Wasn't there something I was supposed to blog about today?

Oh yeah - I remember now.

There's a Republican primary election in South Carolina and both parties held their caucus in Nevada today.


Nevada first...With 88% of precincts reporting, Hillary Clinton was declared the winner with 51% to Obama's 45%. Edwards garnered 4%, and should probably think about withdrawing with his chances for a cabinet position - and his dignity - intact.

On the Republican side, Romney took it standing up, with 53%. Ron Paul and John McCain were tied for second with 13% each.

I guess the Nervous Nellies among Hillary supporters were a bit over-the-top. For the record, they totally took the wrong tack. They should have approached it from the position of "then you have to hold caucuses in hospitals, too." What judge would want to be seen as the guy who upheld a showgirls right to caucus, but nurses can go hang? It was a no-brainer. Apparently. Some no-brain out there fucked that up from Jump Street.

Okay - South Carolina - that's a Republicans-only primary election, and polls won't close for a couple of hours, but Politico.com has a pretty good summation:

Saturday's most crucial showdown was on the other side of the country, in South Carolina, where the Republican contenders try to wrest advantage from each other — after three different candidates won the first three major contests.

Most polls have shown McCain leading Huckabee, trailed by Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

The stakes for the entire GOP field are high if history is a guide — every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan has won South Carolina.

And the weather is absolutely miserable. Can you believe it's snowing in parts of South Carolina?

Well it is.

In the part of the state where Mike Huckabee's support is strongest.

Wonder what God's own Candidate is thinking right now?

UPDATE - PALE RIDER

God's own candidate, Mitt Romney, did well out in Las Vegas. I've seen some coverage writing it off, basically saying that an overwhelming Mormon vote is the reason for his win in Nevada.

Ron Paul polling at 13% and possibly beating McCain is huge--as is the fact that Ron Paul has a larger constituency within the Republican Party than that of Rudy Guiliani. I'm reminded of Ron Paul explaining why we were attacked on 9/11 and Rudy "not getting it" and trying to belittle Ron Paul for his ideas. As nuts as he is, Ron Paul gets it right on the war and that's gotta be troubling for the overtly pro-war candidates on either side of the aisle.

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER 7:45 PM- Eastern

Tucker Carlson is trying to fan the flames of a Hispanic vs Black split in the Democratic Party. As if. We don't even have a nominee yet. We don't have anywhere near enough information to make that assessment. We have yet to see a large, populous and diverse state vote yet. And the Republican shill machine is desperate.

Tucker--talk about Ron Paul beating main stream Republicans with 50 times the name recognition and then ask us about a split among Democrats. The split is on the Republican side, clearly, because they are seeing candidates who have spent millions go down in flames.

The MSNBC coverage is dominated by Olbermann and Russert. Matthews is the third wheel along for the Prom date, and no one wants to give him liquor because he'll get caught and everyone will get busted by the Gym teacher. This makes for stilted coverage. CNN is unwatchable. They have Bill Bennett in there and all I want to do is ask "did that lardass play the one-armed bandit all day?"

UPDATE III - Blue Girl

Lets look at the Nevada numbers:

Women were a strong majority for the Democrats in Nevada. 59% of Democrats attending the caucus were female, to 41% male.

On the Republican side, the numbers are closer, but males are a solid majority - 52% to 48%.

But more telling than the gender demographics are the age demographics.

Republicans

60-up_________45%
45-59_________27%
30-44_________17%
18-29_________11%

Democrats

60-up_________36%
45-59_________32%
30-44_________19%
18-29_________13%

The numbers tell this well-versed-in-stats political consumer that the Republican party is entering the twilight years, along with it's stalwarts. It is sooooo yesterday. People who want to move forward are throwing their lot in with the Democrats, and the demographics on the Democratic side are much more stable and desirable. If you read these numbers as if they were in the respective prospectus of companies competing for your investment dollars, where would you invest your money?

UPDATE IV - PALE RIDER

Yes--the voters are turned off by the Republicans, they are identifying themselves as Democrats, and the Republicans can't raise money. It's shocking to see how broke some of them are--Guiliani and McCain are literally broke and running on fumes on a day to day basis. Romney is using his own money and Huckabee isn't spending any money. The only who has a legitimate fundraising machine is Ron Paul and he's not going to piss that money away. In 1999, George W Bush was raising millions and was building a massive war chest with which to run. There is no comparison this year. They are all running on fumes.

How about a shout out to Howard Dean? The Fifty State strategy means we are going to compete with Republicans everywhere, and we will make them play a full-court game. As their "brand" continues to sink, we will make gains in places the Washington DC establishment would have written off four years ago.

UPDATE V - PALE RIDER - 09:07PM East

Chris Matthews "John McCain-his enemy is al Qaeda.""Mitt Romney-his enemy is Washington."

[so we're going to send a snarling old man after al Qaeda? Will he have bandoliers of ammo and a grenade pinned to his lapel? I hardly doubt al Qaeda is concerned about John McCain. In fact, they must be salivating at the idea that a deranged old coot keeps trying to threaten them. It's gotta help with recruiting.]

something, something, Huckabee, something Sodom and Gomorrah.
"The Road to St. Paul" and all of it's [catholic] Biblical overtones.
John McCain is a "live and let live guy"

Why doesn't Matthews just admit that he would carry McCain to the gates of Hell just to be seen holding a man he loves, in that platonic sort of way.

Schuster is at Huckabee headquarters and he looks like he just drank a quart of vinegar.

Brian Williams is commenting on the Big Dog's temper. Hello, dumbass--how about McCain's temper and McCain's snarling personality? Compared to Bill, McCain is easily the bigger hothead.

Russert--this is between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Whatever, dude. You don't have a clue, either.

Round One: EDWARDS

If you haven't been keeping tabs on the kerfuffle about FAUX News and the Democratic primary debate in Nevada, well...there was one. But it's pretty much over, and Edwards won it.


Here's the deal - the Democratic Party in Nevada originally - inexplicably - booked FAUX News to host the Democratic primary debate in that state. That got the lefty-blogs up in mother-fuckin' arms. John Edwards (already in trouble with the blogosphere because of going wobbly in the face of the Wonkette/Shakes Sister criticism) pulled out of the debate. Pressure began mounting on other candidates to do the same, but FAUX - probably scared shitless of getting caught with their pants down and losing half the slate and being exposed for the partisan hacks they are - pulled out.

The purpose of a debate is to present the candidates. There is no reason to believe that FAUX
would present the candidates in an unbiased journalistic manner. As evidence I offer the following exchange between Fred Barnes and Mort Kondrake when FAUX hosted a presidential debate in 2004: (Hattip Digby for digging up the transcript)

FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Not really. Maybe Al Sharpton. It makes a difference when Sharpton's there. It was much livelier debate, as a result. That's for sure. He wasn't there in New Mexico last week, although Lieberman was livelier tonight than he's been before and so on.

So, it was a zippier debate but, I think, uneventful in the outcome of the Democratic presidential fight.

I think Democrats have one problem in these debates and that is they talk about an America, they criticize what's going on and they create a picture of an America that I think most people don't recognize, you know. It's an America where the Patriot Act is creating a police state and where, as Al Sharpton said, soldiers come home and they can't get an education, they can't get a house, you know. They can't get a job or anything like that.

You know, there's this health care crisis that is ruining the country and we're involved in another Vietnam. And people in Florida are denied the right to vote. I don't think most Americans recognize that as the real America.

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "ROLL CALL": Obviously, they are not appealing to the whole of America. What they are trying to do is to appeal to the Democratic primary voter. And the way that you appeal most to Democratic primary voters is to beat up on George Bush.

I mean, practically anytime anybody asked a substantive question they had a little bit of an answer about what they would do, you know, on the subject, but the rest of it was an attack on what George Bush has not done or failed to do or lied about or et cetera, et cetera.

And it's because the Democratic primary core voters are so enraged at George Bush that they have to -- you know, they have to feed that beast.

And the most -- the best example of this is Joe Lieberman, who's probably the most moderate of them all and constantly is waving the bloody shirt of Florida, you know, that black voters were disenfranchised, were prevented from going to the polls in Florida, et cetera, et cetera. It's replaying the sore of the 2000 election.

So, you know, that's what this is all about. This was not an attempt to appeal to the average voter.

Roger Ailes threw a hissy fit. "Who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake" and "runs a real risk of losing the voters." I shrugged. So FAUX has been called out, and now they commence with the bluster.

Fuck off, Fox. It ain't playin' in Peoria any longer.

They aren't balanced, they are biased. They aren't news, they are propaganda. Their newscasts stay as close to the party line as ITAR/TASS did in the old Soviet Union.

They are openly hostile to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates; and the person who had that brilliant notion to book them to host the debate should clean out their desk.

But god-damnit, riddle me this Batman...

Why the fuck would anyone in the state Democratic Party even consider letting FAUX have a chance to tear down all of our candidates en masse?

If I knew the identity of that genius, I'd have a Wanker of the Week.

Instead, in Edwards, we have a strong contender for Mensch of the Month.