Super Tuesday Live

By Creature

UPDATED FREQUENTLY -- MJWS comments in red.

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6:13 - Just settling in with MSNBC on the TV. Turnout is strong. Exit polls shows voters want change, but Hillary wins in the commander in chief role [stupid fuckin' litmus test, if you ask me]. The Clinton folks are downplaying today's vote hard. I'm betting their internals look bad. If I had to make an early prediction, I'm going with Obama scoring big across the board. It won't be decided tonight, but the Clinton folks will not be able to spin a win out of it. Stay tuned.

[Oh, and, Mr. "change-the-Constitution-to-reflect-the-living-god" Huckabee won West Virginia. No, he's not dying for a VP slot with McCain. Not at all.]

6:58 - Georgia, if it's called early it's a good sign for Obama. Waiting... Waiting... Obama wins Georgia. Let's see by how much. Exit polls show Obama got white voters (43%). Now can we put the white-vote question to bed?

7:46 - While waiting for the eight o'clock poll closings, I did take a peak at some raw exit numbers via Meme and, with all the usual caveats, Obama's numbers do look good. How ironic would it be if the Dem race solidifies and the GOP's falls apart?

MJWS: My concern is that it might be too late for Obama. He's on the rise and would have benefitted from an extra few days. Hopefully he did enough to pull off a win in California. I don't know about the GOP, though. I long thought the race was Romney's to lose -- and well, he seems to have lost it. But I think I was wrong all along. His support is weak, Huckabee (helping McCain) is draining his base on the right, and McCain has somehow managed to run an effective campaign against weak opponents. So what if Malkin and Coulter and Rush are against him? It's not like conservatives love Romney or Huckabee all that much.

7:58 - The suspense is killing me. And, here we go... Illinois goes to Obama (no surprise). Oklahoma goes to Hillary. The rest are too close to call. Which may be good for Obama because Hillary should be winning some of the big ones easy (and therefore quickly callable).

8:29 - Arkansas goes to Hillary (no surprise, the Clintons are royalty there). Olbermann makes a Tron reference. He's my hero.

MJWS: Is it desirable to be royalty in a place like Arkansas?

9:00 - Massachusetts is Hillary country. So much for Camelot. And, New York falls to Hillary too. I guess the Empire State likes the policy of empire after all.

MJWS: I wonder what New Yorkers will think when President Clinton II launches a pre-emptive strike against Iran. (Sorry, that was horrendously snarky of me. Some of the co-bloggers here are Clinton backers, and I do respect their views.) Too bad about Massachusetts, my former home state. I thought the Kerry-Kennedy endorsements would have made the race closer.

CNN is reporting that Clinton did extemely well among women and Latinos in New York. The latter, of course, is a key constituency nation-wide this year, one that Obama needs to win. The question now: Where will the Hispanic vote go in California? To Obama, one imagines...

9:22 - My girlfriend's home state, NJ, goes to Hillary. I seem to be typing Hillary's name a lot.

9:48 - Howard Dean: It's the delegates, stupid.

10:04 - Obama gets North Dakota, Utah and Kansas. It's seven/six hope vs. more of the same.

10:24 - I want Hillary to lose just to keep Terry McAuliffe off the TV. Dude, enough with the commander-in-chief sell. Jeez, what a tool. At least Matthews called him a flack (then kissed his ass, typical).

MJWS: It's not just McAuliffe, it's the whole gang of Clintonistas. I can't stand them.

Obama's doing pretty well tonight. I'm disappointed about Massachusetts and New Jersey, where I thought he would do better, but he's winning in the south and the west. It all comes down to California now, though. He needs to win or at the very least to make it close. It's my understanding that Obama should do well in the next round of primaries to come. If he can generate some momentum in California, he's got a shot at winning it all. But Hillary is doing well, too, and not just in the north-east: Tennessee, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma.

On the Republican side -- oh, Romney's talking now -- it looks like it's all McCain now. Huckabee's done well in the south, and he was awfully cocky in his speech, but he's done. Romney has Utah (duh), Massachusetts (duh -- although he's not all that popular there, is he?), and a few other states -- not too bad. You know, maybe the Republican race is a bit closer than I think. McCain is still the clear frontrunner, though.

Two quick CNN-related questions:

1) What does Wolf Blitzer look like in hi-def?
2) Why Bill Bennett? Why? Why? Why? Why?

10:30 - Connecticut goes to Obama. A much needed North-East win for him. Not to mention it was a Hillary stronghold.

10:43 - Mike Huckabee is cleaning up in the South. They do like their god down there. It's going to be hard to keep him off a VP short list now.

10:55 - Hillary on the TV. She's keeping it positive. Dare I say: hopeful. She doesn't do soaring well, but she is trying.

11:28 - Russert: Again, people, it's the delegates.

With California leaning toward Hillary, the storyline for the Dems has become clear. Hillary has fought off Obama, but Obama holds his own in delegates. No surprises. No big upsets (maybe Connecticut). The race, it goes on.

11:44 - Obama: one thing we don't need results to know, our time has come/our movement is real/hold on for that change/end the politics of fear/to all those not drinking the Kool-Aid, we need you/and, yes we can/let's get to work.

Boy, he's good at the speaking.

12:41 - Missouri goes to Obama (this could be the surprise he needed). I go to bed. Goodnight, Super Tuesday.

MJWS: Yes, Obama was very impressive. Clinton was scrappy -- trying to seem like a progressive and making the whole experience argument (which I think is largely bogus -- it's not like Obama would curl up in the fetal position upon finding himself in the Oval Office) -- but he was (dare I say it?) presidential? At the very least, he was his typical inspirational self. Clinton can handle herself in the debates, pulling out facts and policy details, but Obama is the great orator.

It looks like Obama has pulled ahead in Missouri, which would be a big win, thanks to the urban vote in St. Louis and Kansas City. But California is going for Clinton -- how close will it be? Clinton is way up right now. (In terms of delegates, Obama may be ahead.)

Here's how I see it right now: Clinton won in her strongholds of the north-east and Arkansas/Tennessee, as well as in Arizona and California, but Obama did well across the country, in all regions of the country: Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, Colorado, Alaska, etc. And although Clinton will end up with California, the very fact that Obama made it such a close race there, or at the very least closed the gap significantly, speaks to how successful his campaign has been in recent days/weeks. It may be that Super Tuesday was a draw, more or less, but, to me, Obama's was the more impressive performance. (Allow me to rethink that, though. It is awfully late now, I'm tired, and perhaps a tad delusional.)

On the Republican side, I think it's over for Romney -- which means I was seriously wrong about his chances. Not too long ago, I wrote a post explaining how and why he was going to win. Much of my case depended on Huckabee withdrawing and McCain failing to win conservatives against the only conservative left, Romney. But Huckabee is still in there, hurting Romney, McCain seems energized and has picked up big-time endorsements, and Romney just isn't strong enough among conservatives. Maybe Huckabee is right -- maybe this is now a two-man race between him and McCain. Regardless, I just don't see how McCain loses this now.

And so, on we go -- now at 12:44 am ET. The Republican race has been decided, I think, but, on our side, Obama and Clinton are locked in an astoundingly tight battle.

Thanks, Creature. Good night, everyone.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)