H (1892). Darul Ifta has always been center of attraction and held great respect and trust in public and court circles. So far more than 7 Lakh fatwas have been issued from this department. The present Darul Ifta was built in 1368 H (1949) while the adjoining hall has been recently added.
Darul Ifta It is one of the most significant departments of Darul Uloom from which people all across the world question in their religious and social matters. Darul Uloom has issued fatwas from its inception but when questions started coming in bulks and it was hard for the teachers to reply them in their part time, Darul Uloom set up this department in 1310 H (1892). Darul Ifta has always been center of attraction and held great respect and trust in public and court circles. So far more than 7 Lakh fatwas have been issued from this department. The present Darul Ifta was built in 1368 H (1949) while the adjoining hall has been recently added.
THE EMINENT MUFTIS OF DARUL ULOOM
It has already been mentioned in the foregone that at the time the Darul Uloom was established, old religious schools in India had almost faded out of existence. After the tumultuous upheaval of 1857, a sufficiently large number of Ulema were consigned to the rope and the gibbet, and some of the Ulema, for their crime of participation in the war of independence, were sentenced for life and sent to Andaman Nicobar Islands. Some of them, eluding capture and imprisonment by the English, gave them the slip and migrated to other countries. The old generation of the remaining Ulema was gradually coming to an end. Under such circums?tances those who could explain propositions were few and far between. However the people saw a ray of hope when Darul Uloom came into being. The practice of the common run of Muslims with Darul Uloom has always been such that whenever any problem arose in the country and the Muslims felt any difficulty, they have automatically looked up to Darul Uloom. Accordingly, enquirers of propositions began to refer to it and hence the work of fatwa-writing, along with the work of teaching, is being done from the very inception. First of all Hadhrat Maulana Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi who was principal in Darul Uloom was rendering this service, which he continued from A. H. 1283 till before his death, that is, up to A. H. 1301. After his demise this work was being taken from different teachers and in this way this work went on til1 A. H. 1309. But when the number of queries reached an extraordinary limit, in A. H. 1310 a regular Darul Ifta was established in Darul Uloom, and Hazrat Maulana Muti Azizur Rahman Deobandi was appointed on the post of Mufti. Darul Ifta, besides guiding in religio-legal matters, is also a very forceful means of rapport between Darul Uloom Deoband, and the common run of Muslims. The Fatwas of Darul Uloom have been highly esteemed in and outside the country; besides, the masses the law court in the country also honour them and consider them decisive.
Campaign Liveblog on January 19
(11:03 PM, previous day): Because of the Hillary campaign's attempts to close caucus sites for members of the Culinary Worker's union, an ally of this heavily Latino union has put an ad on Las Vegas radio which directly states that Hillary is attempting to deny people their right to vote (link to audio):
Note that this is clearly supposed to be a comparison to Bush, who has had some problems on the right to vote front of his own.
The English translation is provided by UNITE. There seem to have been some typos in their
version which have been corrected here after listening to the audio.
Hillary Clinton no respeta a nuestra gente los partidarios de Hillary Clinton fueron a corte para evitar que la gente que trabaja pueda votar este sábado, eso es vergonzoso.
Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.
Los partidarios de Hillary Clinton quieren evitar que la gente que trabaja el sábado pueda votar en sus lugares de empleo. ¡Imperdonable! Hillary Clinton no tiene vergüenza.
Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless.
Hillary Clinton no debería permitir que sus amigos ataquen el derecho de nuestra gente de votar este sábado. Es imperdonable! No hay respeto. El senador Barack Obama esta defendiendo nuestro derecho de votar.
Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; There’s no respect. Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote.
El senador Barack Obama quiere nuestros votos, el respeta nuestros votos, nuestra comunidad y a nuestra gente. El lema de la campaña de Barrack Obama es “sí se puede, sí se puede”. Vote por un presidente que nos respeta y respeta nuestro derecho de votar. Obama para presidente. Sí se puede.
Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).
(2:12 previous day) Fred Thompson says Git'R'Done! (Not a hoax!)
The anti-Hillary "no tiene vergüenza" ad is reported to be running twice an hour on "Super Estrella" (KRRN 92.7) and "La Tricolor" (KQRT 105.1) in Las Vegas and "Radio Lazer" (KSRN 107.7) in Reno.
(3:26) The Nevada Caucuses met at 9:00 AM (12 in my time zone, EST) for Republicans and 11:00 AM (2 PM EST) for Democrats. The Republicans have given us no surprises. The heavy LDS population has turned out at the caucuses without benefit of coffee (perhaps they went out to the ephedra bush in the back yard) and according to exit polls voted 94% for Romney. The only two counties with large populations are Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno)- with 52% in Romney got 59% of Clark County. The Washoe County results aren't in yet. The main shocker is that Ron Paul is running neck and neck with McCain for second place (12%) with 38% of precincts statewide reporting. There are few Democratic results.
(4:00) CNN on the radio has reported that South Carolina is experiencing snow and dysfunctional voting machines.
"We have received reports from Horry County that voters are being turned away from the polls, because electronic voting machines are not working and paper ballots are not available,” Buzz Jacobs, McCain’s South Carolina state director, said in a statement. “Some voters say they are being instructed to return at a later time. We are disturbed by these reports and hope that this issue is resolved immediately. We encourage any voters who were turned away from the polls to return again to their polling place this afternoon to exercise their constitutional right to vote."
Horry County is a major county containing Myrtle Beach and has a 2000 Census population of 217,608 (out of 4,012,012 in the state).
(4:08) The Weather Channel reports snow across the "upstate", the western part of the state around Greenville and Spartanburg, which is the most white area of South Carolina. A low turnout in this area will mean that turnout will be higher closer to the coast, where the percentage of African-Americans is highest.
(4:12) AP has called Nevada for Hillary. In the county results, it appears Obama has won in Washoe County (51% to 38% with 33% reporting) and most of the rural counties in the state, but Hillary has won Clark County (55% to 43% with 57% reporting). Vote totals are miniscule, with a mere 5,380 votes reported with 53% reporting. 3,984 are from Clark County and 967 are from Washoe.
(4:23) I'm confused. The Democratic results are for "county delegates" but this seems kind of implausible- there's going to be several thousand people at the county conventions? Perhaps these are "virtual" delegates who aren't a real person? The Republican results show a more plausible 22,380 votes with 38% reporting.
The other weird thing is that the Republican results seem stalled. They had a two-hour head start and the percentage in is lower than for the Democrats. I haven't seen the percentage increase in a while. Many rural counties haven't reported anything yet, and they started caucusing four and a half hours ago.
(4:36) Without the reported percentage reporting changing, Ron Paul has pulled ahead of McCain.
(4:47) In the two states, the 2000 Census reports that out of Nevada's 1,998,257 people, 7.7% are African-American, 5.7% are Asian, and 2.2% are Native American, with Latino of any race being 20.0% while South Carolina's 4,012,012 people are 30.0% African-American with all other minority groups being negligible. It will be entertaining to see the exit polls in a state which is 2.4% Latino claim immigration is their most important issue. Today we won't see much difference ethnically in the two electorates because the Republican electorate will be almost entirely white.
(5:00) The Republican total has leapt to 71% all at once. The new results show 33,739 Republican votes with 78% reporting, which doesn't make any sense, and now they show Romney with 52.6% and Paul with a razor-thin margin over McCain, at 13.0% to 12.9%. The difference is 34 votes.
South Carolina polls close at 7 PM. I guess they don't like people who work on Saturday.
I wonder what the effect of the snow will be. Since this is a Republican contest, black turnout isn't a factor at all, but there is a historic cultural division between people who live in old plantation country near the coast (where it is raining) and the more upland parts of the state (where it is snowing). There's also the voting machine problems in Myrtle Beach (on the coast). Some western parts of the state are expected to get as much as 4 inches of snow, which will shut things down. Note to parties- you can avoid this problem by voting in April and May instead of January.
(5:16) The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign is trying to get a court order to extend voting by an hour in Horry County, but nobody can find the only judge who can issue the order. The cause of the malfunction? "Bourcier [a county spokesperson] said the problem was caused by "human error." The last step in preparing the machines for Election Day is a "clearing" test that resets the machine data to zero. That test was not done on most of the machines, which locked them and made them unable to function, she said."
(5:22) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports, according to state representative Tracy Edge,
(6:05) Sen. Harry Reid, appearing on Air America, just said there were about 110,000 people participating in the Nevada caucuses. With 95% of the results in, it is reported that Ron Paul leads McCain by 5,324 votes to 5,216. Nye County, home of the former Nevada Nuclear Test Site, still reports no Republican results but 91% of Democratic precincts report. Given the small size of the electorate, there, this is probably 10 of 11 precincts.
(6:24) CNN reports Ron Paul is winning in Carson City, a non-county unit which has a larger population than any county except Clark and Washoe. For some reason, only 38% of precincts are reporting there versus 97% statewide. Then in the last few seconds the other 62% came in and Romney is suddenly ahead 42% to 18%. They are also showing a precinct in in Nye County, which has 52 votes for Ron Paul, 44 for Romney, 37 for McCain, 29 for Huckabee, and 9 Thmpson, 8 Giuliani, and 3 Hunter. On the basis of this single precinct (3%), they are projecting Romney as the winner of the county. Who's writing this software, anyway?
(6:59) CNN reports by radio that Duncan Hunter has withdrawn from the race. That leaves six candidates. Does this mean I can now describe Giuliani's likely finish in South Carolina to be "last"? They also report that many flights have been cancelled out of Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta due to snow. The Weather Channel continues to show it is snowing around Greenville and Spartanburg in western South Carolina.
(7:09) "The State", Columbia's newspaper, has a good piece on the shenanigans in Horry County. They report, "B.J. Boling, spokesman for the McCain campaign in South Carolina, said just after 6 p.m., with less than an hour remaining for voting, there was some talk of legal action because of the fear enough voters were turned away to affect the outcome of the primary." The article also allows us to pinpoint the four worst precincts, which are expected to be running at 5:30: Salem Methodist Church in Conway; Jet Port #2 at the Myrtle Beach Recreation Center; Sweetwater Branch Church in Conway and Lake Park at Socastee Pentecostal Holy Church in Myrtle Beach.
It's BAD-"Spokesman Chris Whitmire said voters could use almost anything - "a napkin, a paper towel" - on which they could write the name of a candidate and put it in a ballot box. “Emergency paper ballots are part of the election,” Baum said."
(7:20) The worst precincts in Horry County-
Salem Methodist Church: 2376 Highway 90, Conway SC 29526, is in a rural area.
"Jet Port" is a road on the east side of Myrtle Beach, in 29577.
Sweetwater Branch Church: 1436 Highway 544, Conway, SC 29526, is in a golf-heavy section of "Red Hill", a town detatched from Conway.
"Socastee" is town detached from Myrtle Beach in the 29575 zip code.
No obvious pattern. I suspect that they generally screwed up the voting machines in the county as a whole and there's just issues about which machines they can get to work.
(7:34) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports that voting was not extended in Horry County. It will be interesting to compare its turnout with other counties.
(7:46) Exit poll- let's see if they revise using the election results! The expectation is a McCain win (31% Male/33% Female) with Huckabee second (26%/30%), Thompson third (17%/13%), Romney fourth (16%/15%), Paul fifth (8%/4%), and Giuliani last (3%/4%). There are 1648 respondents, which suggests a sampling margin of error of around 3%. The sample was 51% male and 49% female, so you can just average the two percentages to get a McCain win by four points. "Illegal immigration" was the most important issue for 26% of voters (South Carolina is 2.5% Latino), losing out to "the economy". Due to recent Bush policy changes Republicans are now permitted to say the economy is bad.
(8:00) CNN's software sucks. Their Nevada results have 100% of precincts reporting in Nye County and indicate 415 Ron Paul votes to 399 Mitt Romney votes, and yet they show Romney as the declared winner. The New York Times has it right.
(8:03) With 12% reporting, CNN has McCain 34%, Huckabee 30%, Thompson and Romney 15% with Thompson slightly ahead, Paul 4% and Giuliani 2%. With 16% in, Charleston County is the first major county with meaningful results, with McCain strongly ahead and Romney narrowly ahead of Huckabee.
(8:18) 22% reporting. CNN has McCain 36%, Huckabee 28%. There is enough in to see that the geographical pattern is for McCain to run well ahead in major urban areas, except Greenville and Spartanburg in the west, and for Huckabee to run ahead elsewhere. This looks like there could be a call pretty soon.
(8:43) Partial results are in for all major counties except the ill-fted Horry County. It looks like McCain is massively ahead around Charleston and Columbia, with Greenville and Spartanburg even or with Huckabee slightly ahead. CNN has 51% reporting, with McCain up 33% to 30%.
(8:58) Shenanigans continue in Horry County. The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports:
Late in the week poll workers picked up the iVotronic machines that they are using today. They took them home on voting machine "sleepovers" and then set-up the poll sites for today's primary.
(9:22) AP declares McCain winner. There are almost all of the results in except for four counties with little or no results. These are Horry County (pop 217,608), Florence County (125,761), Chesterfield County (42,768), and Aiken County (142,552). NBC channel 15 in Florence reports no problems with voting there, unlike in Horry County.
(9:28) New York Times declares McCain winner. They have 83% reporting, with McCain 121,958 (33.3%), Huckabee 107,953 (29.5%), Thompson 58,439 (16.0%), Romney 55,558 (15.2%), Paul 13,267 (3.6%), and Giuliani 7,631 (2.1%). McCain counties include most of the eastern two thirds of the state and Huckabee has won most of the west, including Greenville and Spartanburg. Four counties report no results or few results. These four counties contained 528,689 people in 2000, which is 13.2% of the state's population.
(9:37) Aiken County came in all at once. McCain won it by three points, which is typical for its area.
(9:39) So did Chesterfield County, which is 49% Huckabee and 28% McCain. This is only 2,206 votes.
(9:42) CNN has absurd Horry County numbers. With 98% of precincts reporting, it is Huckabee 462, McCain 351, Romney 192, Thompson 171, Giuliani 39, Paul 27, Hunter 2. This isn't even remotely the number of votes you would expect. Lexington County, which has a comparable number of white people, has 34,493 votes cast with 100% of precincts reporting. Myrtle Beach Sun-News doesn't have any local results on their website according to a 9:12 update.
(9:47) The same absurd result for Horry County is on the New York Times site.
(10:01) CNN has corrected the absurd Horry County result to 7% of precincts reporting. This projects out to 18,000 county votes, which seems like a reasonable amount.
(10:09) Looks pretty quiet out there. There might not even be any results for those last two counties. The great part is that those Myrtle Beach people are going to have to deal with the fallout in the middle of preparing for the Democrats next weekend. Shouldn't the candidates talk about this issue over the next week before they have to run elections on the exact same machines?
(10:46) Horry County now has 10% reporting. CNN has Huckabee 752, McCain 724, Romney 462, Thompson 294, Giuliani 101, Paul 68, and Hunter 2. The vote total looks reasonable for 10%.
(11:14) Horry County (CNN) has 18%. McCain 1669, Huckabee 1560, Romney 986, Thompson 727, Giuliani 187, Paul 139, and Hunter 17. This is 5,285 votes and the New York Times has 5,291.
(11:20) Horry County (CNN) 26%. McCain 2563, Huckabee 2195, Romney 1544, Thompson 1147, Giuliani 316, Paul 222, Hunter 19.
(11:26) Small disrepancies between the vote totals on CNN and the NYT are probably due to nonreporting of minor candidates Tom Tancredo, Hugh Cort, John Cox, and Cap Fendig. And these guys wouldn't let Stephen Colbert run?
(11:30) Low results are also seen in Florence County: with 33% reporting, it is Huckabee 1527, McCain 1336, Thompson 586, Romney 569, Paul 105, Giuliani 68, Hunter 7. This projects to a reasonable number of total votes cast.
(11:34) Horry County (CNN) 34%. McCain 3362, Huckabee 2787, Romney 2070, Thompson 1541, Giuliani 412, Paul 297, Hunter 22.
(12:19) It is reported that Obama has been projected to win 13 delegates to Clinton's 12 in Nevada, despite losing the popular vote.
(1:04 AM) Two counties still have outstanding precincts, and they are Florence and Horry Counties. There is no change from reported numbers.
(1:16 AM) Horry County is stiull reporting new results over six hours after the polls closed. The new number is 42% reporting, 4055 McCain, 3472 Huckabee, 2418 Romney, 1892 Thompson, 504 Giuliani, 363 Paul, and 32 Hunter. There are 16 additional votes in the NYT totals, which presumably went to fringe candidates.
(1:45 AM) CNN's new delegate totals: 38 Obama, 36 Clinton, and 18 Edwards, and 66 Romney, 38 McCain, 26 Huckabee, 8 Thompson, 6 Paul, 1 Giuliani, and 1 Hunter. Duncan Hunter has withdrwn from the race and presumably his delegate may now be uncommitted. These results are dependent on penalties for early primaries holding at the convention.
(2:17) No new reports in South Carolina since 1:16. Time to call it a night.
(12:40 PM, next day) CNN still doesn't have those two county results all in yet. Horry County has 45% reporting (the polls closed 17 hours ago) with McCain 4347, Huckabee 3733, Romney 2602, Thompson 2057, Giuliani 529, Paul 391, Hunter 33. This was last updated at 2:26 AM. Florence County has 88% reporting, last updated at 2:42 AM, with Huckabee 3987, McCain 3470, Thompson 1494, Romney 1446, Paul 280, Giuliani 166, and Hunter 17.
You know, the stereotype of Republican voter suppression is that it takes place in poor or minority areas, but Horry County is the whitest and wealthiest major urban area in South Carolina. Similarly, the 2006 incident using the same machines in the race to fill Katherine Harris's congressional seat involved an area which was affluent and white. Are these the voters the Republican Party doesn't want voting?
This morning's Myrtle Beach Sun-News says that all the paper ballots were counted last night, but they are still awaiting results from the electronic voting machines, which are expected late this afternoon:
The Sun-News also reports that the problem was that the closing time for the election on the machines was set by the state to be on February 26, when the Democratic primary closes. Interesting that they would only make that goof in one county... and ALSO make an independent goof on the same machines which made them not start properly in the morning.
"An incorrect closing time for voting machines set by the S.C. Election Commission forced Horry County election workers to close the machines manually and delayed the issuing of the final results, said Garry Baum, a spokesman for the commission. (1:11) The Obama campaign alleges that there were irregularities in Nevada:
Horry County has also done the same, except in this case the modification of the precincts reporting has been from 45% reporting to 91% reporting. 13,702 votes (at 91%) seems low for this county, since Lexington County, with a similar population, has 34,493, and snow-affected Spartanburg County, which is 20% larger, has 30,164 votes.
Note that this is clearly supposed to be a comparison to Bush, who has had some problems on the right to vote front of his own.
The English translation is provided by UNITE. There seem to have been some typos in their
version which have been corrected here after listening to the audio.
Hillary Clinton no respeta a nuestra gente los partidarios de Hillary Clinton fueron a corte para evitar que la gente que trabaja pueda votar este sábado, eso es vergonzoso.
Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.
Los partidarios de Hillary Clinton quieren evitar que la gente que trabaja el sábado pueda votar en sus lugares de empleo. ¡Imperdonable! Hillary Clinton no tiene vergüenza.
Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless.
Hillary Clinton no debería permitir que sus amigos ataquen el derecho de nuestra gente de votar este sábado. Es imperdonable! No hay respeto. El senador Barack Obama esta defendiendo nuestro derecho de votar.
Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; There’s no respect. Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote.
El senador Barack Obama quiere nuestros votos, el respeta nuestros votos, nuestra comunidad y a nuestra gente. El lema de la campaña de Barrack Obama es “sí se puede, sí se puede”. Vote por un presidente que nos respeta y respeta nuestro derecho de votar. Obama para presidente. Sí se puede.
Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Sí Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).
Pagada por UNITE HERE Campaign Committee.
Paid for by UNITE HERE Campaign Committee.(2:12 previous day) Fred Thompson says Git'R'Done! (Not a hoax!)
The anti-Hillary "no tiene vergüenza" ad is reported to be running twice an hour on "Super Estrella" (KRRN 92.7) and "La Tricolor" (KQRT 105.1) in Las Vegas and "Radio Lazer" (KSRN 107.7) in Reno.
(3:26) The Nevada Caucuses met at 9:00 AM (12 in my time zone, EST) for Republicans and 11:00 AM (2 PM EST) for Democrats. The Republicans have given us no surprises. The heavy LDS population has turned out at the caucuses without benefit of coffee (perhaps they went out to the ephedra bush in the back yard) and according to exit polls voted 94% for Romney. The only two counties with large populations are Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno)- with 52% in Romney got 59% of Clark County. The Washoe County results aren't in yet. The main shocker is that Ron Paul is running neck and neck with McCain for second place (12%) with 38% of precincts statewide reporting. There are few Democratic results.
(4:00) CNN on the radio has reported that South Carolina is experiencing snow and dysfunctional voting machines.
"We have received reports from Horry County that voters are being turned away from the polls, because electronic voting machines are not working and paper ballots are not available,” Buzz Jacobs, McCain’s South Carolina state director, said in a statement. “Some voters say they are being instructed to return at a later time. We are disturbed by these reports and hope that this issue is resolved immediately. We encourage any voters who were turned away from the polls to return again to their polling place this afternoon to exercise their constitutional right to vote."
Horry County is a major county containing Myrtle Beach and has a 2000 Census population of 217,608 (out of 4,012,012 in the state).
(4:08) The Weather Channel reports snow across the "upstate", the western part of the state around Greenville and Spartanburg, which is the most white area of South Carolina. A low turnout in this area will mean that turnout will be higher closer to the coast, where the percentage of African-Americans is highest.
(4:12) AP has called Nevada for Hillary. In the county results, it appears Obama has won in Washoe County (51% to 38% with 33% reporting) and most of the rural counties in the state, but Hillary has won Clark County (55% to 43% with 57% reporting). Vote totals are miniscule, with a mere 5,380 votes reported with 53% reporting. 3,984 are from Clark County and 967 are from Washoe.
(4:23) I'm confused. The Democratic results are for "county delegates" but this seems kind of implausible- there's going to be several thousand people at the county conventions? Perhaps these are "virtual" delegates who aren't a real person? The Republican results show a more plausible 22,380 votes with 38% reporting.
The other weird thing is that the Republican results seem stalled. They had a two-hour head start and the percentage in is lower than for the Democrats. I haven't seen the percentage increase in a while. Many rural counties haven't reported anything yet, and they started caucusing four and a half hours ago.
(4:36) Without the reported percentage reporting changing, Ron Paul has pulled ahead of McCain.
(4:47) In the two states, the 2000 Census reports that out of Nevada's 1,998,257 people, 7.7% are African-American, 5.7% are Asian, and 2.2% are Native American, with Latino of any race being 20.0% while South Carolina's 4,012,012 people are 30.0% African-American with all other minority groups being negligible. It will be entertaining to see the exit polls in a state which is 2.4% Latino claim immigration is their most important issue. Today we won't see much difference ethnically in the two electorates because the Republican electorate will be almost entirely white.
(5:00) The Republican total has leapt to 71% all at once. The new results show 33,739 Republican votes with 78% reporting, which doesn't make any sense, and now they show Romney with 52.6% and Paul with a razor-thin margin over McCain, at 13.0% to 12.9%. The difference is 34 votes.
South Carolina polls close at 7 PM. I guess they don't like people who work on Saturday.
I wonder what the effect of the snow will be. Since this is a Republican contest, black turnout isn't a factor at all, but there is a historic cultural division between people who live in old plantation country near the coast (where it is raining) and the more upland parts of the state (where it is snowing). There's also the voting machine problems in Myrtle Beach (on the coast). Some western parts of the state are expected to get as much as 4 inches of snow, which will shut things down. Note to parties- you can avoid this problem by voting in April and May instead of January.
(5:16) The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign is trying to get a court order to extend voting by an hour in Horry County, but nobody can find the only judge who can issue the order. The cause of the malfunction? "Bourcier [a county spokesperson] said the problem was caused by "human error." The last step in preparing the machines for Election Day is a "clearing" test that resets the machine data to zero. That test was not done on most of the machines, which locked them and made them unable to function, she said."
(5:22) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports, according to state representative Tracy Edge,
"He said he was bombarded with calls from people who vote in North Myrtle Beach and other precincts in his district. Some places had no paper ballots, in violation of the law, and were using pieces of blank paper.
He said his mother-in-law was only the 12th person to vote at her precinct but was given a piece of paper and told there were no printed ballots."
He also suggests a motive: "Horry County was McCain's best county in 2000, and we expected it to be again, so this could be devasting,'' he said.
(5:27) Since this blog is shifting toward South Carolina, I might mention some geography things. Since this is a Republican contest, you can expect basically all white voters. The largest counties are Greenville County (395,357, 78% white), Richland County (320,677, seat Columbia, 50% white), Charleston County (309,969, 62% white), Spartanburg County (253,791, next to Greenville County, 75% white), Horry County (217,608, seat Myrtle Beach, 81% white), and Lexington County (216,014, adjacent to Richland County, 84% white). Eight more counties have populations of over 100,000. Thus there are no major metropolitan areas in the state. These counties with over 200,000 make up 1,713,416 people (43%) which means that this is an unusually smalltown and rural electorate.
(6:05) Sen. Harry Reid, appearing on Air America, just said there were about 110,000 people participating in the Nevada caucuses. With 95% of the results in, it is reported that Ron Paul leads McCain by 5,324 votes to 5,216. Nye County, home of the former Nevada Nuclear Test Site, still reports no Republican results but 91% of Democratic precincts report. Given the small size of the electorate, there, this is probably 10 of 11 precincts.
(6:24) CNN reports Ron Paul is winning in Carson City, a non-county unit which has a larger population than any county except Clark and Washoe. For some reason, only 38% of precincts are reporting there versus 97% statewide. Then in the last few seconds the other 62% came in and Romney is suddenly ahead 42% to 18%. They are also showing a precinct in in Nye County, which has 52 votes for Ron Paul, 44 for Romney, 37 for McCain, 29 for Huckabee, and 9 Thmpson, 8 Giuliani, and 3 Hunter. On the basis of this single precinct (3%), they are projecting Romney as the winner of the county. Who's writing this software, anyway?
(6:59) CNN reports by radio that Duncan Hunter has withdrawn from the race. That leaves six candidates. Does this mean I can now describe Giuliani's likely finish in South Carolina to be "last"? They also report that many flights have been cancelled out of Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta due to snow. The Weather Channel continues to show it is snowing around Greenville and Spartanburg in western South Carolina.
(7:09) "The State", Columbia's newspaper, has a good piece on the shenanigans in Horry County. They report, "B.J. Boling, spokesman for the McCain campaign in South Carolina, said just after 6 p.m., with less than an hour remaining for voting, there was some talk of legal action because of the fear enough voters were turned away to affect the outcome of the primary." The article also allows us to pinpoint the four worst precincts, which are expected to be running at 5:30: Salem Methodist Church in Conway; Jet Port #2 at the Myrtle Beach Recreation Center; Sweetwater Branch Church in Conway and Lake Park at Socastee Pentecostal Holy Church in Myrtle Beach.
It's BAD-"Spokesman Chris Whitmire said voters could use almost anything - "a napkin, a paper towel" - on which they could write the name of a candidate and put it in a ballot box. “Emergency paper ballots are part of the election,” Baum said."
and-
"Marie VanMeter of Surfside Beach was told when she went to her polling station at Lakewood Elementary School, ''They said they were out of ballots and none of the machines were working in Surfside. They had everyone write down their phone number and that they would call us when we could vote.''(7:20) The worst precincts in Horry County-
Salem Methodist Church: 2376 Highway 90, Conway SC 29526, is in a rural area.
"Jet Port" is a road on the east side of Myrtle Beach, in 29577.
Sweetwater Branch Church: 1436 Highway 544, Conway, SC 29526, is in a golf-heavy section of "Red Hill", a town detatched from Conway.
"Socastee" is town detached from Myrtle Beach in the 29575 zip code.
No obvious pattern. I suspect that they generally screwed up the voting machines in the county as a whole and there's just issues about which machines they can get to work.
(7:34) The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports that voting was not extended in Horry County. It will be interesting to compare its turnout with other counties.
(7:46) Exit poll- let's see if they revise using the election results! The expectation is a McCain win (31% Male/33% Female) with Huckabee second (26%/30%), Thompson third (17%/13%), Romney fourth (16%/15%), Paul fifth (8%/4%), and Giuliani last (3%/4%). There are 1648 respondents, which suggests a sampling margin of error of around 3%. The sample was 51% male and 49% female, so you can just average the two percentages to get a McCain win by four points. "Illegal immigration" was the most important issue for 26% of voters (South Carolina is 2.5% Latino), losing out to "the economy". Due to recent Bush policy changes Republicans are now permitted to say the economy is bad.
(8:00) CNN's software sucks. Their Nevada results have 100% of precincts reporting in Nye County and indicate 415 Ron Paul votes to 399 Mitt Romney votes, and yet they show Romney as the declared winner. The New York Times has it right.
(8:03) With 12% reporting, CNN has McCain 34%, Huckabee 30%, Thompson and Romney 15% with Thompson slightly ahead, Paul 4% and Giuliani 2%. With 16% in, Charleston County is the first major county with meaningful results, with McCain strongly ahead and Romney narrowly ahead of Huckabee.
(8:18) 22% reporting. CNN has McCain 36%, Huckabee 28%. There is enough in to see that the geographical pattern is for McCain to run well ahead in major urban areas, except Greenville and Spartanburg in the west, and for Huckabee to run ahead elsewhere. This looks like there could be a call pretty soon.
(8:43) Partial results are in for all major counties except the ill-fted Horry County. It looks like McCain is massively ahead around Charleston and Columbia, with Greenville and Spartanburg even or with Huckabee slightly ahead. CNN has 51% reporting, with McCain up 33% to 30%.
(8:58) Shenanigans continue in Horry County. The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reports:
Some voting machines are not allowing poll workers to print out results or to properly close down, said John Bonsignor, president of the South Strand Republicans and a volunteer poll worker in the Marlowe precinct.
``We have to sit here, because no one has come out to help us, and we haven't been able to report our results,'' Bonsignor said. ``When we put in the green [cartridge] to close the machine it won't let us shut down and we don't want to unplug it in case it'll mean we lose all the votes.''
These are iVotronic touch-screen machines from Election Systems & Software. BradBlog reports:Late in the week poll workers picked up the iVotronic machines that they are using today. They took them home on voting machine "sleepovers" and then set-up the poll sites for today's primary.
Today only the Republicans are voting.
When the polls close this evening all memory cards, machines and supplies will be returned to the county election office.
The tallies will be done and results reported. The machines will then be prepared to be picked-up next Thursday by the same poll workers who will take them home and repeat the "sleepover" process for the Democratic primary next Saturday.
This plan seems to be a welcome mat for security problems, since the machines are highly susceptible to tampering, and even short periods outside the view of the public and election officials can be a recipe for disaster. Also in question is whether memory cards will be saved between the two primaries, as per federal law."
These machines were the same ones used in the disputed 2006 election result in Katherine Harris's former congressional district in which there were a large number of nonvotes on the Congressional race only, and not other votes held on the same day, which appeared only in Democratic parts of the district.(9:22) AP declares McCain winner. There are almost all of the results in except for four counties with little or no results. These are Horry County (pop 217,608), Florence County (125,761), Chesterfield County (42,768), and Aiken County (142,552). NBC channel 15 in Florence reports no problems with voting there, unlike in Horry County.
(9:28) New York Times declares McCain winner. They have 83% reporting, with McCain 121,958 (33.3%), Huckabee 107,953 (29.5%), Thompson 58,439 (16.0%), Romney 55,558 (15.2%), Paul 13,267 (3.6%), and Giuliani 7,631 (2.1%). McCain counties include most of the eastern two thirds of the state and Huckabee has won most of the west, including Greenville and Spartanburg. Four counties report no results or few results. These four counties contained 528,689 people in 2000, which is 13.2% of the state's population.
(9:37) Aiken County came in all at once. McCain won it by three points, which is typical for its area.
(9:39) So did Chesterfield County, which is 49% Huckabee and 28% McCain. This is only 2,206 votes.
(9:42) CNN has absurd Horry County numbers. With 98% of precincts reporting, it is Huckabee 462, McCain 351, Romney 192, Thompson 171, Giuliani 39, Paul 27, Hunter 2. This isn't even remotely the number of votes you would expect. Lexington County, which has a comparable number of white people, has 34,493 votes cast with 100% of precincts reporting. Myrtle Beach Sun-News doesn't have any local results on their website according to a 9:12 update.
(9:47) The same absurd result for Horry County is on the New York Times site.
(10:01) CNN has corrected the absurd Horry County result to 7% of precincts reporting. This projects out to 18,000 county votes, which seems like a reasonable amount.
(10:09) Looks pretty quiet out there. There might not even be any results for those last two counties. The great part is that those Myrtle Beach people are going to have to deal with the fallout in the middle of preparing for the Democrats next weekend. Shouldn't the candidates talk about this issue over the next week before they have to run elections on the exact same machines?
(10:46) Horry County now has 10% reporting. CNN has Huckabee 752, McCain 724, Romney 462, Thompson 294, Giuliani 101, Paul 68, and Hunter 2. The vote total looks reasonable for 10%.
(11:14) Horry County (CNN) has 18%. McCain 1669, Huckabee 1560, Romney 986, Thompson 727, Giuliani 187, Paul 139, and Hunter 17. This is 5,285 votes and the New York Times has 5,291.
(11:20) Horry County (CNN) 26%. McCain 2563, Huckabee 2195, Romney 1544, Thompson 1147, Giuliani 316, Paul 222, Hunter 19.
(11:26) Small disrepancies between the vote totals on CNN and the NYT are probably due to nonreporting of minor candidates Tom Tancredo, Hugh Cort, John Cox, and Cap Fendig. And these guys wouldn't let Stephen Colbert run?
(11:30) Low results are also seen in Florence County: with 33% reporting, it is Huckabee 1527, McCain 1336, Thompson 586, Romney 569, Paul 105, Giuliani 68, Hunter 7. This projects to a reasonable number of total votes cast.
(11:34) Horry County (CNN) 34%. McCain 3362, Huckabee 2787, Romney 2070, Thompson 1541, Giuliani 412, Paul 297, Hunter 22.
(12:19) It is reported that Obama has been projected to win 13 delegates to Clinton's 12 in Nevada, despite losing the popular vote.
(1:04 AM) Two counties still have outstanding precincts, and they are Florence and Horry Counties. There is no change from reported numbers.
(1:16 AM) Horry County is stiull reporting new results over six hours after the polls closed. The new number is 42% reporting, 4055 McCain, 3472 Huckabee, 2418 Romney, 1892 Thompson, 504 Giuliani, 363 Paul, and 32 Hunter. There are 16 additional votes in the NYT totals, which presumably went to fringe candidates.
(1:45 AM) CNN's new delegate totals: 38 Obama, 36 Clinton, and 18 Edwards, and 66 Romney, 38 McCain, 26 Huckabee, 8 Thompson, 6 Paul, 1 Giuliani, and 1 Hunter. Duncan Hunter has withdrwn from the race and presumably his delegate may now be uncommitted. These results are dependent on penalties for early primaries holding at the convention.
(2:17) No new reports in South Carolina since 1:16. Time to call it a night.
(12:40 PM, next day) CNN still doesn't have those two county results all in yet. Horry County has 45% reporting (the polls closed 17 hours ago) with McCain 4347, Huckabee 3733, Romney 2602, Thompson 2057, Giuliani 529, Paul 391, Hunter 33. This was last updated at 2:26 AM. Florence County has 88% reporting, last updated at 2:42 AM, with Huckabee 3987, McCain 3470, Thompson 1494, Romney 1446, Paul 280, Giuliani 166, and Hunter 17.
You know, the stereotype of Republican voter suppression is that it takes place in poor or minority areas, but Horry County is the whitest and wealthiest major urban area in South Carolina. Similarly, the 2006 incident using the same machines in the race to fill Katherine Harris's congressional seat involved an area which was affluent and white. Are these the voters the Republican Party doesn't want voting?
This morning's Myrtle Beach Sun-News says that all the paper ballots were counted last night, but they are still awaiting results from the electronic voting machines, which are expected late this afternoon:
"All the results from Horry County's 118 precincts for yesterday's Republican presidential primary are expected to be in late Sunday afternoon, said Sandy Martin, the director of the county's election office.
About 4,000 paper ballots were cast in the county, Martin said. All the paper ballots were counted last night.
Martin said that election workers still needed to tabulate results from the voting machines from 25 of the county's precincts."The Sun-News also reports that the problem was that the closing time for the election on the machines was set by the state to be on February 26, when the Democratic primary closes. Interesting that they would only make that goof in one county... and ALSO make an independent goof on the same machines which made them not start properly in the morning.
"An incorrect closing time for voting machines set by the S.C. Election Commission forced Horry County election workers to close the machines manually and delayed the issuing of the final results, said Garry Baum, a spokesman for the commission.
The voting machines were set to open on Jan. 19 but to not close until Jan. 26, the date of the Democratic presidential primary. The machines should have also been set to close on Jan. 19.
The problem had nothing to do with an issue earlier in the day that disabled many of the county's voting machines and forced several thousand voters to cast paper ballots.
Sandy Martin, the director of the county's election office, said the county would have been able to issue all the results Saturday night if the state had set the closing for the correct time.
Martin said the voting machines, manufactured by Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software, require a 10-step process to close manually. She said it takes several minutes to do so.
Baum said the state election commission prepares the voting machines before they are sent to the counties. He said he was unsure if a similar problem had affected other counties."
The Sun News also reports that the county Democratic Party is concerned that the machines may not work on Saturday- and they say Republicans turned away are welcome to vote in the Democratic primary.
(5:24) Florence County seems to have not changed its results, but now is claimed to have 100% of precincts reporting instead of 88% before. I guess they don't need the other precincts.We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.
We will investigate all of these thoroughly and would encourage anyone who had concern about actions at the caucus sites to call (866) 675-2008.
Horry County has also done the same, except in this case the modification of the precincts reporting has been from 45% reporting to 91% reporting. 13,702 votes (at 91%) seems low for this county, since Lexington County, with a similar population, has 34,493, and snow-affected Spartanburg County, which is 20% larger, has 30,164 votes.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Liveblog on Michigan Republican Primary
(7:11) Today there is voting in two primaries in Michigan, but the Democratic primary has effectively been canceled, as explained in a previous post. Because this is an open primary, there may be a ton of Democrats which decide to vote in the Republican primary as a goof.
Michigan has 7,180,778 registered voters (out of a 2000 Census population of 9,938,444), which makes this contest more than three times the size of Iowa. However, the Republican National Committee has penalized the state half its delegates in retaliation for violating party rules- they scheduled the primary before February 5, the earliest date allowed by the party. So, there are only 30 delegates at stake.
At the current time, the delegate counts excluding superdelegates (party officials and elected officials) are Romney 24, Huckabee 18 and McCain 10.
The population of Michigan is highly concentrated. The five Detroit area counties have 4.5 million people, 46% of the total, with 2.1 million in central Wayne County, 1.2 million in Oakland County, 790 000 in Macomb County, 320 000 in Washtenaw County, and 160 000 in Livingston County. Only 950 000 people live in the city of Detroit, down from a maximum of nearly 2 million in the 1950s. Detroit is the least white major city in the US, with the population of the city being 83% African-American and 5% Latino. The Detroit area leans Democratic, with Wayne and Washtenaw Counties being more heavily Democratic and Livingston County being heavily Republican.
Outlying major counties, in order of descending population, are Kent (570 000- seat is Grand Rapids), Genesee (440 000- seat is Flint), Ingham (280 000- contains Lansing), Kalamazoo (240 000), Ottawa (240 000- also in Grand Rapids area), and Saginaw (210 000). The outlying parts of the state tend Republican, with Democrats being favored in the eastern half of the state around Flint, Lansing, and Saginaw and in the sparsely populated north, and Republicans being favored in the western half around Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. The population of the outlying part of the state lies almost entirely in the southern half of the lower peninsula, with the upper peninsula accounting for only 3% of the state total. Many media reports may talk about the "evangelical" population of the state, which is mostly in the western half, and much of which differs from other "evangelical" populations because of its membership in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), a Calvinist denomination of Dutch origin.
(8:19) Michigan's delegates are allocated as follows (before the 50% penalty is assessed for having the primary too early, a process which could get ugly): 45 are selected for the winners of the 15 Congressional districts, 12 are in proportion to the statewide vote total, and 3 are party officials. Note that two of Michigan's congressional districts are mostly contained in the City of Detroit and have few Republicans, allowing someone to grab a few delegates with a small number of actual voters.
(8:28) The polls close at 9 (8 in the Wisconsin border counties on Central Time), but the New York Times mysteriously has a few votes in already. They report 234 Romney votes, 158 for McCain, 113 for Huckabee, 50 for Paul, 30 for Thompson, 10 for Giuliani, 10 for "uncommitted" and 1 for Duncan Hunter. You can see their totals, as well as the only county maps I've seen for live results, at this link.
(8:32) More in! Leelanau County in the northwestern lower peninsula is 38% in.
(8:41) Six counties are more than 25% in. Did I get the poll closing time wrong? Still rural areas. McCain leads in five of them.
(8:44) Make that nine. McCain leads seven of the nine. One county with a large town is in- in that one, Berrien County in the southwestern corner (36% in), McCain leads Romney by nine points. With 4% of the total in, Romney is reported up overall by three points. I wonder where the Romney votes are coming from?
(8:51): Romney 17,818 (35.8%), McCain 15,637 (31.4%), Huckabee 8,318 (16.7%), Paul 3,004 (6.0%), Thompson 2,171 (4.4%), Giuliani 1,328 (2.7%), Uncommitteed 1,299 (2.6%), Hunter 159, Tancredo 21 and "others" 17. 5% reporting. Eleven counties 25% in, mostly rural.
(8:55) Wacky totals in the NYT reports on the Democratic side. For instance, in Leelanau County, 46% Clinton, 10% Kucinich, and 4% uncommitted (953 votes, 69% in). What is this, a Gravel stronghold? Anyway, it doesn't matter because the Democrats got penalized ALL their delegates for the early primary, and Edwards and Obama withdrew from the primary in deference to party rules.
(9:01) Sixteen counties 25% in. Still no major ones. Romney opens up a 6 point lead in the totals. A few Detroit area results are in, although not near the 25% threshhold, and it looks like that's where the Romney votes are from.
(9:04) MSNBC has already called the primary for Romney. They claim only 11% in and it is 37% to 31% with Huckabee at 17%. on the NYT site, one major county is now over 25%, which is Ottawa County (Grand Rapids suburbs, Holland). Calhoun County, which contains Battle Creek, is slightly for McCain.
(9:14) In Ottawa County, Michigan's most "evangelical" major county, former home of Blackwater commander Erik Prince, Huckabee has only 22% of the vote with 36% reporting Romney leads McCain 34% to 32% There's no breakdown of the other 12%. I guess the Calvinists aren't that pro-Huckabee.
(9:20) 25% of the smallest Detroit area county is in- with 28% reporting it is Romney 44%, McCain 25%, Huckabee 15%. I am from Livingston County- it's a middle to upper-middle class area with outer suburbs developed since 1970. Many residents commute into Oakland County and Ann Arbor (Washtenaw County). It is heavily Republican but Bush in 2004 got 64% which is twenty points lower than what his father did there in 1988. The Huckabee number is lower than in other parts of the state- what you would expect there because of the low number of evangelicals and real rural people- the agricultural part of the county is only a few percent of the total population, which has increased to an estimated 180,000 from 58,967 in 1970.
(9:29) NYT calls for Romney. 24% of total in, 39% Romney, 30% McCain, 16% Huckabee, 6.3% Paul, 3.8% Thompson, 2.9% Giuliani, 2.0% uncommitted, and 0.5% for others. The Democrats are turning in a whopping 35% for uncommitted. Also, 25% of Macomb County is in, and it has Romney winning 44% to 25% McCain and 14% Huckabee. Macomb County is the third largest in the state (pop. 790,000) and contains a lot of working-class suburbs in the range from 8 to 14 Mile Roads adjacent to the city of Detroit.
(9:40) "Uncommitted" HAS DEFEATED Hillary Clinton in Emmet County, which is a small northern county with the town of Petoskey, home of Michigan's state rock- a fossilized coral known as the Petoskey Stone. With all precincts reporting, uncommitted defeats Hillary 49% to 45% with Kucinich at 5%. The votes cast were 3,232.
(9:50) Massive fluctuations exist in the uncommitteed fraction of the Democratic vote. It's only 5% in Jackson County (a midsize county), but the next county over, Calhoun, is 36% uncommitted. In fact, most counties seem to be reporting 20% to 40% uncommitted, but just a few are in the single digits. Otsego, Chippewa, and Houghton County don't even list it, with Dodd or Gravel third at around 1 or 2%, which would literally mean that uncommitted would have to get less than ten or twenty votes. This means the results are being withheld.
(9:57) HUGE, HUGE news! Emmet County has just unreported its results, now being listed with zero percent reporting! Petoskey must have gotten a call to stand down and re-report with those nasty "uncommitted" hooligans thrown out!
(9:59) HUGER NEWS! With 32% reporting, 9,034 votes, uncommitted leads in Washtenaw County of the Detroit metro area. Those Ann Arborites are pissed at Hillary, and they're not going to take it anymore! Lead is 46%-42%, and Kucinich is at 11%.
(10:06) Weird stuff on the NYT site with major counties in the Detroit area recording large Republican "uncommitted" totals- 23% in Oakland County with 71,513 votes in, for instance, which exceeds the entire vote total (9 684) for the state above. In fact, the page shows uncommitted leading both primaries in Washtenaw County. Odd.
(Copy of page)
(10:12) Romney seems to have lost most rural counties in the state. However, the site reporting looks garbled on the Republican side. I think this is an error at the NYT because there can't be that many "uncommitted" results on the Republican side, can there? 46% of 9,098 in Washtenaw (winning about 4200 votes), 45% of 70,434 in Wayne County (about 32,000), but 10,308 in the state total?
(10:16) Petoskey is back, with a new report with only 1,222 voting, but uncommitted Democrat still winning 49% to 45% with 5% for Kucinich. Chippewa County is reporting uncommitted Democrat results now, with 29% of 1,446 voting uncommitted, all precincts in in both cases. Emmet County has 31,437 people. Chippewa County has 38,543. In the Republican primary 2,983 voted in Chippewa County. The Emmet County republican numbers still aren't in. Houghton and Otsego county are still reporting no uncommitted and claiming 100% is in. This looks pretty weird. Houghton reports 894 D/2604 R votes, Otsego reports 675 D/2683 R votes.
(10:25) The NYT fixed the uncommitted problem on the Republican side. Dickinson County also reports zero Democrat uncommitted. They have 581 D/1627 R. So does Wexford, with 548 D/1213 R.
(10:30) If this is true, the D results are totally shocking! The Detroit News, a Gannett paper, says, "If 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district is uncommitted, its delegates will be free to represent any candidate." This threshhold is exceeded in basically every county in which the uncommitteed total is being reported. There is now 47% reporting in Washtenaw County, which has uncommitted leading Hillary 46% to 42% (11% Kucinich). With 64% in in Wayne County (with Detroit), 50% is for Clinton, 45% for uncommitted, and 4% is Kucinich.
(10:36) Michigan's 156 Democratic delegates are: 83 awarded to Congressional district winners (presumably all Hillary, except maybe some in Detroit area) and 45% will be statewide proportional to vote (running 38% uncommitted and 4.0% Kucinich) and 28 are "party leaders". But this info above suggests that the 83 delegates for Congressional district winners are "free to represent any candidate." Huh??
(10:46) CNN reports 70% African-American vote for "uncommitted" in D primary. 73% said they would vote for Obama if the vote were not totally screwy. Note that this has disenfranchised a lot of African-Americans in a major Democratic state. Way to go, Michigan Democratic Party! Way to encourage those black South Carolinians to vote for the Michigan Democratic Party's anointed candidate!
(11:20) A top news result right now on Google News, second below the top headline "Romney beats McCain in Michigan Vote" from the New York Times, is a video from "Russia Today" which discusses the Kucinich request of a recount in New Hampshire and the nasty situation in the Michigan Democratic primary. The video is on YouTube at this link. Russia Today is a subsidiary of Russia's state news agency RIA-Novosti. Interestingly, the other video on the Google news page right now is from al-Jazeera. I think the reason why is that those guys can't put video on most US cable systems, so the only way most people can ever see it is on YouTube.
(11:40) Most embarrassing statement by anybody- Jim Blanchard, governor of Michigan from 1983 to 1991, appointed ambassador to Canada by Bill Clinton, founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, and chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign in the state, in the Detroit Free Press:
Looking at the past blog, Leelanau County, which reported 4% uncommitted with 69% of the vote in (953 votes), is now reporting 42% uncommitted with 1315 total votes, with all precincts reporting. Otsego, Chippewa, and Dickinson Counties "found" their uncommitted votes, but Houghton and Wexford still have not. The early report of 5% in Jackson County has changed to 33% with all precincts in. And they say people who don't trust the voting systems are wacky conspiracy theorists. There were noticeable irregularites in six small northern counties and in Jackson County, which has a population of 160,000 and contains a major town, Jackson, about 75 miles west of Detroit on Interstate 94.
Most importantly, Washtenaw County has actually voted for nobody before they will vote for Hillary. With all precincts reporting, 46% voted uncommitted, 44% voted Clinton, and 9% voted Kucinich. Kucinich appeared in Ann Arbor yesterday before heading to Nevada to challenge his exclusion from the MSNBC debate before the Nevada Supreme Court. The Washtenaw unofficial result is out showing 28,559 votes cast, and 12,992 are uncommitted, 12,284 are for Hillary, 2455 are for Kucinich, 607 are write-in, 125 are for Dodd, and 96 are for Gravel. Emmet County, headuqartered in the small town of Petoskey, also reports a victory for uncommitted.
Jackson County, incidentally, now reports an "unofficial result" of 3559 Clinton (60.2%) and 1700 (28.8%) uncommitted. The NYT has 5665 votes, 100% in, with 63% Clinton and 33% uncommitted. This is about 170 more uncommitted votes than the unofficial result, with the Clinton number dead on. Using the percentages in the "unofficial result" the total votes were about 5,911.
(1:19) The Wayne County "unofficial results" are seriously different from the New York Times. NYT has 163,919 votes, all precincts in, with 50% Clinton and 46% uncommitted. The "unofficial results" have 45,514 for Hillary, 26,082 for uncommitted, 3356 for Kucinich, 1338 write-ins, 523 Dodd and 289 Gravel. This is a total of only 77,102 votes. This must be a partial total and the final results aren't out yet. But isn't it odd that the part listed here has only 34% uncommitted? I guess it's possible if the part they have in first is in white areas.
(1:26) The Detroit news claims all precincts in for Democrats. They have 328,151 for Hillary (55%), 236,723 for uncommitted (40%), 21,708 for Kucinich, 3853 for Dodd, and 2363 for Gravel.
(1:33) Blanchard has referred to a "stealth campaign" for uncommitted. What a jerk.
(1:38) Apparently today, former US senator Don Riegle gave a blistering speech in Detroit today saying:
“What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union,” Riegle said. “The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It’s wrong and people need to know that.”
(1:49) CNN projects 12 delegates for Romney and 9 for McCain. They have raw county votes with a less convenient interface, and they show exactly zero uncommitted votes in Houghton and Wexford counties. The correct results would add maybe a thousand votes to the total, ablut half a point, but the absence of them is quite disturbing. They also have the numbers in Emmet County- 598 uncommitted, 550 Clinton, and 59 Kucinich, 11 Gravel and 4 Dodd.
Michigan has 7,180,778 registered voters (out of a 2000 Census population of 9,938,444), which makes this contest more than three times the size of Iowa. However, the Republican National Committee has penalized the state half its delegates in retaliation for violating party rules- they scheduled the primary before February 5, the earliest date allowed by the party. So, there are only 30 delegates at stake.
At the current time, the delegate counts excluding superdelegates (party officials and elected officials) are Romney 24, Huckabee 18 and McCain 10.
The population of Michigan is highly concentrated. The five Detroit area counties have 4.5 million people, 46% of the total, with 2.1 million in central Wayne County, 1.2 million in Oakland County, 790 000 in Macomb County, 320 000 in Washtenaw County, and 160 000 in Livingston County. Only 950 000 people live in the city of Detroit, down from a maximum of nearly 2 million in the 1950s. Detroit is the least white major city in the US, with the population of the city being 83% African-American and 5% Latino. The Detroit area leans Democratic, with Wayne and Washtenaw Counties being more heavily Democratic and Livingston County being heavily Republican.
Outlying major counties, in order of descending population, are Kent (570 000- seat is Grand Rapids), Genesee (440 000- seat is Flint), Ingham (280 000- contains Lansing), Kalamazoo (240 000), Ottawa (240 000- also in Grand Rapids area), and Saginaw (210 000). The outlying parts of the state tend Republican, with Democrats being favored in the eastern half of the state around Flint, Lansing, and Saginaw and in the sparsely populated north, and Republicans being favored in the western half around Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. The population of the outlying part of the state lies almost entirely in the southern half of the lower peninsula, with the upper peninsula accounting for only 3% of the state total. Many media reports may talk about the "evangelical" population of the state, which is mostly in the western half, and much of which differs from other "evangelical" populations because of its membership in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), a Calvinist denomination of Dutch origin.
(8:19) Michigan's delegates are allocated as follows (before the 50% penalty is assessed for having the primary too early, a process which could get ugly): 45 are selected for the winners of the 15 Congressional districts, 12 are in proportion to the statewide vote total, and 3 are party officials. Note that two of Michigan's congressional districts are mostly contained in the City of Detroit and have few Republicans, allowing someone to grab a few delegates with a small number of actual voters.
(8:28) The polls close at 9 (8 in the Wisconsin border counties on Central Time), but the New York Times mysteriously has a few votes in already. They report 234 Romney votes, 158 for McCain, 113 for Huckabee, 50 for Paul, 30 for Thompson, 10 for Giuliani, 10 for "uncommitted" and 1 for Duncan Hunter. You can see their totals, as well as the only county maps I've seen for live results, at this link.
(8:32) More in! Leelanau County in the northwestern lower peninsula is 38% in.
(8:41) Six counties are more than 25% in. Did I get the poll closing time wrong? Still rural areas. McCain leads in five of them.
(8:44) Make that nine. McCain leads seven of the nine. One county with a large town is in- in that one, Berrien County in the southwestern corner (36% in), McCain leads Romney by nine points. With 4% of the total in, Romney is reported up overall by three points. I wonder where the Romney votes are coming from?
(8:51): Romney 17,818 (35.8%), McCain 15,637 (31.4%), Huckabee 8,318 (16.7%), Paul 3,004 (6.0%), Thompson 2,171 (4.4%), Giuliani 1,328 (2.7%), Uncommitteed 1,299 (2.6%), Hunter 159, Tancredo 21 and "others" 17. 5% reporting. Eleven counties 25% in, mostly rural.
(8:55) Wacky totals in the NYT reports on the Democratic side. For instance, in Leelanau County, 46% Clinton, 10% Kucinich, and 4% uncommitted (953 votes, 69% in). What is this, a Gravel stronghold? Anyway, it doesn't matter because the Democrats got penalized ALL their delegates for the early primary, and Edwards and Obama withdrew from the primary in deference to party rules.
(9:01) Sixteen counties 25% in. Still no major ones. Romney opens up a 6 point lead in the totals. A few Detroit area results are in, although not near the 25% threshhold, and it looks like that's where the Romney votes are from.
(9:04) MSNBC has already called the primary for Romney. They claim only 11% in and it is 37% to 31% with Huckabee at 17%. on the NYT site, one major county is now over 25%, which is Ottawa County (Grand Rapids suburbs, Holland). Calhoun County, which contains Battle Creek, is slightly for McCain.
(9:14) In Ottawa County, Michigan's most "evangelical" major county, former home of Blackwater commander Erik Prince, Huckabee has only 22% of the vote with 36% reporting Romney leads McCain 34% to 32% There's no breakdown of the other 12%. I guess the Calvinists aren't that pro-Huckabee.
(9:20) 25% of the smallest Detroit area county is in- with 28% reporting it is Romney 44%, McCain 25%, Huckabee 15%. I am from Livingston County- it's a middle to upper-middle class area with outer suburbs developed since 1970. Many residents commute into Oakland County and Ann Arbor (Washtenaw County). It is heavily Republican but Bush in 2004 got 64% which is twenty points lower than what his father did there in 1988. The Huckabee number is lower than in other parts of the state- what you would expect there because of the low number of evangelicals and real rural people- the agricultural part of the county is only a few percent of the total population, which has increased to an estimated 180,000 from 58,967 in 1970.
(9:29) NYT calls for Romney. 24% of total in, 39% Romney, 30% McCain, 16% Huckabee, 6.3% Paul, 3.8% Thompson, 2.9% Giuliani, 2.0% uncommitted, and 0.5% for others. The Democrats are turning in a whopping 35% for uncommitted. Also, 25% of Macomb County is in, and it has Romney winning 44% to 25% McCain and 14% Huckabee. Macomb County is the third largest in the state (pop. 790,000) and contains a lot of working-class suburbs in the range from 8 to 14 Mile Roads adjacent to the city of Detroit.
(9:40) "Uncommitted" HAS DEFEATED Hillary Clinton in Emmet County, which is a small northern county with the town of Petoskey, home of Michigan's state rock- a fossilized coral known as the Petoskey Stone. With all precincts reporting, uncommitted defeats Hillary 49% to 45% with Kucinich at 5%. The votes cast were 3,232.
(9:50) Massive fluctuations exist in the uncommitteed fraction of the Democratic vote. It's only 5% in Jackson County (a midsize county), but the next county over, Calhoun, is 36% uncommitted. In fact, most counties seem to be reporting 20% to 40% uncommitted, but just a few are in the single digits. Otsego, Chippewa, and Houghton County don't even list it, with Dodd or Gravel third at around 1 or 2%, which would literally mean that uncommitted would have to get less than ten or twenty votes. This means the results are being withheld.
(9:57) HUGE, HUGE news! Emmet County has just unreported its results, now being listed with zero percent reporting! Petoskey must have gotten a call to stand down and re-report with those nasty "uncommitted" hooligans thrown out!
(9:59) HUGER NEWS! With 32% reporting, 9,034 votes, uncommitted leads in Washtenaw County of the Detroit metro area. Those Ann Arborites are pissed at Hillary, and they're not going to take it anymore! Lead is 46%-42%, and Kucinich is at 11%.
(10:06) Weird stuff on the NYT site with major counties in the Detroit area recording large Republican "uncommitted" totals- 23% in Oakland County with 71,513 votes in, for instance, which exceeds the entire vote total (9 684) for the state above. In fact, the page shows uncommitted leading both primaries in Washtenaw County. Odd.
(Copy of page)
Results
Democrats
| Candidate | Vote | % | Delegates | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hillary Rodham Clinton | 163,527 | 58.5% | To be determined | |
| Uncommitted | 101,126 | 36.2 | ||
| Dennis J. Kucinich | 11,505 | 4.1 | ||
| Christopher J. Dodd | 2,032 | 0.7 | ||
| Mike Gravel | 1,277 | 0.5 | ||
Republicans
| Candidate | Vote | % | Delegates | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mitt Romney | 193,244 | 39.1% | To be determined | |
| John McCain | 147,432 | 29.8 | ||
| Mike Huckabee | 79,374 | 16.0 | ||
| Ron Paul | 30,964 | 6.3 | ||
| Fred D. Thompson | 18,221 | 3.7 | ||
| Rudolph W. Giuliani | 13,816 | 2.8 | ||
| Uncommitted | 9,684 | 2.0 | ||
| Duncan Hunter | 1,604 | 0.3 | ||
| Tom Tancredo | 271 | 0.1 | ||
| Others | 228 | 0.0 | ||
(10:12) Romney seems to have lost most rural counties in the state. However, the site reporting looks garbled on the Republican side. I think this is an error at the NYT because there can't be that many "uncommitted" results on the Republican side, can there? 46% of 9,098 in Washtenaw (winning about 4200 votes), 45% of 70,434 in Wayne County (about 32,000), but 10,308 in the state total?
(10:16) Petoskey is back, with a new report with only 1,222 voting, but uncommitted Democrat still winning 49% to 45% with 5% for Kucinich. Chippewa County is reporting uncommitted Democrat results now, with 29% of 1,446 voting uncommitted, all precincts in in both cases. Emmet County has 31,437 people. Chippewa County has 38,543. In the Republican primary 2,983 voted in Chippewa County. The Emmet County republican numbers still aren't in. Houghton and Otsego county are still reporting no uncommitted and claiming 100% is in. This looks pretty weird. Houghton reports 894 D/2604 R votes, Otsego reports 675 D/2683 R votes.
(10:25) The NYT fixed the uncommitted problem on the Republican side. Dickinson County also reports zero Democrat uncommitted. They have 581 D/1627 R. So does Wexford, with 548 D/1213 R.
(10:30) If this is true, the D results are totally shocking! The Detroit News, a Gannett paper, says, "If 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district is uncommitted, its delegates will be free to represent any candidate." This threshhold is exceeded in basically every county in which the uncommitteed total is being reported. There is now 47% reporting in Washtenaw County, which has uncommitted leading Hillary 46% to 42% (11% Kucinich). With 64% in in Wayne County (with Detroit), 50% is for Clinton, 45% for uncommitted, and 4% is Kucinich.
(10:36) Michigan's 156 Democratic delegates are: 83 awarded to Congressional district winners (presumably all Hillary, except maybe some in Detroit area) and 45% will be statewide proportional to vote (running 38% uncommitted and 4.0% Kucinich) and 28 are "party leaders". But this info above suggests that the 83 delegates for Congressional district winners are "free to represent any candidate." Huh??
(10:46) CNN reports 70% African-American vote for "uncommitted" in D primary. 73% said they would vote for Obama if the vote were not totally screwy. Note that this has disenfranchised a lot of African-Americans in a major Democratic state. Way to go, Michigan Democratic Party! Way to encourage those black South Carolinians to vote for the Michigan Democratic Party's anointed candidate!
(11:20) A top news result right now on Google News, second below the top headline "Romney beats McCain in Michigan Vote" from the New York Times, is a video from "Russia Today" which discusses the Kucinich request of a recount in New Hampshire and the nasty situation in the Michigan Democratic primary. The video is on YouTube at this link. Russia Today is a subsidiary of Russia's state news agency RIA-Novosti. Interestingly, the other video on the Google news page right now is from al-Jazeera. I think the reason why is that those guys can't put video on most US cable systems, so the only way most people can ever see it is on YouTube.
(11:40) Most embarrassing statement by anybody- Jim Blanchard, governor of Michigan from 1983 to 1991, appointed ambassador to Canada by Bill Clinton, founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, and chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign in the state, in the Detroit Free Press:
"Anything over 50%, we're ecstatic," Blanchard said. "A win is a win is a win, given what happened in Iowa and New Hampshire." Obama won Iowa; Clinton took New Hampshire.
"It's a big boost for Hillary in November. We're thrilled. Michigan has more delegates -- and I believe they will be seated at the convention -- than Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada put together."
(12:34) With 97% reporting, a stunning 40% voted uncommitted in the Democratic primary. 3.8% voted for Kucinich. If this was a normal country, I think this would invalidate the election results.Looking at the past blog, Leelanau County, which reported 4% uncommitted with 69% of the vote in (953 votes), is now reporting 42% uncommitted with 1315 total votes, with all precincts reporting. Otsego, Chippewa, and Dickinson Counties "found" their uncommitted votes, but Houghton and Wexford still have not. The early report of 5% in Jackson County has changed to 33% with all precincts in. And they say people who don't trust the voting systems are wacky conspiracy theorists. There were noticeable irregularites in six small northern counties and in Jackson County, which has a population of 160,000 and contains a major town, Jackson, about 75 miles west of Detroit on Interstate 94.
Most importantly, Washtenaw County has actually voted for nobody before they will vote for Hillary. With all precincts reporting, 46% voted uncommitted, 44% voted Clinton, and 9% voted Kucinich. Kucinich appeared in Ann Arbor yesterday before heading to Nevada to challenge his exclusion from the MSNBC debate before the Nevada Supreme Court. The Washtenaw unofficial result is out showing 28,559 votes cast, and 12,992 are uncommitted, 12,284 are for Hillary, 2455 are for Kucinich, 607 are write-in, 125 are for Dodd, and 96 are for Gravel. Emmet County, headuqartered in the small town of Petoskey, also reports a victory for uncommitted.
Jackson County, incidentally, now reports an "unofficial result" of 3559 Clinton (60.2%) and 1700 (28.8%) uncommitted. The NYT has 5665 votes, 100% in, with 63% Clinton and 33% uncommitted. This is about 170 more uncommitted votes than the unofficial result, with the Clinton number dead on. Using the percentages in the "unofficial result" the total votes were about 5,911.
(1:19) The Wayne County "unofficial results" are seriously different from the New York Times. NYT has 163,919 votes, all precincts in, with 50% Clinton and 46% uncommitted. The "unofficial results" have 45,514 for Hillary, 26,082 for uncommitted, 3356 for Kucinich, 1338 write-ins, 523 Dodd and 289 Gravel. This is a total of only 77,102 votes. This must be a partial total and the final results aren't out yet. But isn't it odd that the part listed here has only 34% uncommitted? I guess it's possible if the part they have in first is in white areas.
(1:26) The Detroit news claims all precincts in for Democrats. They have 328,151 for Hillary (55%), 236,723 for uncommitted (40%), 21,708 for Kucinich, 3853 for Dodd, and 2363 for Gravel.
(1:33) Blanchard has referred to a "stealth campaign" for uncommitted. What a jerk.
(1:38) Apparently today, former US senator Don Riegle gave a blistering speech in Detroit today saying:
“What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union,” Riegle said. “The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It’s wrong and people need to know that.”
(1:49) CNN projects 12 delegates for Romney and 9 for McCain. They have raw county votes with a less convenient interface, and they show exactly zero uncommitted votes in Houghton and Wexford counties. The correct results would add maybe a thousand votes to the total, ablut half a point, but the absence of them is quite disturbing. They also have the numbers in Emmet County- 598 uncommitted, 550 Clinton, and 59 Kucinich, 11 Gravel and 4 Dodd.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Instability Planned In Case of Tight Nominating Conventions
WSBT, Channel 22, in South Bend, Indiana, reports the possibility of dispute in case of a close national primary result.
The Democratic Party has stripped the state of Michigan of all its delegates for scheduling their primary before February 5 in violation of party rules. All of the candidates except Hillary have withdrawn from the race there in deference to the party policy. No write-ins are allowed. However, it appears the Michigan Democratic Party is appointing a set of presumably all-Hillary delegates in order to cause mayhem at the convention in case of a close result.
The state Republicans are apparently preparing a full slate of delegates despite party rules which stripped them of half of their total. However, in this case the candidates are all on the ballot in Michigan, because there really are delegates at stake.
I'm not expecting Hillary to denounce these efforts to wreck the political process of her party.
The Boston Globe reports that all five states penalized by the Republicans claim they will be getting all their delegates because "the nominee" will want a "full delegation". Yes, but what if there IS NO NOMINEE? To further confuse things, Florida is a winner-take-all state, so whoever wins that one is getting a big bloc of potential mayhem.
Friday, January 11, 2008
2002 Wargame Showed US Fleet Vulnerable In Naval Clash
I remember there had been previous leaks of a wargame simulation of an invasion of Iran by US forces had an outcome where there were a lot of ships sunk, and then the simulation was scripted (by "not allowing so as not to produce a result which would be offensive to the Pentagon. After a few such rule changes, the Iran team pulled out because the war game was a complete farce.
Today;'s New York Times has that says one of the 16 ships sank in the simulation was actually the aircraft carrier. The USS Kitty Hawk, the last non-nuclear aircraft carrier in the US fleet, is to be decommissioned this year and replaced with the new USS George H.W. Bush. Nine of the eleven current carriers ore Nimitz Class. A Nimitz Class carrier has a loaded weight of 104,000 tons, a crew of about 5,600 personnel and is powered by two 104-megawatt nuclear reactors. The other two are Kitty Hawk (82,000 tons) and the Enterprise (94,000 tons).
Only six carriers have been sunk in the history of the US Navy, all by Japanese enemy action. Five of these were in 1942 in the early stages of the war and the sixth, the USS Princeton, was sunk at Leyte Gulf in 1944. All of these were small carriers, with weights of less than 20,000 tons. The Shinano, the largest carrier ever sunk, had a weight of 72,000 tons.
Although this apparently was known before about the carrier, this should be even bigger news than just its implications in a conflict with Iran. It indicates that carriers might not have the longest life expectancy in the world when used in waters near a well-equipped land enemy.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
US Health Care Casualty Figures Appear
The US, which spends twice as much on healthcare per person as the evil Canadian menace, has a rate of death from medically preventable illnesses of 109.7 per 100 000 people, a total of 330 000 deaths.
Canada has a rate of 76.83. If the US could achieve this result, 100 000 fewer people would die per year. For comparison, in 2004, the US had 42,636 traffic accident deaths (now third, behind India and China). The US homicide rate is 5.5 per 100 000 people.
Canada has a rate of 76.83. If the US could achieve this result, 100 000 fewer people would die per year. For comparison, in 2004, the US had 42,636 traffic accident deaths (now third, behind India and China). The US homicide rate is 5.5 per 100 000 people.
New Hampshire Primary Liveblog
(7:22) There's a poll result on which says half of Republicans think the economy is "good." I guess they think they work for the party, so they have to say that. There's that poll about "evangelicals" again- only 22% of voters in NH, because they aren't confusing as many Lutherans with a badly worded poll question.
TIME magazine says Hillary is "short" on cash, having only $15 million to $25 million on hand. What's the deal? Didn't expect the campaign to run until Gigantic Tuesday?
(7:33) First results in. With 6% in, Hillary and Obama are tied and McCain leads Romney by 9%. You know, if Romney can't win this, he might want to think about getting out. He might win Michigan on Tuesday, but he's basically the only one running any ads there at all- over Christmas I saw only Romney ads on TV, except for a single Giuliani ad (Guess what! It was about September 11!) and the only signs I saw were the ones for Ron Paul, which are everywhere. CNN shows no results yet.
(7:44) They're up to 9% in at MSNBC with no CNN results yet. They're showing Giuliani with 9% and Paul with 8%, behind Huckabee at 14%. I hope Giuliani gets beat by Ron Paul again.
(7:50) I noticed there aren't any results for Fred Thompson at all. I guess he's rated as a fringe candidate in this one.
(7:56) 93% of Democrats say they're "angry" with the Bush Administration.
(8:01) Polls have closed. There were results in before the polls closed?
(8:11) MSNBC calls the primary for McCain. So does CNN. With 11% in, he leads 37% to 28%. Is it time for Romney to drop out yet?
(8:24) MSNBC claims 51% of REPUBLICANS are "dissatisfied" or "angry" about the Bush Administration.
(8:27) The New York Times site has percent in for different counties- most of the early returns are for Strafford County (now about 60% in) with 13% of the total in. This county is on the Maine border around Rochester and Dover and has 112,000 people, about 9% of the total.
(8:44) If you take the early results and divide by the percent in, you get a projection of 280,000 Democrats and only 180,000 Republicans. The population of New Hampshire is 1.2 million, which suggests around 800,000 eligible voters. Note that this is a highly uneven turnout in a swing state (where Republicans lost big in the 2006 midterms) with very avid voters. The Republicans must be really dissatisfied with the field. I'm sure Sen. Sununu isn't going to like these numbers, either.
(8:47) Romney is conceding. He mentioned his first-place finish in Wyoming that nobody noticed. He also said Michigan is an example of what will happen to the economy if the Democrats are in office. Hey, didn't Michigan have a Republican governor for 12 years (John Engler, 1991-2003), and don't the Republicans still control one branch of the state legislature?
(9:08) Chris Matthews defines Giuliani's performance as "just about as badly as you can do in New Hampshire."
(9:11) McCain is on the podium. The crowd looks enthusiastic. He's tlked a bunch of times about being "truthful"- a slam at Bush, Romney, and possibly Giuliani?
(9:20) CNN's exit poll claims Ron Paul got a 24% of the vote in the 18-24 age category and 18% of those from 25-29. It's also notable that Republicans were 56% male. The Democratic poll is also up- it seems to suggest that Clinton might have won overall. If you do the math, it was 40% to 37% in the exit poll.
(9:43) The New York Times shows county results for every county but Belknap County (seat Laconia) at this point. It shows Mitt Romney leading in 1 county (Rockingham, contains coast) and McCain in the other 7. Romney is also in a near-tie in New Hampshire's most populous county, Hillsborough County (Manchester and Nashua), while McCain leads outstate.
On the democratic side, Hillary has both Rockingham and Hillsbourough by solid margins. Obama has five of seven outstate counties. Obama does better than Hillary in rural areas?
(10:30). Called for Hillary by MSNBC.
(10:38) CNN reports AP call, doesn't yet call.
(10:54) Obama on. Best line: "We will not use 9-11 to scare a vote." Perhaps somebody at the Obama campaign has noticed the Bush Administration has such a poor reputation on this issue that a 2004 Zogby poll has shown amazing percentages of the public actually thinks they did it? In New York state, 41% thought there was some government complicity, including 49% of New York City. "The charge found very high support among adults under 30 (62.8%), African-Americans (62.5%), Hispanics (60.1%), Asians (59.4%), and "Born Again" Evangelical Christians (47.9%)."
(11:12) Obama says we should get out of Iraq (and stay in Afghanistan). Hillary says we will end the war "the right way". Earth to Hillary: You want to sound decisive on this issue. This is why Kerry lost in 2004.
Unfortunaltely, with most of the results in it appears that Giuliani has come in fourth (8.6%), ahead of Ron Paul (7.7%).
(1:56) Turnout- Democrats 279,276 with 96% reporting, Republicans 228,531 with 96% reporting. This looks like a significant difference. Altogether this is 507,807 votes out of 850,536 registered voters (60%).
TIME magazine says Hillary is "short" on cash, having only $15 million to $25 million on hand. What's the deal? Didn't expect the campaign to run until Gigantic Tuesday?
(7:33) First results in. With 6% in, Hillary and Obama are tied and McCain leads Romney by 9%. You know, if Romney can't win this, he might want to think about getting out. He might win Michigan on Tuesday, but he's basically the only one running any ads there at all- over Christmas I saw only Romney ads on TV, except for a single Giuliani ad (Guess what! It was about September 11!) and the only signs I saw were the ones for Ron Paul, which are everywhere. CNN shows no results yet.
(7:44) They're up to 9% in at MSNBC with no CNN results yet. They're showing Giuliani with 9% and Paul with 8%, behind Huckabee at 14%. I hope Giuliani gets beat by Ron Paul again.
(7:50) I noticed there aren't any results for Fred Thompson at all. I guess he's rated as a fringe candidate in this one.
(7:56) 93% of Democrats say they're "angry" with the Bush Administration.
(8:01) Polls have closed. There were results in before the polls closed?
(8:11) MSNBC calls the primary for McCain. So does CNN. With 11% in, he leads 37% to 28%. Is it time for Romney to drop out yet?
(8:24) MSNBC claims 51% of REPUBLICANS are "dissatisfied" or "angry" about the Bush Administration.
(8:27) The New York Times site has percent in for different counties- most of the early returns are for Strafford County (now about 60% in) with 13% of the total in. This county is on the Maine border around Rochester and Dover and has 112,000 people, about 9% of the total.
(8:44) If you take the early results and divide by the percent in, you get a projection of 280,000 Democrats and only 180,000 Republicans. The population of New Hampshire is 1.2 million, which suggests around 800,000 eligible voters. Note that this is a highly uneven turnout in a swing state (where Republicans lost big in the 2006 midterms) with very avid voters. The Republicans must be really dissatisfied with the field. I'm sure Sen. Sununu isn't going to like these numbers, either.
(8:47) Romney is conceding. He mentioned his first-place finish in Wyoming that nobody noticed. He also said Michigan is an example of what will happen to the economy if the Democrats are in office. Hey, didn't Michigan have a Republican governor for 12 years (John Engler, 1991-2003), and don't the Republicans still control one branch of the state legislature?
(9:08) Chris Matthews defines Giuliani's performance as "just about as badly as you can do in New Hampshire."
(9:11) McCain is on the podium. The crowd looks enthusiastic. He's tlked a bunch of times about being "truthful"- a slam at Bush, Romney, and possibly Giuliani?
(9:20) CNN's exit poll claims Ron Paul got a 24% of the vote in the 18-24 age category and 18% of those from 25-29. It's also notable that Republicans were 56% male. The Democratic poll is also up- it seems to suggest that Clinton might have won overall. If you do the math, it was 40% to 37% in the exit poll.
(9:43) The New York Times shows county results for every county but Belknap County (seat Laconia) at this point. It shows Mitt Romney leading in 1 county (Rockingham, contains coast) and McCain in the other 7. Romney is also in a near-tie in New Hampshire's most populous county, Hillsborough County (Manchester and Nashua), while McCain leads outstate.
On the democratic side, Hillary has both Rockingham and Hillsbourough by solid margins. Obama has five of seven outstate counties. Obama does better than Hillary in rural areas?
(10:30). Called for Hillary by MSNBC.
(10:38) CNN reports AP call, doesn't yet call.
(10:54) Obama on. Best line: "We will not use 9-11 to scare a vote." Perhaps somebody at the Obama campaign has noticed the Bush Administration has such a poor reputation on this issue that a 2004 Zogby poll has shown amazing percentages of the public actually thinks they did it? In New York state, 41% thought there was some government complicity, including 49% of New York City. "The charge found very high support among adults under 30 (62.8%), African-Americans (62.5%), Hispanics (60.1%), Asians (59.4%), and "Born Again" Evangelical Christians (47.9%)."
(11:12) Obama says we should get out of Iraq (and stay in Afghanistan). Hillary says we will end the war "the right way". Earth to Hillary: You want to sound decisive on this issue. This is why Kerry lost in 2004.
Unfortunaltely, with most of the results in it appears that Giuliani has come in fourth (8.6%), ahead of Ron Paul (7.7%).
(1:56) Turnout- Democrats 279,276 with 96% reporting, Republicans 228,531 with 96% reporting. This looks like a significant difference. Altogether this is 507,807 votes out of 850,536 registered voters (60%).
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Ron Paul Air Force Expands Efforts
These are guys launching a helicopter and banner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at this link. A second link confirms a second flight in Concord, New Hampshire. There is also video of a balloon. Meanwhile, the blimp heads for South Carolina.
Right Fight!! New Hampshire GOP vs. Fox News!
The New Hampshire GOP has cut its ties to the FOX News "No Ron Paul" debate. I guess they think Mr. 4% has more of a chance of winning. They've made Ron Paul talk to "voters" over at PBS... But HE'S ON LENO Monday night. Note that this is General Electric bashing Rupert Murdoch. Expect Paul supporters to be fired up on Tuesday.
Huckabee has been heckled by an apparent LaRouchie in Manchester.
Ron Paul supporters have started a protest website collecting Internet user comments on the Fox News exclusion at http://www.ronaldholland.com/protestfox.htm.
The Paul supporters have also deluged the Fox News comments pages with emails in protest.
They've declared all-out war: One source says Paul supporters say citizens should "boycott Fox News, its sponsors and even short their shares." They're trying to get Atlas to shrug! They've even got charts!
And, there are reports of a new addition to the Ron Paul Air Force, a plane with a "Ron Paul Revolution" banner.
Mike Gravel, speaking at a posh East Coast prep school, has said pot is safer than alcohol.
Huckabee has been heckled by an apparent LaRouchie in Manchester.
Ron Paul supporters have started a protest website collecting Internet user comments on the Fox News exclusion at http://www.ronaldholland.com/protestfox.htm.
The Paul supporters have also deluged the Fox News comments pages with emails in protest.
They've declared all-out war: One source says Paul supporters say citizens should "boycott Fox News, its sponsors and even short their shares." They're trying to get Atlas to shrug! They've even got charts!
And, there are reports of a new addition to the Ron Paul Air Force, a plane with a "Ron Paul Revolution" banner.
Mike Gravel, speaking at a posh East Coast prep school, has said pot is safer than alcohol.
Friday, January 4, 2008
2008 Primary Schedule- Republicans and Democrats
Just in case you were wondering what the schedule was:
In the entries below, the numbers after a date are the numbers of Dem/Rep delegates selected on or before the date, and the numbers after a state are the numbers of Dem/Rep delegates selected in the states. Zero means that party's event is on another day. Some events are nonbinding, and actual delegate selection may occur at state conventions later than the events. An X means all delegates have been taken away by the party committee because of violation of party scheduling rules, and a small x means half has been taken away.
In both parties, the median date of selection of the delegates is Gigantic Tuesday, February 5, on which 51.4% of Democratic delegates and 46.7% or Republican delegates are selected, and after which the cumulative percentages of delegates selected are 55.7%/59.3%.
January
3 (57/40)- IA (57/40)
5 (57/68)- WY (0/28x)
8 (87/80)- NH (30/12x)
15 (87/140)- MI (X/60x)
19 (120/221)- NV (33/34), SC (0/47x)
26 (174/221)- SC (54/0)
29 (174/278)- FL (X/57x)
February
1 (174/299)- ME (0/21)
5 (2249/1412)- AL (60/48), AK (18/29), AZ (67/53), AR (47/34), CA (441/173), CO (71/46), CT (60/30), DE (23/18), GA (103/72), ID (23/0), IL (185/70), KS (41/0), MA (121/43), MN (88/41), MO (88/58), MT (0/25), NJ (127/52), NM (38/32), NY (281/101), ND (21/26), OK (47/41), TN (85/55), UT (29/36), WV (0/30), Abroad (11/0)
9 (2454/1538)- KS (0/39), LA (68/47), NE (31/0), WA (97/40), VI (9/0)
10 (2482/1538)- ME (38/0)
12 (2684/1731)- DC (0/19), MD (99/37), PA (0/74), VA (103/63)
16 (2684/1740)- Guam (0/9)
19 (2805/1780)- HI (29/0), WI (92/40)
March
1 (2805/1789)- American Samoa (0/9)
4 (3249/2054)- OH (161/88), RI (32/20), TX (228/140), VT (23/17)
8 (3267/2054)- WY (18/0)
9 (3276/2054)- American Samoa (9/0)
11 (3316/2065)- MS (40/11)
April
3 (3354/2065)- DC (38/0)
5 (3354/2071)- Virgin Is. (0/6)
22 (3542/2071)- PA (188/0)
May
3 (3551/2071)- Guam (9/0)
6 (3770/2197)- IN (85/57), NC (134/69)
13 (3809/2230)- NE (39/33)
17 (3809/2250)- HI (0/20)
20 (3933/2325)- KY (59/45), OR (65/30)
27 (3933/2355)- ID (0/30)
June
3 (3980/2382)- MT (24/0), SD (23/27)
7 (4036/2382)- Puerto Rico (56/0)
In the entries below, the numbers after a date are the numbers of Dem/Rep delegates selected on or before the date, and the numbers after a state are the numbers of Dem/Rep delegates selected in the states. Zero means that party's event is on another day. Some events are nonbinding, and actual delegate selection may occur at state conventions later than the events. An X means all delegates have been taken away by the party committee because of violation of party scheduling rules, and a small x means half has been taken away.
In both parties, the median date of selection of the delegates is Gigantic Tuesday, February 5, on which 51.4% of Democratic delegates and 46.7% or Republican delegates are selected, and after which the cumulative percentages of delegates selected are 55.7%/59.3%.
January
3 (57/40)- IA (57/40)
5 (57/68)- WY (0/28x)
8 (87/80)- NH (30/12x)
15 (87/140)- MI (X/60x)
19 (120/221)- NV (33/34), SC (0/47x)
26 (174/221)- SC (54/0)
29 (174/278)- FL (X/57x)
February
1 (174/299)- ME (0/21)
5 (2249/1412)- AL (60/48), AK (18/29), AZ (67/53), AR (47/34), CA (441/173), CO (71/46), CT (60/30), DE (23/18), GA (103/72), ID (23/0), IL (185/70), KS (41/0), MA (121/43), MN (88/41), MO (88/58), MT (0/25), NJ (127/52), NM (38/32), NY (281/101), ND (21/26), OK (47/41), TN (85/55), UT (29/36), WV (0/30), Abroad (11/0)
9 (2454/1538)- KS (0/39), LA (68/47), NE (31/0), WA (97/40), VI (9/0)
10 (2482/1538)- ME (38/0)
12 (2684/1731)- DC (0/19), MD (99/37), PA (0/74), VA (103/63)
16 (2684/1740)- Guam (0/9)
19 (2805/1780)- HI (29/0), WI (92/40)
March
1 (2805/1789)- American Samoa (0/9)
4 (3249/2054)- OH (161/88), RI (32/20), TX (228/140), VT (23/17)
8 (3267/2054)- WY (18/0)
9 (3276/2054)- American Samoa (9/0)
11 (3316/2065)- MS (40/11)
April
3 (3354/2065)- DC (38/0)
5 (3354/2071)- Virgin Is. (0/6)
22 (3542/2071)- PA (188/0)
May
3 (3551/2071)- Guam (9/0)
6 (3770/2197)- IN (85/57), NC (134/69)
13 (3809/2230)- NE (39/33)
17 (3809/2250)- HI (0/20)
20 (3933/2325)- KY (59/45), OR (65/30)
27 (3933/2355)- ID (0/30)
June
3 (3980/2382)- MT (24/0), SD (23/27)
7 (4036/2382)- Puerto Rico (56/0)
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Interesting Results And Liveblog On Iowa Caucusgoers
A few things- "born-again or evangelical" may be a bad question to ask in Iowa because Lutherans, as any German will tell you, are an "evangelical" church.
Interesting results- Chicks Dig Huckabee! Kucinich voters and Ron Paul voters are poor. McCain and Thompson voters are old. Only 26% of Republicans are under 45, while 40% of Democrats are. People who said events in Pakistan are "Very Important" had a preference for McCain but not Giuliani, who sucks ass in Iowa. Ron Paul voters don't give a fuck about Pakistan. Surprisingly, Richardson voters aren't too into it either. 69% of Republican caucusgoers are rural, which is astonishingly high even in Iowa- only 31% of the Democrats were rural. An amazing 29% of Republicans are from "Western Iowa", which is sparsely populated and very rural (Council Bluffs and Sioux Falls are the only large towns)- only 16% of Democrats were.
Full Entrance polls for Dems and Reps here at CNN.
The big news is that a stunning 44% or Republicans, with 78% of precincts reporting, told the party establishment exactly where they can go (hint: Dick Cheney told Patrick Leahy about it) by voting for Huckabee (34%) or Ron Paul (10%). And the Republican who is the most exact successor to President Bush, the Mayor of September 11, came in SIXTH (Hoorah!), with a pitiful 4% of the vote. Perhaps expecting the utter disaster, McCain spent the day campaigning in Florida.
I'm watching Huckabee on the podium now on MSNBC with Chuck Norris, his campaign manager, in the background. I figure maybe not being totally fake might actually be endearing to Midwestern Republicans. The other weird thing is that he's from the same part of Arkansas as Bill Clinton, is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and yet has a totally flawless Midwest accent. It's almost as good as Obama's. How did that happen? And right now he just made a statement dissing "the ruling class". I don't even think John Edwards would use that term to talk about the Republican Party establishment. It sounds almost British.
They're claiming the Democratic turnout, in Iowa, was more than twice the Republican turnout.
Update from a bit later (11:06): Obama does seem to have some younger people behind him on the dais. Change that on the Midwest accent part- it seems like he's been taking lessons in diction from Oprah. He said his story "could only happen in the United States of America". This is definitely true because we have just seen that in Kenya, when a Luo runs for President, they get out the tear gas, water cannons, and flaming tires.
Dodd and Biden have reportedly dropped out of the race.
(11:36): In a triumph for the rights of persons born with ambiguous genitalia, an MSNBC graphic on the screen describing the gender of Hillary's voters had three bars, for men, women, and a third unlabeled bar which said "0%". Unfortunately, it appears nobody who wasn't a man or a woman voted for Hillary. Their entrance poll also claimed that 60% of Republican voters were "evangelicals" which I think still think is flawed because it confused a shitload of mainline Lutherans. Guys, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the LARGEST denomination in the stste of Iowa, is not a fundie church. They're not going to bend to American Religions of the Month (except for those other Lutherans, the wacky Missouri Synod) because they are more conservative than that-
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Not,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
(11:55) Keith Olbermann is talking to Huckabee, and Huckabee just dissed those who profess a religion and don't practice it. I wonder if this is a slam of Romney's habit of contradicting LDS doctrine, as seen in this link on Salt Lake City's Channel 4, on a regular basis when he makes statements about religion?
And finally, MSNBC reported the Democratic turnout to be 238,000. With 86% of precincts reporting, 104,025 Republicans have voted, not including those who might have voted for candidates not in the seven listed, such as Alan Keyes, who has gotten at least one vote in Plymouth County, which has 72 African-Americans out of a population of 24,849, north of Sioux City.
(12:23) The Republican establishment is now formally pissed. This from the Club for Growth, a corporatist PAC which whacks Republican candidates who get out of line: (My snide remarks in[brackets])
Club for Growth PAC: Statement on the Iowa caucus results
1/3/2008
Press Contact—Nachama Soloveichik
202.887.7039 • 646.528.1029 [Good one hiding your Manhattan office in the "other" area code, but for Christ's sake, can't you put your damn Washington office in the Virginia suburbs (703) instead of in the District of Columbia like all the good red staters would?]
Washington – In light of the Iowa caucus results tonight, Club for Growth President Pat Toomey issued the following statement:
“The Club for Growth PAC urges New Hampshire voters to reject Mike Huckabee and his big-government policies next Tuesday. Republican voters should nominate a leader who will return the Party to the principles of economic conservatism, not an economic liberal who wants to be the John Edwards of the Republican Party." [Yikes!! John Edwards! Next you'll be calling him the Antichrist, but that won't fool those other Lutherans, the fundie Missouri Synod, who know it's the Pope.]
“Mike Huckabee has a proven track record of increasing taxes and spending as governor of Arkansas, opposes school choice,endorsed by homeschoolers or anything.> engages in protectionist and class-warfare rhetoric , and wants to impose a slew of new government regulations. New Hampshire has long been a state that appreciates economic freedom [but the Club For Growth doesn't appreciate freedom!- "Ron Paul's history contains some curious indiscretions, including a vote for $232 million for federally mandated election reform."] and limited government. Mike Huckabee does not represent those values.”
(1:07): The Democratic establishment has reason to be pissed as well. CNN claims to have 100% in on the Democratic side, and they say Hillary came IN THIRD (Hoorah!). Mysteriously, they also project that she will get one more delegate than Edwards. Perhaps CNN knows something mysterious about the Iowa Democratic Party that we don't... They are also projecting that Ron Paul got two delegates. Guess who will be locked out of the arena this summer in Minneapolis...
There is a report that in polls Republican caucusgoers listed "immigration" as their #1 issue. The 2000 Census reported a massive increase in Latinos in Iowa- they were a huge 3.8% of the state's population. Only 3.3% of Iowa's population was born outside the US. Marshalltown, a town of 26,000 people, was 12.6% Latino, but according to the Wikipedia entry, " Marshalltown has a relatively high Hispanic population compared to other towns in Iowa. This is largely due to the Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, which employs many Hispanics who have moved to Marshalltown in recent years."
In fact, 69% of Republicans were from "rural areas", not "cities" or "suburbs" (was this self-reported or based on the caucus locations?), so you wonder- are they worried there won't be enough Mexicans to help around the farm?
(2:04) I noticed a strange anomaly watching the results come in on CNN and a strange thing happened earlier. Giuliani, for about a half an hour, surged from 4% to 10%. When the anomaly disappeared, the vote total for Giuliani went down, which means there was an error. It appears that a commenter to CNN's website found that Giuliani had 49% of the vote in Linn County, which contains the city of Cedar Rapids and thus is by Iowa standards a major county (nearly 200,000 people). The guy claimed it was fixed four minutes later. I guess somebody at CNN entered an extra digit.
I guess Rush Limbaugh hates Huckabee, too. His show isn't on until tomorrow, of course, but he launched into a 3615-word uninterrupted anti-Huckabee rant about how he was no Ronald Reagan on his show today, in which he also bashes the other popular Republican in America, Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Isn't it great to use the Word Counter in another window?) Highlights:
Reagan was a huge law-and-order governor as well. He put down the riots on college campi from '66 to '74, he didn't release hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of criminals. If you want to compare him to a California governor on that stand, compare him to Governor Schwarzenegger, who is preparing to release a bunch of criminals on the basis of budget cuts.
Governor Huckabee raised more taxes in ten years in office as governor than Bill Clinton did in his 12 years as governor.
Huckabee said on The Tonight Show last night if you can't stand the sight of your own blood, don't get into politics. This was before he played the guitar or maybe it was after he played the guitar. Clintonesque. Clinton played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall; Huckabee last night played the guitar, the bass guitar.
(Next Day): I noticed something totally bizarre about the CNN entrance polls. While they asked the Republicans if they were "born again" or "evangelical" (see above for why this is stupid), they didn't even ask the Democrats the same question. I guess the dorks at the mainstream media think all white "born again" or "evangelical" Christians are Republicans.
Interesting results- Chicks Dig Huckabee! Kucinich voters and Ron Paul voters are poor. McCain and Thompson voters are old. Only 26% of Republicans are under 45, while 40% of Democrats are. People who said events in Pakistan are "Very Important" had a preference for McCain but not Giuliani, who sucks ass in Iowa. Ron Paul voters don't give a fuck about Pakistan. Surprisingly, Richardson voters aren't too into it either. 69% of Republican caucusgoers are rural, which is astonishingly high even in Iowa- only 31% of the Democrats were rural. An amazing 29% of Republicans are from "Western Iowa", which is sparsely populated and very rural (Council Bluffs and Sioux Falls are the only large towns)- only 16% of Democrats were.
Full Entrance polls for Dems and Reps here at CNN.
The big news is that a stunning 44% or Republicans, with 78% of precincts reporting, told the party establishment exactly where they can go (hint: Dick Cheney told Patrick Leahy about it) by voting for Huckabee (34%) or Ron Paul (10%). And the Republican who is the most exact successor to President Bush, the Mayor of September 11, came in SIXTH (Hoorah!), with a pitiful 4% of the vote. Perhaps expecting the utter disaster, McCain spent the day campaigning in Florida.
I'm watching Huckabee on the podium now on MSNBC with Chuck Norris, his campaign manager, in the background. I figure maybe not being totally fake might actually be endearing to Midwestern Republicans. The other weird thing is that he's from the same part of Arkansas as Bill Clinton, is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and yet has a totally flawless Midwest accent. It's almost as good as Obama's. How did that happen? And right now he just made a statement dissing "the ruling class". I don't even think John Edwards would use that term to talk about the Republican Party establishment. It sounds almost British.
They're claiming the Democratic turnout, in Iowa, was more than twice the Republican turnout.
Update from a bit later (11:06): Obama does seem to have some younger people behind him on the dais. Change that on the Midwest accent part- it seems like he's been taking lessons in diction from Oprah. He said his story "could only happen in the United States of America". This is definitely true because we have just seen that in Kenya, when a Luo runs for President, they get out the tear gas, water cannons, and flaming tires.
Dodd and Biden have reportedly dropped out of the race.
(11:36): In a triumph for the rights of persons born with ambiguous genitalia, an MSNBC graphic on the screen describing the gender of Hillary's voters had three bars, for men, women, and a third unlabeled bar which said "0%". Unfortunately, it appears nobody who wasn't a man or a woman voted for Hillary. Their entrance poll also claimed that 60% of Republican voters were "evangelicals" which I think still think is flawed because it confused a shitload of mainline Lutherans. Guys, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the LARGEST denomination in the stste of Iowa, is not a fundie church. They're not going to bend to American Religions of the Month (except for those other Lutherans, the wacky Missouri Synod) because they are more conservative than that-
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Not,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
(11:55) Keith Olbermann is talking to Huckabee, and Huckabee just dissed those who profess a religion and don't practice it. I wonder if this is a slam of Romney's habit of contradicting LDS doctrine, as seen in this link on Salt Lake City's Channel 4, on a regular basis when he makes statements about religion?
And finally, MSNBC reported the Democratic turnout to be 238,000. With 86% of precincts reporting, 104,025 Republicans have voted, not including those who might have voted for candidates not in the seven listed, such as Alan Keyes, who has gotten at least one vote in Plymouth County, which has 72 African-Americans out of a population of 24,849, north of Sioux City.
(12:23) The Republican establishment is now formally pissed. This from the Club for Growth, a corporatist PAC which whacks Republican candidates who get out of line: (My snide remarks in
Club for Growth PAC: Statement on the Iowa caucus results
1/3/2008
Press Contact—Nachama Soloveichik
202.887.7039
Washington – In light of the Iowa caucus results tonight, Club for Growth President Pat Toomey issued the following statement:
“The Club for Growth PAC urges New Hampshire voters to reject Mike Huckabee and his big-government policies next Tuesday. Republican voters should nominate a leader who will return the Party to the principles of economic conservatism, not an economic liberal who wants to be the John Edwards of the Republican Party." [Yikes!! John Edwards! Next you'll be calling him the Antichrist, but that won't fool those other Lutherans, the fundie Missouri Synod,
“Mike Huckabee has a proven track record of increasing taxes and spending as governor of Arkansas, opposes school choice,
(1:07): The Democratic establishment has reason to be pissed as well. CNN claims to have 100% in on the Democratic side, and they say Hillary came IN THIRD (Hoorah!). Mysteriously, they also project that she will get one more delegate than Edwards. Perhaps CNN knows something mysterious about the Iowa Democratic Party that we don't... They are also projecting that Ron Paul got two delegates. Guess who will be locked out of the arena this summer in Minneapolis...
There is a report that in polls Republican caucusgoers listed "immigration" as their #1 issue. The 2000 Census reported a massive increase in Latinos in Iowa- they were a huge 3.8% of the state's population. Only 3.3% of Iowa's population was born outside the US. Marshalltown, a town of 26,000 people, was 12.6% Latino, but according to the Wikipedia entry, "
In fact, 69% of Republicans were from "rural areas", not "cities" or "suburbs" (was this self-reported or based on the caucus locations?), so you wonder- are they worried there won't be enough Mexicans to help around the farm?
(2:04) I noticed a strange anomaly watching the results come in on CNN and a strange thing happened earlier. Giuliani, for about a half an hour, surged from 4% to 10%. When the anomaly disappeared, the vote total for Giuliani went down, which means there was an error. It appears that a commenter to CNN's website found that Giuliani had 49% of the vote in Linn County, which contains the city of Cedar Rapids and thus is by Iowa standards a major county (nearly 200,000 people). The guy claimed it was fixed four minutes later. I guess somebody at CNN entered an extra digit.
I guess Rush Limbaugh hates Huckabee, too. His show isn't on until tomorrow, of course, but he launched into a 3615-word uninterrupted anti-Huckabee rant about how he was no Ronald Reagan on his show today, in which he also bashes the other popular Republican in America, Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Isn't it great to use the Word Counter in another window?) Highlights:
Reagan was a huge law-and-order governor as well. He put down the riots on college campi from '66 to '74, he didn't release hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of criminals. If you want to compare him to a California governor on that stand, compare him to Governor Schwarzenegger, who is preparing to release a bunch of criminals on the basis of budget cuts.
Governor Huckabee raised more taxes in ten years in office as governor than Bill Clinton did in his 12 years as governor.
Huckabee said on The Tonight Show last night if you can't stand the sight of your own blood, don't get into politics. This was before he played the guitar or maybe it was after he played the guitar. Clintonesque. Clinton played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall; Huckabee last night played the guitar, the bass guitar.
(Next Day): I noticed something totally bizarre about the CNN entrance polls. While they asked the Republicans if they were "born again" or "evangelical" (see above for why this is stupid), they didn't even ask the Democrats the same question. I guess the dorks at the mainstream media think all white "born again" or "evangelical" Christians are Republicans.
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