12:24 I keep nodding off, and doubt I'll be able to stay the course. I leave you with the thought that the longer this drags on, the more likely this is to become a Pyrrhic victory for whoever wins.
10:52 Ohio called for HIllary. In the interests of preserving human dignity, I will not attempt to spin this.
10:18 Pat Buchanan is claiming that this is basically a referendum on NAFTA. To the person with a hammer . . .
9:38: Commentator says "What George Bush did in 2004 was to create new Republicans, and John McCain will be looking to do that in a different way this time around." To be honest, I feel that both McCain and Bush are too old to start new families.
9:24: Stephen Green is attempting the oft-before-achieved primary drunkblogging.
9:21 Huckabee is basically conceding. Now that he's dropped out, I have to admit he's kind of charming, like your good-hearted Uncle Ned who believes in free silver, and fairies. Meanwhile, Rhode Island is projected for Clinton, as expected; the major question is how close the race will be.
9:09: Best line of the night so far is from The Economist: "Fox News is also reporting the impending Bush endorsement. Tough break for Mr McCain, but I guess it's best to get bad news out of the way early in the campaign. " That's weapons-grade snark.
9:00: I am really starting to get irritated by the portentious tone with which anchors relay the surprising news that John McCain has carried the Republican primary. Give it up, already. There is one piece of real news: he now has 1205 delegates, enough to lock the nomination. On the Democratic side, Texas and Ohio still too close to call--time to make a pot of coffee. Because I am an impartial journalist, I will not be using beans from either Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts. That's how you can be sure of my unbiased evenhandedness, despite the fact that I prefer Dunkin' Donuts.
8:44: Chris Matthews says that this is between the Starbucks crowd and the Dunkin' Donuts crowd, a nifty political analogy as these things go. Then he utterly spoils it by hastening to add that he likes both kinds of coffee equally well. Myself, I'm an unabashed Dunkin' Donuts girl.
8:34: MSNBC reports lines going out the door in Dallas. If one thing is clear, it's that this election is generating record turnout, at least among Democrats. Unless McCain can drum up similar interest among the Republican base, he's going to have a very tough fight in November.
8:32: Rove is now on spinning for McCain. Hello, MSNBC!
The post is getting too long . . . more below the fold
8:28: Fox News' math can't be right. They are reporting 449,702 votes for Obama and 323,623 for Clinton, which they claim is less than 1% of the vote. The entire population of Texas is only 23 million, so this implies that all of them are voting in the Democratic primary--two or three times.
8:23: Everything really is bigger in Texas; some precincts closed at 8, and about 1% of the vote is reporting. 1% of the vote is a freakishly large number of people.
8:20: Drudge says that the exit polls are too close to call in Ohio and Texas. That is not good for Hillary--Ohio was supposed to be a lock.
8:04: Bill O'Reilly is suggesting that minority turnout in Texas is a wash: Latinos broke 2-to-1 against Obama, but blacks broke 4-to-1 for him; the two allegedly cancel each other out. It's all on the white vote--will Rush Limbaugh's campaign for Hillary give her enough votes to matter?
8:02: A judge has allowed polls to remain open until 9:00 in Sandusky county. It's going to be a loooooooooooooooooong night.
7:51: More excitement: both Clinton and Obama camps are accusing the others of trying to rig the caucuses.
8:00: Fox News is reporting that the ballot shortages were in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties, which contain (respectively) Cleveland and Columbus. The Obama campaign has requested a poll extension for voters who were prevented by ballot shortages from voting. Also, allegedly the weather in Ohio is suppressing Hillary turnout, not Obama turnout as earlier speculation had said.
7:49: Fox News is actually doing reporting. Apparently some places in Ohio have run out of ballots. Assume that means voter turnout has been very high somewhere. Also assume that if it was in the cities, Obama will scream foul play, while a shortage in the suburbs will cause Hillary to have a baby cow.
7:47: CNN's editorial demagoguery on trade even more grating than Fox News' rampant cheerleading for the GOP. Time to switch channels.
7:45: Former DC journalist Alex Massie, now retreated to Scotland, attempts the never-before-achieved feat of primary-and-cricket-liveblogging. Added difficulty points because it is already well past midnight there.
7:37: C'mon, call Texas for McCain. The rest of us called it for him weeks ago.
7:05: Jeffrey Toobin just said the most vacuous thing I have ever heard about an election, and I include these gems: "You know the great thing about tonight is that it's all about the voters." Was this a surprise appearance, or did he spend all day thinking that up?
7:01: Vermont goes to Obama. Hippies like Obama--who could have guessed?.
Toobin proves with regularity that getting a law degree, even cum laude from Harvard, does not require a huge amount of intllectual prowess. It ain't particle physics.....
Neither does typing "intellectual".
My favorite vacuous comments are made by the people who think pointing out vacuous comments from television commentators is clever.
Crap, now someone's gonna say the same thing about me and bloggers.
And the great thing about tomorrow night is that it's all about our new alien overlords. And I, for one, welcome them.
7:01: Vermont goes to Obama. Hippies like Obama--who could have guessed?.
Well, a more charitable reading of the polling would be that old people and white people like Obama.
Freddie, most hippies these days are old and white.
Haha true.
You're actually watching Fox News!? make sure to take a shower before you go to bed.
Fox News is, surprisingly, pleasant and free of editorializing, unlike CNN, which fills the dead space by talking about how awful foreigners are.
Those Texas numbers have to include a lot of the early voting figures, don't they? I'm pretty sure that 70 million people will not be voting in Texas today.
If it is a lot of early voting, that looks bad for Hillary.
It's not 1% of the Texas vote counted, it's 1% of precincts fully reporting. I think a lot of the early numbers coming out are the already-counted early voters that cast their votes in the past few days. I'm not entirely certain, but that seems like the most likely explanation.
Those early figures represent early voting, I believe -- and create a big block to a Clinton win.
As already mentioned, I think this prob reflcts the early voting; they just realeased the results en masse.
These #s are great for Obama and it now appears he could def. take Texas!
For those of us on the West Coast, what's the bit about alien overlords?
How useful are exit polls in states which have significant amounts of early voting? They've been voting in Texas for nearly two weeks.
I like Green Mountain coffee, the one you can get at gas stations. Starbucks is too bitter and dark, Dunkin Donuts too... something. I can never quite put my finger on what I don't like about it.
What others said about early voting. Advance ballots come in with ZERO precincts reporting (the election commissions usually have them tallied in advance and release them as soon as the polls close) then precinct returns stack on top of them. This drives many folks nuts and leads to conspiracy theories, but it's just the way they are reported. But advance ballots don't speak to the trends at the booth, so don't trust them as indicative.
I can't watch these things anymore. I think Chuck Todd is pretty good, and I'm entertained by the crazy old uncle Patrick Buchanan has become, but that's about it.
Soberblogging? An abomination!
Soberblogging? An abomination!
I don't know, the Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts isn't exactly original. I read Mathews' book in a Barnes & Noble in about 12 minutes (good politicians are good listeners!).
In my defense, I am laid low with stomach trouble.
Fox News is also reporting the impending Bush endorsement.
You think he'll give McCain a great big man hug?
What does this mean about Miracles? Clearly this a victory for math over miracles...or science or faith, if you will.
Oh yeah, that was why I stopped reading The Economist.
Nothing like insulting the worldview of your readers to bump those circulation numbers.
Megan, it appears that after starting out with later entries in your post flowing below earlier ones, you decided to flip things around and put the newest at the top. You actually took the time to reverse the order. And on a bad stomach, too. That knocks me out.
Your primary liveblogging is much more fun than the NYT's, Megan. The Economist quote made me laugh out loud.
Toobin is a jen-you-whine FRAUD!
What was his subtraction from his on-air CV this time?
Megan, you are so right about that awful, vacuous, idiotic Jeffrey Toobin. What a schmuck! He is like so stupid! He writes all these stupid books about the supreme court and national politics and things like that and all of them go on to become best sellers. And he's always writing for crappy publications like The New Yorker and The New York times. What an idiot!!! If he were smart--which he isn't--he'd start his own econoblog, which would never, ever be as good as yours.
Re: 1% of the vote = 1 million Texans...
They explained this at some point.
It's 1% of Precincts reporting from today's voting, but the million votes also include everyone who voted early. Those votes had already been counted, but were not reported until the polls closed.
So, there aren't actually a hundred million voters in the Texas Democratic Primary.
Ohio doesn't care about black people.
I'm going out for egg rolls. Any one want any?
Obama's going to win Texas. As the city counts come in from Houston, Dallas etc. where he won big, it's going to put him over the top. Hillary's big numbers come from smaller and whiter districts that are mostly already in.
megan, this is so, so exciting, whom do you thimk is going to win????? meanwhile, i'm going to eat some of my vegan beef jerky so i can get my protein count up to stop the ringing in my ears and the double vision.
"What does this mean about Miracles?"
That miracles are not about politics or elections? That they can't involve altering the free-will of millions of voters just to benefit one minister. That in the rare cases they do happen they're more likely to involve say healing a paralyzed children.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7276359.stm
Although the Augustinian view indicated God would never alter mathematical constants like pi or phi. So indicating you believe in "miracles over math" indicates you believe in an arbitrary and irrational God.
Or put simply that Huckabee just said something very stupid. He seems likeable and funny, but not exactly a great thinker.
So, there aren't actually a hundred million voters in the Texas Democratic Primary.
Why not? Daley turned out fifty million votes in Chicago alone.
I guess we'll be seeing you all in six weeks in Pennsylvania. Anyone want to bet that some of the blogs on this site will start to look like they were written by Gunny Hartman, only less creative?
hey, megan-mouse,
could you get me a vegan egg roll with vegan chocolate chips? i am ever so hungry as i await megan's return to live blogging. i have no idea what idiotic remarks were made on cable by the chattering class. i need megan to inform me. i also need a egg roll (vegan).
Megan,
What's with the crashing so early? I thought you were an insomniac. I think you might need some protein or calcium in your diet. I'm worried about you.
History may look back at this primary and find that the Democrats should have saved some of their ammunition for their real opponent.
Hillary has the stink of defeat on her already, but in going down she has drawn blood on Obama, and may have forced him to peak too soon and in the wrong race. Imagine if he had been much more low key through the primary, was still able to take the nomination, and then turned on the whole Church of Obama show with the music videos, the fainting, and the shivery oratory, taking it all on a ride on the typical bump out of the convention: it would have been an absolute knock-out punch against McCain if built up to the right moment.
Instead, I think that moment has come and gone and it is simply going to define the peak of his ascendancy, as he now has nowhere to go but down, unless of course he *does* start healing the sick, curing the blind, and casting out demons from the Obamicans.
I'm going out for egg rolls. Any one want any?
Not quite in the mood for fried food, but could you hit the sushi place next door? Just to make sure I step on as many toes here as possible, I'd like to try the factory farmed baby seal-and-eel roll, a side of those salted soybeans to guarantee adequate protein, and in lieu of the usual soy sauce, I would prefer the fresh-squeezed blood of the proletariat.
Oh, and I'll be paying with currency issued by the Federal Reserve. Here's $20 -- keep the change and, ideally, do something capitalistic with it. Thanks.
Just a point of clarification re Huckabee and miracles.
His actual words were 'I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles'.
Which was a witty comeback to someone who was hinting that he get out of the race weeks ago. It certainly doesn't mean he actually believes that a miracle would favor him over another candidate in an election.
I'm not a religious person and am fully aware that religion is a foundation of who Huck is. But I do try to listen to what he says very carefully.
For whatever reason, and I'm sure there are many, people tend to misquote, over analyze, and mock him for what they thought he said, not what he really said.
Senator Pat Leahy (VT-D) isn't a hippy. Don't diss Vermont. It's just ahead the rest of the nation.
You're just proving Rush Limbaugh right: he said no way Obama's the nominee. Took me two weeks to get over listening to the modern Joseph Goebbels.
Obama's going to win Texas. As the city counts come in from Houston, Dallas etc. where he won big, it's going to put him over the top. Hillary's big numbers come from smaller and whiter districts that are mostly already in.
Wow, that's almost as bad as everything McArdle says.
I want to second the fact that your live-blogging of these terribly dull events is the most entertaining around. Kudos.
That said, I could have sworn that Matthews claimed a preference for Dunkin' Donuts in that moment you describe. Hmm.
So, um, Mortimer... are you saying that his comment was insightful? Megan never said that Toobin was an idiot... just that his comment was vacuous. Chill out.
Oh, and each Texan counts as 5 votes. Our egos are too big for just one each.
I agree that both candidates are weakening each other for the Republicans...but a joint ticket would be unbeatable. It's just a question of who is VP and can they get along...
Oh I disagree, if anything a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket would be more beatable than a ticket with one of them on it and someone else in the VP slot.
If Obama picks Clinton as his running mate, he gets saddled with all of her negatives which undermine his “hope and change” rhetoric and who doesn’t bring in any ideological or regional balance or any record of accomplishment and experience to bolster his utter lack of any.
If Clinton picks Obama, it will only accentuate how utterly unlikeable she is if he doesn’t tone down his rhetoric (and his likability is really his only asset) and risk upstaging her plus she has a running mate that doesn’t bring any ideological balance to the ticket with even less of a record of accomplishment and experience than she does.
Simply put, an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket would be worth less than the sum if its parts.
If one thing is clear, it's that this election is generating record turnout, at least among Democrats. Unless McCain can drum up similar interest among the Republican base, he's going to have a very tough fight in November.
Surely at least part of the reason Dems are so interested this time around is that their nominee hasn't been picked yet, as is typically the case. Half of them are going to be upset with the result, whatever it is. So I don't see this as a portent of problems for McCain, at least not by itself.
Here’s why a joint ticket between Clinton and Obama would be even more beatable than if either were the nominee with someone else:
1) It doesn’t bring into play any States or regions that were battleground territory, i.e. Illinois and New York are both deep blue and not about to go for John McCain. Whereas picking the governor of a Red or Purple State would bring that State into automatic play.
2) It doesn’t bring any ideological balance to the party other than placating the gender feminists who want a woman on the ticket and the professional racialists who think its “their turn” who are basically the base of the party. Placating them doesn’t bring in any new voters, at best it stops them from bolting to vote for Cynthia McKinney leaving John McCain as the “moderate” running against two liberal Senators.
3) Both candidates are lacking when it comes to have any practical experience or record of accomplishments to the point where they’re arguing about whose one term in the Senate was more meaningful. If Obama picks Clinton, he’s picking the guy his own wife mocked for trying to claim Bill Clinton’s experience as President as her own whereas if Clinton picks Obama, she’s picking the guy that was still in Illinois three years ago. This prevents either from picking a Democrat-version of Cheney who might otherwise bring gravitas to their ticket.
4) Hillary Clinton’s high negatives won’t go away by putting her on the bottom half of the ticket and if anything would drag down Obama’s “hope and change” rhetoric. Whereas if Obama’s on the bottom of the ticket, he’ll be forced to tone done his rhetoric (his one asset) lest he upstage the actual presidential nominee by reminding voters how utterly unlikeable she is.
5) The MSM will tout how “historic” it is to have the first major party ticket consisting of a woman and a black person that voters will see this as a gimmick ticket rather than as two serious candidates. Which combined with the utter lack of experience and accomplishment of both Clinton and Obama during a time of economic uncertainty and war will make McCain look like the safe and substantive choice for a lot of independents.
I agree, what I’m hearing from a lot of Republicans is that they’re more interested in doing what they can to prolong the Clinton-Obama bloodletting for as long as they can to weaken whichever one eventually wins while demoralizing the base of the supporters of the loser. For the reasons stated above, I’m not concerned about a possible “unity ticket” to patch things up and would actually welcome it as it maximizes John McCain’s chances this fall.
Chris Matthews says that this is between the Starbucks crowd and the Dunkin' Donuts crowd, a nifty political analogy as these things go. Then he utterly spoils it by hastening to add that he likes both kinds of coffee equally well. Myself, I'm an unabashed Dunkin' Donuts girl.
Hey, thanks, McArdle. This inane post pretty much encapsulates why so many have you pegged as the most vacuous and stupid twit on the Atlantic payroll. I think you may even have topped that nitwit Sullivan -- truly extraordinary.