And now for South Carolina

As of 9:00 p.m. eastern, the race is too close to call.

With 61% reporting, it's McCain 33% and Huckabee with 30%

Someone is going to break ahead in the next 20 minutes, or we are going to be up until 2:30.

UPDATE I - 9:20 p.m., eastern - Blue Girl

With 82% of precincts reporting, the percentages are still exactly the same - but McCain has opened up a 14,000 vote lead. I'm not going to call it - but the odds are increasingly in McCain's favor tonight. If it's McCain, it's going to get really bloody over there in Republicanville. There is a significant faction of Republicans that absolutely hates him.

9:35 p.m., eastern - Blue Girl

91% reporting and McCain still leads, 33% to 30%, and he still has that 14,000 vote cushion. And now, I'm gonna give it to Pale Rider. He can tell you how this is going to play in certain circles. I hear long knives being sharpened...

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER

Huckabee claims he took the high road in South Carolina. Please! He's the evangelical candidate and they haven't travelled the high road since the days of St. Paul himself.

Huckabee's second is very strong. He is not going away. Thompson might go away, and Guiliani should pack it in, for certain, but Huckabee is not dead yet. Not by a long shot.

UPDATE III - PALE RIDER

McCain is about to give his victory speech--Lindsay Graham has now put a bag over McCains' Mothers' head to keep her from saying anything else about Mitt Romney being an evil Mormon.

The podium is too low. "What's eight years among friends?"

Ha! You see, South Carolina--when McCain is President, he's going to Get You People for what you Did To Him.

UPDATE IV - PALE RIDER

Tom DeLay is one of those people who will have to leave the country when John McCain is President (as if!)

McCain hit by Hammer on the Hill
By Jackie Kucinich
Posted: 01/18/08 12:01 AM [ET]
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) lambasted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Thursday for "betraying" the conservative movement.

During a private luncheon with Republican chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill, DeLay — who has criticized McCain for years — stepped up his attacks in the wake of the senator's reemergence as a top presidential contender. DeLay said McCain has no principles and indicated he would not endorse the senator if he won the GOP primary.

"If McCain gets the nomination, I don't know what I'll do," DeLay said at the Capitol Hill Club, according to a source in the room. "I might have to sit this one out."

He added that a McCain triumph for the GOP nomination would destroy the Republican Party. DeLay delivered his luncheon address to Republicans Assuring Mutual Support (RAMS), a group of current and former chiefs of staff and staff directors.

McCain's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

DeLay's barbs come as the reeling Republican Party attempts to define itself following the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006.

DeLay is not a fan of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, either. On CNN last year, he said, "I can't vote for somebody that's for abortion. I never have, and I never will."

So McCain is not afraid of al Qaeda, but he seems to be afraid of Tom DeLay? What gives?


UPDATE V - Blue Girl

I just went over to Red State. And the Corner. And Powerline. I even went to Little Green Footballs. Yes, I know - hot shower and lots of vitamin C, and get booster shots on Monday. I usually let Pale Rider do that sort of dirty work, but tonight I just couldn't resist.

And bless their little hearts, I just want to send 'em all a Tom Waits box set, along with a case of Jim Beam and a box of razor blades. The poor dears are just utterly bereft. And it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of psychopaths.

Red State is encouraging Mittens to drop out - speculating that the Mrs. doesn't want any more of her sons' inheritance to disappear while he chases this second generation pipedream. And heavens to mergatroid, and pardon me for saying so, but the hagiography virtually drips from the "Fred, you broke my heart" post. There is speculation that Fred, after a good nights sleep, and a morning nap, will really apply himself and work up the energy to drop out. In his concession speech, he didn't say one. word. about "going on to Florida!"

The uber-mensches over at The Corner are twisting themselves up like drunken pretzels on muscle relaxers trying to explain how McCain didn't win a damned thing. And the bitterness with which Mark Steyn writes of Rudy! 911! Guilliani has the flavor of a lover scorned. (Boo fuckin' Hoo.)

Powerline isn't excited at all - instead of a congratulations for McCain, they take a shot at Huckabee.

LGF mustered all of eleven words in the body of the post announcing McCain's win - but drew over 200 comments - most of the ones I read were along the lines of "Rudy hasn't begun to fight!"

But some of the comments gave such a feeling of schaddenfreude.

"I am fast running out of anyone to support...I have never felt so depressed about an election in my life."

"What is a conservative supposed to do this election?"

"If McCain's the nominee, I'm going fishing on election day."

I am truly enjoying the misery of the miserable pricks over there on the far right lunatic fringe. They are reaping the bitter harvest they sowed, and I am enjoying watching them twist in the wind. They haven't suffered nearly enough. Not until they spend at least a decade in the penalty box.

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.

Russert Gets it Wrong

Tim Russert, doing his usual bit to encourage us all to go to the blogs for reality and stay away from the ineptitude he and Chris Matthews show every time they try to go on TV, was caught lying again about what's happening in South Carolina:

Russert: Well, it’s Mike Huckabee versus John McCain. Mitt Romney has abandoned the state. He’s heading out to Nevada, which I think he’ll win. But South Carolina’s too close to call. Whoever can turn out most of their base is going to win and have a real chance when they go into Florida the following week.

Huckabee has locked up the evangelical Christians. John McCain has locked up the war veterans.

You know 60 percent of the voters on the Republican side are evangelicals. Huckabee gets 33% of those. With non-evangelicals, it drops down to 11%. He has a very strong base with born-again Christians, but he hasn’t been able to expand it.

When it comes to John McCain and Mike Huckabee, the latest polls are a tossup.

No, that's wrong, as we showed earlier this week. There is a schism within the Vietnam Veterans and a well-financed and vocal group of them is trying to sink McCain's chances in South Carolina. These are actual Veterans doing this, and the statement that 'McCain has locked up the war veterans is wrong.

Now, why would evangelicals reject someone who divorced his wife after committing adultery? Do you think they have some ideas of their own in that regard? I just don't see McCain, Guiliani or even old Newt Gingrich catching fire with the religious crowd. Lifestyle choices, perhaps?

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I forgot to mention that McCain probably doesn't have the support of a key segment of Veterans--that is, Veterans of the Iraq war who don't want to keep re-deploying there every other year for the next 1,000,000 years or whatever.

Since Russert won't correct his statement, and since Friday Catblogging is nice but every day is a day for excitement, we'll just have to look at FIGHTING BEARS!

More Mitt

What a prick. He isn't responsible for all the signs he poses with?

Bullshit.

Yesterday, it was a "funny play on words" - remember? That is what Kevin Madden, his spokesman said. Is he now going to absolve himself of responsibility for what his spokesman said? He wants to be president and can't accept responsibility for his own image?

We should "lighten up"???

I think not. That grinning visage was offensive as all hell to just about everyone with three digits in their I.Q. score.

We should lighten up???

Mitt should make with an apology. And someone needs to track that embarrassment to my gender down and ask her what she meant by that, and why she thinks that it is acceptable to equate sitting US Senators and presidential candidates with the most wanted criminal on the planet. I really want to know why she would think that is acceptable in a civilized society.