(Reprised for those who missed it in the short-lived pre-party.) 7:10 p.m.
It's a delight watching Pat Buchanan praise the bi-racial coalition behind Barack Obama's win in Georgia. 7:12 p.m.
Don't count your chickens, but if these numbers hold true shop's going to close around 10 p.m. and I'm going to get drunk on a Tuesday. 7:34 p.m.
2004 subtext, redux. On election day 2004, the exit polls were indicating a Kerry landslide, including wins in states like North Carolina and Virginia. Before polls closed, coverage heavily hinted at Kerry upsets in the South. Right now they're pushing similar themes in Massachusetts and New Jersey. They've also been hinting that women are not aligning as strongly behind Clinton as expected. 7:48 p.m.
Republican nervous breakdown. For entertainment reasons, the more Huckabee wins and the longer he runs, the better. Even better, it makes his party look crazy, and maintains M___ R_____'s suffering. Mike Huckabee is my favorite Republican in a long time. 8:26 p.m.
Mike Huckabee wins Arkansas. Huckabee fans celebrate through song.
"I guarantee that Mike Huckabee is sitting back tonight with the popcorn popper, frying up some squirrel." (Joe Scarborough) "And the squirrel pizza arrives at what point?" (Olbermann). 8:43 p.m.
Bill Richardson on MSNBC, sporting thick goatee, looking like affable party pirate. 8:51 p.m.
ALABAMA FOR HUCKABEE. His supporters celebrate with additional song and dance.
New York, Massachusetts for Hillary Clinton; Delaware for Barack. I would like to add that having lived in New York for six years, every time I go to the precinct it's a genuine pleasure and Tom Tancredo's worst nightmare. 9:04 p.m.
BREAKING: Terrell Pryor to Ohio State! Fine by me. I've been endorsing Steve Threet. 9:25 p.m.
Steve Threet, likely starting quarterback for Michigan,breathes a sigh of relief.
This arose during Flop's liveblog session this morning, but how fantastic is it that the Republican candidates are sparring over the degree of respect due to Bob Dole? It would be like the 2016 primaries turning into a spat over whether candidate Sherrod Brown unwittingly dissed John Kerry's 2004 campaign and candidate Jim Webb is all, "Back off." Another reason why it's more fun to follow the Republican primaries. 9:41 p.m.
Pick Flick. The following video just showed up in my inbox. Not sure if this is making the rounds yet or if it's only new to me, but let me give a direct order: You must watch, and you can thank me later.
Breaking character: I prefer to keep the liveblog light in tone, and my affection for Huckabee is 95 percent joking, but I like and value the fact that he's successful despite the violent opposition from his party's gatekeepers. There was an ugly discussion on last Sunday's "Meet the Press" when Mary Matalin violently argued that Huckabee needed to drop out and let the race narrow to McCain and Romney. Her contempt was enormous. Democrats have this problem to a much smaller degree -- the establishment is behind Hillary but you can practically see Howard Dean bite his tongue -- but the Republican leadership seems viscerally uncomfortable with Huckabee and wants to stage manage him out of the election. The better he does, the worse they look, and I like that from many perspectives. 10:21 p.m.
Chit-chat potpourri for the comments:
- Item! Is Terry McAuliffe the number-one most annoying Democrat?
- Item! Is it scarier to speculate that Mitt Romney knows he's full of shit but says it anyway, or to think that he actually believes himself?
- Item! Would you eat fried squirrel or possum? I believe I would.
- Item! With Terrell Pryor going to Ohio State, are more Michigan fans finally going to turn pissy on Rich Rodriguez, even if it's for a dumb reason?
And for what it's worth, in high school, I was one of the people in charge of organizing prom. I wrote the checks and whatnot, and we had a very fine prom. A very fine prom. 10:47 p.m.
Hillary's acceptance/concession/stasis speech. She's often a very strong and interesting speaker. As much as I rag on her, there are plenty of times when I listen to her and am surprised all over again by how good she can be. This seemed to me like one of her weaker speeches. Very platitude-heavy and passionless. I also don't like that her theme was focused on the lines of what she can do to help, rarely about shared action or responsibility -- but I think that's me being spoiled by Obama. As a matter of pure style, though, her delivery seemed stiff and halting and her remarks utterly unmemorable. 11:02 p.m.
Still, let's give Hillary her due for the night:
Georgia to Huckabee! This can only mean one thing:
Delegate count. NBC estimates that Obama currently has 594 delegates on the night to Clinton's 564. 11:31 p.m.
McCain delivers a "victory" speech. Somewhat oddly, he begins by declaring himself the Republican frontrunner. 11:40 p.m.
OMG fucking sweet Barack is on! I think this is the first time I've seen one of his victory/concession speeches in real time. Heart is racing ... I have the giggles ... stay cool, man, stay cool ...
It started off routine, but when he broke into the discussion about the election being different "because of you," he took off. Also, for my taste, he can never emphasize enough that the war "never should have been authorized." That always will be my applause line.
I also thought the section of his speech dressing down Hillary was extremely effective without being too harsh or personal. But I have strong bias.
And that line, "We are the ones we've been waiting for" -- sheer heaven.
And WHOAH after being down in Missouri by about 15 percent for most of the night, he's now down by less than one percent. 12:04 a.m.
Barack now up 3,000 votes in Missouri with 97 percent of the votes in. 12:06 p.m.
M___ R_____ might drop out. MSNBC reports that the campaign will have "serious discussions" tomorrow and has canceled campaign stops late in the week. 12:31 p.m.
OBAMA DECLARED THE WINNER IN MISSOURI. While MSNBC interviews my beloved Claire McCaskill, no less. Obama won tonight. 12:41 p.m.
46 comments:
For a guy that I am completely ideologically opposed to, I too am loving me some Huckabee.
MSNBC is obsessed with Huckabee tonight.
Huckabee entertains me, and he even says some surprisingly non-insane things at times. (The insane things he says are, sadly, unsurprising).
That said, I always idly wonder if some of his more disturbing ideas are going to poison the well, and slip a lot of really repugnant ideas into the main stream, as it were, of American politics and public discourse. I've enjoyed the ride, but I'm glad he'll be heading back to the shed sometime soon, and I hope his viability means the Christianist wing of the Republican Party gets more and more fractious.
Stop being serious.
Quote of the night from my Super Tuesday watching (so far):
Mrs. Crunk: "I just can't help laughing every time I see Ron Paul's name."
Me: "That's a common reaction."
Her: "Well, I laugh because I can't see his name without thinking of RuPaul."
Signs saying "Vote Aqui" make Tom Tancredo cry.
Chinese-language signs, middle-aged Latinas and Jews make Tom Tancredo cry.
I hope that RuPaul has endorsed Ron Paul.
Think of the massive coronary risk the "Si Se Puede" chant puts him at. I'd be surprised if his doctor lets him access the internet.
That youtube is outstanding.
What the hell took MSNBC so long to call Kansas? They called it with 64% of the precincts in and a--I think--64-27 lead for Obama. Hillary might have been mathematically eliminated at that point. Their restraint in calling Alabama was similar, in that it was seemingly tardy in the face of overwhelming results.
I'm not saying MSNBC has it out for Barack--for crissakes, Olbermann runs that show--but it seems like they're redefining caution as we know it. I just don't get why.
I wondered the same thing. Maybe it's a caucus problem? At a certain point it was almost mathematically impossible for Barack to lose Kansas, but they still didn't call it. I think when they call it's a combination of actual results and exit polls, and I'm guessing lack of exit polls prompted the restraint.
Also, Chris Matthews's argument that Massachusetts going for Clinton repudiated the Kennedys is just fucking absurd.
Also, interesting discussion--both the weirdness and the inevitability of a McCain-Huckabee marri--civil union are undeniable. I'll be watching that intently, because Romney's camp will be doing all it can to force that hand ASAP.
Look at the sweatshirt the blonde next to Steve Threet is wearing!
The biggest development of the night: the next time they show Mitt Romney headquarters, notice that, instead of puffy #1 fingers, they have puffy baseball mitts!
Nice mitts! Republicans are fun.
http://www.romneyshop.com/cgi-bin/romneyshop/EFM08.html
I mean, seriously...puffy mitts!
And: Thunderstixx! I bet Mitt loves him some thunderstixx.
I was wondering when the ill-synchronized "and they haven't" portion of the Romney stump speech was coming. 9:39, it turns out.
This is the greatest nation in the history of the earth. - Romney
The Caesar family is angrily hurling obscenities at the TV.
The Caesar family is burning its mitts in protest.
Mitt stopping just short of using the term "CEO president"...
Thundersticks yes -- coffee, no!
One of the most laughable things about M___ R_____ is the Salt Lake Olympics as selling point. Isn't it basically the adult equivalent of being chair of the prom committee?
Haley Barbour and his permasmirk are on MSNBC right now, burping up homespun, southern fried wisdom (with a side of cornbread) straight from the pages of an oppo research document.
I've always wanted to say it: Haley Barbour sounds like a girl who must, must be the prettiest cheerleader at the dance, and if not, her competitors must be murdered or disfigured. It's got TV movie written all over it.
Thankfully, his house was rebuilt in the wake of Katrina.
The Governor of Mississippi is being interviewed on MSNBC. This guy might as well be from a different continent. God, the Southern Baptists are weird.
flop said it better than I did. As usual.
Didn't I hear somewhere that eating squirrel has been linked to the human version of mad cow disease?
Kind of explains both Huckabee and large swaths of the south...including Haley Barbour
If, as Chris Matthews said, the race is McCain-Barbour v. Clinton-Bayh, I may very well slit my throat.
I forgot all about Evan Bayh, and I'd love to keep it that way.
OPS, thanks a lot for complimenting Flop on being articulate. I'll have to hear him brag about that for weeks now.
Jesus God, she's incorporating her "it's not who's up or who's down" line from the NH 'emotional breakdown' into her stump speech.
C-Note, I said he was more articulate than I am. That's like Woody Allen saying the NBA can dunk harder than he can.
I know, but I fight so hard to keep him under control, and you just undid a fair amount of work. It was like giving the ill-behaved dog a piece of gristle under the table. Now he's just going to run around pawing at people and pissing the rug.
Let the butterfly bloom.
ITEM! 1: Yes. At least the less docile Democrats (see Kucinich, Dennis) are at least genuine.
ITEM! 2: He can't possibly believe it. His Mass. stretch belies his campaign strategy. He says whatever it takes to get elected. To answer the question, though, it'd be scarier if he believed it all, because then he'd be as much a liability as W is.
ITEM! 3: Is the squirrel free-range?
ITEM! 4: Being that UM fans haven't even considered breaking out the pitchforks on a completely god-awful basketball season, I think they'll overlook the Pryor thing.
Talk to me again when he beats them for the first time. That'll probably bring out the adamantium claws.
Tim Russert's gaze will haunt my dreams for weeks to come. This I know.
I forgot about Kucinich -- Kucinich is easily my most annoying Democrat in this election. McAuliffe is the most annoying adviser, at least until Chris Lehane steps up to bat.
Tom Russert's gaze and Chris Matthews's voice.
I was about to get mildly excited for the prospect of Huckabmentum after his win in Georgia, and good prospects in Missouri, but most of the votes yet to be counted are in relatively sane precincts of the state. Nuts. I was hoping for some more Huckabmentum, despite myself.
McCain also referenced the greatest country on Earth, causing Queen Victoria's Hanoverian descendents to sigh and pour themselves another gin and quinine tonic.
You know, I don't mind McCain, either. He's got a strange cadence to his speeches, one that doesn't even resemble that of the other candidates.
But he's never been a candidate that resembles the others--not even in '00, and even a bulwark left-winger like me can appreciate his honesty and his commitment to government openness. The only other candidate who can stand up to it is Obama. That's my defining issue in this election, and if it's between McCain and Clinton, I'll gladly vote McCain.
You just incited the peanut gallery.
Yeah, they're going nuts.
Any time I say, "Maybe we shouldn't murder all Republicans this week," or something similarly mild, a flurry of comments follows accusing me of enabling conservatives, union-busting and death.
MSNBC calls Cali for Hillary. OPS throws swear words everywhere and kicks every small dog in the zip code.
Slightly disappointing but I don't think it's a big blow. He's swept almost everyplace else, got a bunch of delegates out of New York (including almost half from Manhattan and Brooklyn) and is probably going to get a lot out of California. I think tonight's the first time since New Hampshire that the end result has looked better for Obama than for Hillary.
You put in a full day gentlemen. Well done.
[turns out lights]
I watched Obama's speech at my own lair, and those lines were exactly the same ones I noted. Just a great speech. I would be proud to have that man represent me to the world; it's been a long time.
Boy, just as well I stopped paying attention to this when I did!
Sorry if I was who you meant when you said the peanut gallery would be getting incited.
But short of picking a fight over all sorts of things from last night, I'll just say this...
Yes, it was nice to see noted telecom immunity enthusiast Claire McCaskill...
Off-topic, but for those who know what I'm talking about, in the mid-post photo Steve Threet looks highly similar to college acquaintance/friend/colleague Andy La____.
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