The Other McCain

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GOP PRIMARY RESULTS HQ: SANTORUM WINS ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI: ‘WE DID IT AGAIN’

Posted on | March 13, 2012 | 68 Comments

UPDATE 1:55 a.m. ET: Mitt Romney wins all nine of American Samoa’s delegates, just like Guam. I say we sell ‘em both to China. Package deal. Good riddance!

UPDATE 1:05 a.m. ET: Earthquake in Vanuatu. Just a coincidence, right?

UPDATE 12:15 a.m. ET: As of now, according to the Associated Press, Mitt Romney has 472 delegates, Rick Santorum has 244, Newt Gingrich has 127, and Ron Paul has 47. If correct, that means Mitt has 53% of delegates so far, but remember that he won 50 delegates in one fell swoop in the Florida winner-take-all primary Jan. 31.

Rick Santorum is now flying to Puerto Rico, which votes Saturday, and awards 23 delegates. Next Tuesday, Illinois votes — 69 delegates. Then, on March 24, the Louisiana primary — a Southern state with lots of Catholic voters — and 46 delegates at stake.

Question 1: What will the delegate count be on March 25?

Question 2: Will Mitt Romney still be above 50% of the total?

Question 3: Shouldn’t you donate to Rick Santorum now?

11:50 p.m. ET: Newt Gingrich’s all-the-way-to-Tampa speech — in the wake of two defeats in his own backyard — might not exactly be “whistling past the graveyard.” He can continue campaigning, of course. But unless I’m seriously mistaken about the impact on his fundraising, Gingrich is either going to have to start laying off staff or find some other way to cut expenses. If he can’t win in the Deep South, where will he win? And why keep giving him money, if he keeps losing?

10:55 p.m. ET: As Santorum noted during his speech, his daughter Elizabeth has spent the past two days campaigning in Hawaii, where voting in caucuses tonight doesn’t end until 2 a.m. That creates the possibility that Santorum’s two big wins in Alabama and Mississippi could create a bandwagon shift toward him in Hawaii.

We will have to wait and see. Newt is now about to give his concession speech. His fundraising has got to be circling the drain.

10:45 p.m. ET: Rick Santorum began his speech tonight, “We did it again.” He was speaking from LaFayette, La., and Alabama had just been called a victory for him. Shortly before he ended the speech, it was announced that Mississippi had also been called a Santorum victory.

Two words: FREAKING HUGE!

10:25 p.m. ET: This afternoon, before my nap, when Drudge was posting exit-poll numbers, I wrote:

OK, I’m adding several grains of salt: Exit polls can be screwy.

Now Allahpundit pushes the “chagrin” button:

Looks like the exits got it wrong there, likely vis-a-vis the evangelical numbers.
The worst-case scenario for Mitt tonight was a Santorum sweep. We’re on the verge of it.

Ain’t I done told ya? Ain’t I done told ya?


10:15 p.m. ET: In a telephone interview just now with Greta Van Sustern on Fox News, Rick Santorum said, “We’re on our way to victory.” Asked about his assertion today that Fox News has been biased in favor of Mitt Romney, Santorum said, “Not you and Sean [Hannity] — you’ve been great.” Santorum emphasized that the pro-Romney bias was apparent in straight news coverage. This was just what I said earlier today.

Brett Baier, in announcing Santorum’s victory in Alabama, called it “a major blow to Newt Gingrich.”

10:10 p.m. ET: NBC News just called Alabama for Rick Santorum — FREAKING HUGE, baby!

10:05 p.m. ET: Santorum is very close to winning in Alabama — leading 34%-30% over Newt – but his lead is now just one percentage point in Mississippi. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich’s campaign just released a strategy memo that begins:

Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that dominates the news media, Newt Gingrich is well positioned to win the GOP nomination and here’s why. . . .

Hey, guys: If Newt loses Alabama and Mississippi tonight, what happens to your fundraising, huh? What was your cash-on-hand and total debt as of March 1, huh? If the checks start bouncing, we’ll see how “well positioned” Newt is.

9:50 p.m. ET: OK, I’m not going to pile up new numbers every five minutes for the rest of the night. Maybe every half-hour or so. Even though it’s still too close to call, at this point, Santorum’s lead continues to hold up in both Alabama and Mississippi. Caution is necessary, however, because we don’t know where these votes are coming from. The districts that come in later may shift the other direction.

Still, for Santorum even to be in the running, two hours after the polls closed, in the South where Gingrich is supposed to be strongest — folks, this could be freakin’ huge.

9:40 p.m. ET: Now with 8% of Alabama precincts reporting:

Rick Santorum ……… 10,759 (34.2%)
Newt Gingrich ………. 9,279 (29.5%)
Mitt Romney ……….. 8,947 (28.4%)
Ron Paul ……………….. 1,745 (5.5%)

So, as of this hour, Rick Santorum leads both Alabama and Mississippi. Don’t be counting any chickens yet. Still way too early, folks.

UPDATE 9:30 ET: Now with 19% of precincts reporting in Mississippi:

Rick Santorum ……… 14,742 (34.1%)
Newt Gingrich ………. 13,303 (30.8%)
Mitt Romney ……….. 12,494 (28.9%)
Ron Paul ……………….. 2,169 (5.0%)

UPDATE 9:25 ET: Strangely, Mitt Romney has no plans to deliver a speech tonight. Rick Santorum is hosting his own election night speech in LaFayette, La. — Louisiana’s primary is March 24.

Linked by Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE 9:15 ET: Again, to caution, these are very early results, but with 4% of Alabama precincts reporting:

Rick Santorum ……… 3,763 (34.2%)
Newt Gingrich ………. 3,190 (29%)
Mitt Romney ……….. 3,128 (28.4%)
Ron Paul ………………. 659 (6%)

UPDATE 9:10 p.m. ET: Results are coming in very slowly, but with 6% of precincts reporting in Mississippi:

Mitt Romney …… 4,132 (32.4%)
Rick Santorum …. 4,124 (32.4%)
Newt Gingrich ….. 3,640 (28.6%)
Ron Paul ……………. 718 (5.6%)

With such a small number of precincts reporting, these numbers don’t mean much, but the chatter on TV is . . . Newt third?

* * * PREVIOUSLY (7:30 p.m. ET) * * *

Usually, Tuesday nights find me in some “victory celebration” where the WiFi bandwidth sucks and I end up phoning in reports while Smitty mans the election results desk. Tonight, however, Smitty’s wife has him on “honey-do” duty and I’m at home in my basement office/man-cave, with plenty of bandwidth, two dogs, three kids, a wife, etc.

Your basic facts: Polls close in Mississippi and Alabama at 7 p.m. Central, 8 p.m. Eastern. As previously noted, Drudge has got exit poll numbers indicating Romney could win both of those states which, if true, would drive a stake through the heart of Gingrich’s campaign. But it’s going to be tight, so I expect to be up late.

Alabama has 50 delegates, Mississippi has 40. Also, Hawaii has its caucuses today, with 20 delegates at stake, but that won’t be over until 2 a.m. ET, and so folks back east probably won’t know the Hawaii result until breakfast Wednesday morning.

Oh, yeah: American Samoa? They’re having their caucus at Toa Bar & Grill in Pago Pago, where they will choose six delegates to go along with their three “super-delegates.” It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Drunk Samoans for Romney!

Quick headline roundup from Memeorandum:

At any rate, check back later. We’ll be piling up the numbers, arguing back at the TV talking-head coverage and quoting the speeches.

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Category: Alabama, Election 2012, Hawaii, Mississippi

Comments

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  • gloogle gloogle

     You nailed it Adjoran.  The war will continue, butit’s really uphill for Santorum. 

    Bottom line:  I’ll vote for Mitt or Rick, because Obambus is a SCOAMF.

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  • RichardBrodie

    As a Ron Paul supporter I will probably vote for Obama if Paul does not win. Why? Because the faster this country continues to go down the anti-constitutionalist drain, the sooner people will finally wake up and recognize that returning to the Constitution is our only salvation. The only way I would vote for Romney is if he chooses Paul as his running mate. His sole shot at defeating Obama may well be to get Ron Paul’s army of dedicated followers behind him.

  • Sven

    Bottom line: Romney ended Tuesday with a bigger delegate lead over Santorum than he had on Monday. It doesn’t matter how many states Santorum wins the popular vote in, if he keeps falling farther behind in delegates.

  • RichardBrodie

    Well, actually I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Stanford University at the age of 19, with a major in mathematics. Delegate projections are a not a matter of simple arithmetic, or even probability. Rather they lie somewhere in that no man’s land between fuzzy math and total unpredictability. The obfuscating factors are voting “irregularities” such as the Maine disenfrachshisement which, when resolved, could give that state to Paul; the “missing”, or more correctly, the disappeared Iowa votes; and  general commitment uncertainties that could turn the convention into a free-for-all.

  • RichardBrodie

    Yes, we are very well programmed :) Seriously, we merely recognize that Mitt, Newt, and Rick are as much a part of the establishment as is Barack, and that no matter which one might win the general election,  it will be a simple matter for the international bankers, whom Wilson put in control back in 1913, to disconnect the strings from Obama and hook them up the their next puppet. And it is our ability to perceive this truth,  which will make Ron Paul the wild card in Tampa.

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  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     It must be nice to be able to deflect criticism of yourself by pretending to laugh at yourself. But it seems to me that if you all were NOT a bunch of booger-eating zombie Paultards, you’d have enough self-respect to start asking certain questions.

    For example, why, since Romney is by all reasonable criterion the candidate to beat, why isn’t Paul trying to beat him, instead of going as easy on him as possible in the debates and on the campaign trail?

    From what I understand, the biggest effort on behalf of Paul in Virginia was not by Paul, but by Gingrich forces working strategically against Romney by encouraging his supporters to vote for Paul.

    If Romney is such an integral part of the political beltway establishment and Wall Street etc., why doesn’t this piss you the fuck off?

    The answer to that question might indeed be found in the phrase “Booger-Eating Paultard Zombie”.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     Then of course you might also want to add in all those votes out there in never-never land that Paul threw away by not campaigning against Romney the  way he should have. File them under “Voters Who Do Not Take Ron Paul Seriously”

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     The best place to find a Ruling Class Overlord lurking around isn’t under your bed, but circling your toilet from all the crap sandwiches they’ve force fed us over the years.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     You’re not a Libertarian, you’re a fucking dreamer. A true Libertarian recognizes the importance of our separation of powers, of all three of our co-equal branches of government, and as such does not put such preeminent importance in the one office of President. A true libertarian would work to elect libertarians to offices throughout this great country at all levels, not willfully vote for some scumbag he thinks is most likely to destroy it. And you wonder why people question you people’s collective sanity.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     Cook County will probably deliver its delegate count to the state GOP in a manilla envelope. Even if Rick or Newt wins Cook County, Mitt will still get the standard kick up.

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  • Tennwriter

    The message is: Dear Base,
    We hatez you more,
    The GOP Luzer Establishment.

  • RichardBrodie

    The glory and dignity of Ron Paul’s campaign is that he approaches it as a serious contest between radically different principles and policies – not as a mud-slinging political beauty contest. His empahsis is not on appearing Presidential, but rather on demonstrating that he understands what has been going on in this country for the last 99 years, which has brought us to the disastrous straits we now find ourselves in. Heis the only candidate who, if elected, will probably be assasinated by the same behind-the-scenes international banker string-pullers who had President Kennedy killed.

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  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     ”Because he’s a phony”-

    Ron Paul displaying his “glory and dignity” in his response to a question about Rick Santorum.

    I think earlier that evening Mitt, Ron and wives had a nice lunch. Or maybe it was evening cocktails.

  • RichardBrodie

    This primary is, as usual, a total farce. The results are the exact opposite of what they would be if it were a true battle of ideas, and not simply a beauty contest. Ron Paul should be on top, with Gingrich second, and the other two bozos trailing far behind.It is really all about the media’s choices, not the people’s, for the press has succeeded in defining the official Presidential look. Tall, with a full head of dark hair, youthful (no wrinkles) and imposingly handsome.

    Do the American people, whose children continue to die on the godforsaken sands of Arabian deserts in endless wars for Israel, really want this sensless slaughter to continue? Do they like seeing our national treasury being bled to support the ongoing disposession of the Palestinian people, which will result in the bankrupting of our own Social Security system?

    Of course we don’t. But the media has succeeded in convincing the vast majority of us that Ron Paul, the only candidate advocating an immediate end to America’s self-immolation in the Middle East, is not electable. And consequently in November, once again, we will have no meaningful choice.

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