Bobby Jindal says Republicans can still be anti-gay bigots and win

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As ThinkProgress reports, at least one leading Republican, a major contender for the 2016 nomination, is refusing to back down on the party's long-standing anti-gay bigotry: 

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) -- a possible Republican candidate for president in 2016 -- rejected former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's argument that conservatives must embrace marriage equality for gays and lesbians if they want to survive as a party and reiterated his support for "traditional marriage."

"Look, I believe in the traditional definition of marriage," Jindal said during an appearance on Meet The Press on Sunday, and went on to claim that Republicans don't have to make the case on social issues to attract young voters and win future elections and instead should continue focusing on economic issues. "We lost [the 2012 election] because we didn't present a vision showing how we believe the entire economy can grow, how people can join the middle class. We're in aspirational party and we need policies that are consistant with that aspirational private sector growth."

And of course he's hardly alone on this. While some Republicans are indeed moving to support same-sex marriage (including the handful of enlightened conservatives like Huntsman), if not out of principle then as a result of partisan political calculation, most of the party isn't budging.

The Republicans are on the wrong side of history on this issue, as on so much else, as well as increasingly on the wrong side of public opinion. And while Jindal may want the party to run on an "aspirational" platform based on failed right-wing economic policies (i.e., they aspire to plutocracy), rights and fairness issues like same-sex marriage and women's health really do matter because they say a lot about a party's, or a candidate's, priorities and intentions.

If you don't understand that, if you think you can still run proudly on your bigotry, and if you don't understand you lost in 2012 because of far more than failing to "present a vision" (as if it was just a communications problem), you're a fool, and worse.

Is Jeb Bush the GOP's best hope for 2016?

By Richard K. Barry

Not that any of us should be surprised, but Jeb Bush is giving serious consideration to seeking the GOP presidential nomination for 2016. This is according to the New York Times, which also writes this:

Mr. Bush is said by friends to be weighing financial and family considerations -- between so many years in office and the recession his wealth took a dip, they said, and he has been working hard to restore it -- as well as the complicated place within the Republican Party of the Bush brand.  

After Mitt Romney's defeat by a Democratic coalition built around overwhelming support from Hispanics and other fast-growing demographic groups, many Republicans are looking for a candidate who can help make the party more inclusive without ceding conservative principles -- and no one is the subject of more speculation at this point than Mr. Bush.

Read more »

Republicans waiting for Superman

By Frank Moraes 

Look! Out in the right wing echo chamber! It's a tax cut proposal?! It's a birth control ban?! No! It's another appeal to conservatives to seem reasonable without changing a God damned thing!

Yes, the "let's all speak nicely about Latinos": argument from a fantasy land far away, come to reality hoping to obfuscate, distract, and deceive the American people.

Katrina Trinko over at National Review writes, "Huntsman's Problem Wasn't Just That He Was Perceived as a Moderate." That title gives you the wrong impression, however. Really what's she's saying is that Huntsman's policies were mostly to the right of Romney. The problem was that he just seemed too damned reasonable!

Trinko goes on to note that Huntsman didn't run a good campaign, but this is a minor complaint. He could easily run a stellar campaign next time. After all, if he had just stayed in the race, at some point, like all the others, he would have surged ahead in the polls. And given that he actually was a real politician, he might have stayed there.

What Trinko seems to be offering is the idea that if Republicans can just hold their noses and vote for a candidate who doesn't pander to their vile ideal, they might get a really conservative candidate who can win. This all comes down to the argument conservatives have been making since the election: it is the style rather than the substance of their policies that are scaring minority voters away. But no: it's really is the substance.

I'm not one of those who think that the Democrats are home free now. Republicans will continue to win low-turnout elections. But for the majority of voters, their ideas are toxic. And it doesn't matter how much they dress up these ideas. Even in a Superman cape, they just won't fly.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

The biggest threat all along was Jon Huntsman. Thankfully, Republicans were too stupid to nominate him.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

After decades of trying, the Manchus finally crossed the Great Wall in 1644, taking Beijing and establishing the Qing Dynasty. They had an easier time of it than Huntsman in the Republican Party.

The WSJ's Washington Wire is reporting that early on the Obama campaign was worried about one really appealing Republican in particular: 

Jon Huntsman is the former Utah governor who took a moderate stance in a GOP field that leaned to the right. He didn't get very far in the Republican nomination fight, but team Obama viewed him as a serious candidate who could pose real problems in a general election. 

"We were honest about our concerns about Huntsman," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at a Politico breakfast event Tuesday. "I think Huntsman would have been a very tough candidate."

As for the president, he liked Mr. Huntsman enough to appoint him ambassador to China in 2009. Mr. Messina, who was working in the White House at the time, said he helped Mr. Huntsman win Senate confirmation.

"As someone who helped manage his confirmation for Chinese ambassador, he's a good guy," Mr. Messina said. "We looked at his profile in a general election and thought he would have been" a formidable candidate.

Absolutely. In fact, I wrote a post way back in June 2011 called "Huntsman the Formidable."

Don't get me wrong, I never thought it was going to be him. The Republican Party is just too extreme right now, too ideologically absolutist, to go with someone like Huntsman.

This is the party, after all, that tossed aside conservative-but-not-conservative-enough Dick Lugar in Indiana, who would have been a shoe-in for re-election, and ended up with Dick "pregnancies from rape are a gift from God" Mourdock, who lost badly in what this year was a solidly red state, a race that was his to lose. A party that was so uncomfortable with Mitt Romney that it flirted seriously with the embarrassing likes of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum before finally settling, reluctantly, on the guy who would end up losing. It was not going to get behind a guy, however conservative, who refused to kowtow to the far right, who exposed Republican ignorance, who was just too sane and civil for the current Republican zeitgeist.

Not in 2012. Absolutely not. He just had way too many strikes against him, as I noted here:

Not that Republicans will ever nominate him, mind you. They're too stupid to know what's good for them, and Huntsman just isn't the right sort of Republican for 2012, what with the party getting ever more extreme, particularly with the rise of the Tea Party, and old-school establishment figures, not to mention moderates, or those who just aren't conservative enough for the extremists, even those with a single questionable mark on their record, being purged from its ranks by the right-wing Bolsheviks who run the show.

I wrote a post way back in January 2011 called "If I were Obama, I'd be worried about Huntsman." In retrospect, I was wrong. Obama had nothing to be worried about. Huntsman was never really a threat.

I was actually talking up the Huntsman thing even earlier, with a post in May 2009 called "Huntsman 2012?" What did I say then? "Huntsman may make us all a little queasy, but, thankfully, Republicans are just too stupid to know what's good for them."

He was undeniably formidable, as I wrote in June 2011:

[T]here's no denying he's an awfully impressive man. I might even go so far as to say he could very well be Reagan 2.0, or if not that, given how transformative Reagan was for movement conservatism, at least a leading Republican in the Reagan mold. He just seems to have it all, even the somewhat more tolerant and even liberal positions on some social issues that show him to be a man of the times, not a man against the times, a conservative who is open to progress and change while remaining committed to his fundamental beliefs. Perhaps he could be zeitgeist conservative, the forward-looking proponent of conservatism at a time of massive global change.

Alas:

But not likely, not in today's Republican Party, which would likely rather expel him that have him as its leader.

Yes, Republicans really are too stupid to know what's good for them. Which is good for us, but not good for Huntsman, who will have to wait until 2016, or forever, to make his mark in a party that has abandoned him and all those like him.

 

Do you get what I'm saying?

 

Republicans. Stupid. Huntsman. Never.

Don't worry, they won't figure it out

By Comrade Misfit

In an election year when Republicans were expected to get control of the Senate, they lost ground. The reason that happened can be laid at the feet of the religious right and the Tea Party.

In 2010, the combination of the evangelicals and the Tea Party defeated moderate candidates in the primaries and then went on to lose Senate races in Colorado, Nevada, Delaware, and Connecticut. In this election, they did the same thing and went on to lose Missouri, Indiana, Maine, and Connecticut.*

Conservatives like to say that this nation is "center-right." But when it comes time to nominate their candidates, they forget the "center" part. So they'll keep saying things such as "Romney lost because he wasn't a true conservative" and they will continue to get their asses beaten.

Look at the other GOP candidates for the White House this last election. Does anyone truly believe that any of them, other than maybe Jon Huntsman, would have had a prayer of winning over the middle-of-the-road voters? But Huntsman was too moderate for his party and his campaign sank faster than the Costa Concordia.

By the way, I hope that somebody has the good grace to send a bottle of good champagne to Nate Silver and a box of Seppuku knives to the pundits at Fox News, with a specially-engraved one being delivered by messenger to Newt Gingrich.**
______________________________

* Back in 2010, Linda McMahon, who is a pro-wrestling magnate, won the Connecticut primary, defeating the moderate candidate of the party. She self-financed her campaign, to the tune of about $50 million or so, and got shelled in the general election. In this election, she spent about as much of her own money, outspending her opponent by something like 4 or 5 to 1 and lost by 80,000 votes.
** The old European tradition of sending a finely-engraved revolver and one cartridge would be an acceptable substitute. But given the number of "too close to call" pundits this time around, we might have to cheap out a bit.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Jon Huntsman: Still the sanest guy at the party

By Richard K. Barry 

Republicans have been taking shots at some Democratic candidates who have chosen to skip their party's nomination convention this summer. It's been suggested that they don't want to emphasize their party affiliation or ties to President Obama to the extent that it could be a drag on their own electoral chances. I'm sure there is truth in the charge. 

Let me know when you
come to your senses.

This is, however, somewhat different than a flat out, undisguised, denunciation of one's own party as was offered by former GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman. In explaining why he would not be attending the Republican convention, he said this:

I will not be attending this year's convention, nor any Republican convention in the future, until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States -- a future based on problem solving, inclusiveness, and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as our fiscal and economic deficits.

I have to think that there are at least a few more reasonable Republicans who are hanging back to see what happens with their party's current experiment with radical conservatism. If things go poorly in November, I suspect there will be hope on the part of those like Huntsman that they can get their party back, to borrow a phrase.

I suspect Huntsman, and maybe Jeb Bush, is setting himself up for that possibility.

It does beg the question, what would it take for the GOP to find its way again?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Romney at Bain: A question worth asking

By Richard K. Barry

Just not anything about Bain Capital...
or my time as Governor of Massachusetts...
or George W. Bush. I really hate that one. 

Yes, a lot of Democrats are too close to Wall Street, and I don't just mean geographically. Being openly critical of the financial sector is not the best way to nurture a promising political career in the New York City Tri-State area.

In some ways, Cory Booker's defense of private equity firms points to the difficulty of those of us on the left who side with the Democratic Party as the least bad alternative. Barack Obama is not a socialist and he's only on the left in that weird world of American politics where everything is so skewed right that a centrist can be called a radical. Remember, Wall Street money is deserting Obama, which means they used to be with him.

But I agree with Obama's critique of private equity firms, and also agree that they are a good way to attack Romney as a heartless prick. But I also think that if Obama had his way, he'd rather not have to attack big money in America. I don't think his natural instincts are to do that and, maybe, Cory Booker, as his "surrogate," made comments that were a kind of Freudian reflection of that fact.

Having said this, it seems odd to be making too much of Booker's statements given what other Republicans have said about Romney's work on behalf of a bunch of rich people.

Daily Kos tracked down some illustrative quotes -- to wit:

• "[They] loot companies, leave behind broken families, broken towns." - Newt Gingrich
• "It's the ultimate insult when Mitt Romney comes to South Carolina and tells you he feels your pain - because he caused it. [...] There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do business. I happen to think that is indefensible." - Rick Perry
• "Governor Romney has claimed to have created over 100,000 jobs at Bain, and people are wanting to know: is there proof of that claim? And was it U.S. jobs created for United States Citizens? And that's fair. that's not negative campaigning." - Sarah Palin
• "Governor Romney enjoys firing people." - Jon Huntsman
• "While Mitt Romney was at Bain Capital, almost one in every four companies they were involved with went bankrupt or went out of business." - John Brabender, Rick Santorum campaign manager.

So, fine, the relationship of America's two main political parties to finance capital is complex. Sometimes Democrats line up with big money, sometimes Republicans play the economic populist card. Like I've said before, they are all capitalist and you can't be a capitalist while maintaining an antagonistic relationship to capital, at least not for long.

All I want to know is, and I think Obama is right to ask this, does Romney's work at Bain provide the kind of experience that would be useful to a president, or is it exactly the wrong kind of experience? Some of Romney's colleagues in the GOP don't seem to think much of it. At the very least, the question is worth exploring.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Huntsman withdraws from Republican race, throws support to Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you've surely heard by now, Jon Huntsman -- Huntsman the Formidable, I once called him -- has pulled out of the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. His withdrawal at this stage was hardly a surprise. Though he finished a fairly strong third in New Hampshire, where he campaigned relentlessly and into which he put pretty much every egg he had, he has never been a viable contender for the nomination. The latest Gallup national poll has him at just 2 percent, behind even the pathetic Rick Perry at 5 percent. He was bound to do poorly in South Carolina, and there was just no way he was ever going to catch on. Though has has some impressive conservative credentials, he's just not in tune with the right-wing extremism of today's GOP. Thankfully, though, Republicans are too stupid to know what's good for them (though, it would seem, not stupid enough to go with Gingrich or Santorum instead of Romney -- alas).

What may be surprising is that he stayed in this long without a credible shot at the nomination. Perhaps he really did think that Republicans would survey their pathetic field of candidates, recognize this strengths and general-election appeal, and give him his turn as frontrunner. But he's a smart, sensible guy. What's more likely is that, all along, he's been running for 2016, anticipating that the extremist GOP may turn back to the center somewhat as the Tea Party continues to loses favor and as possible losses in 2012 send a message that even head-up-their-asses Republicans can't miss that to win nationally you have to be a Huntsman-style "moderate," not a hardened, uncompromising ideologue of the right. (Of course, if Romney loses, the takeaway for many Republicans will be that the party loses when it embraces moderation of any kind and that it must go hard right if it wants to win in 2016.)

To his credit, Huntsman ran an admirable campaign. While I certainly don't agree with him on pretty much anything, and while he's far more conservative than his right-wing detractors seems to think, he remained generally positive (partly because he had nothing to lose, partly because he didn't want to ruin his chances for 2016 by burning too many bridges, partly because he's just not a negative guy), preferring to showcase his integrity than pander to the party's right-wing base or turn on his rivals.

The problem is that immediately upon withdrawing he endorsed Romney and revealed that he's much more of a partisan opportunist than his campaign might have suggested. As Kevin Drum writes:

I believed from Day 1 that Huntsman was running for 2016, which gave him way more scope to run a relatively honest and dignified campaign than any of the folks who were genuinely running for this year's nomination. And yet, Huntsman just never seemed to attract a following, not even the Tsongas / Anderson / McCain-ish kind of cult that presidential elections so often produce. These are the folks who rally around the guy willing to "speak hard truths" and avoid "politics as usual." The media usually swoons for them too. But not Huntsman. He got a few followers, and a bit of decent press, but that was it. He just wasn't any good at projecting an intriguing image.

And the quick pivot to Romney just amplifies that shortcoming. Politically, maybe he thought it made him into the kind of team player who was more likely to attract establishment support in 2016. Maybe he thought there wasn't much time left to make an endorsement that wasn't just pro forma. But after the savaging he's given Romney, turning around so quickly sure does make him look like a guy who was just throwing lots of anti-Romney crap against the wall whether he believed it or not.

Who knows? Maybe the story here is that Huntsman just isn't that great a politician. After all, he is the guy who apparently thought that quoting a bit of Chinese in the last debate counted as a devastating riposte. But I guess he might make a decent Secretary of Commerce.

Or Secretary of State? No, maybe too high-profile. (If he wins, Romney will surely find some spot for Huntsman in his administration.)

It's a fair point that maybe Huntsman isn't much of a politician. Beloved by the media -- partly because he's that appealing sort of above-the-fray "centrist" the David Broder-oriented Beltway media love, partly because he made himself so available, partly because he seems so likeable -- he never really caught on with the party he purports to belong to. I once thought he was a sort of Reagan 2.0 in that he seemed to have an appealing conservative authenticity, but he's just not that great a communicator, and of course not the sort of ideologue Republicans demand these days. (Not that Reagan would be all that welcome in today's GOP either, given his various heresies over the years, but Reagan defined post-Nixonian conservatism, rooted in Goldwater, and more than anyone translated conservative ideology into electoral success. That is, where Reagan defined the conservative zeitgeist of his time, Huntsman is fighting against it.) But is he bad politician? I don't think we know. His failure had far less to do with how he is as a politician than with the fact that he's just not sufficiently Republican for today's Republican Party.

His quick endorsement of Romney, though, does indeed raise some serious questions. Unlike Newt's various attacks, Huntsman's thoughtful criticism of Romney, whom he called "a perfectly lubricated weathervane," seemed rooted in principle and therefore credible. Perhaps the line between Romney and Huntsman was never all that distinct, but Huntsman did present himself as an alternative to Romney in a way that no other candidate did without resorting to cartoonish caricature and downright dishonesty. But what are we to make of all that now? He's decided either to be the loyal team player for 2012 or to push for a spot in a Romney administration. Or maybe he never meant all that criticism at all. Maybe it was all for show in the heat of the campaign. Whatever the case, the man who was all about integrity seems to have thrown out his integrity along with his campaign. Indeed, he's already pulled his anti-Romney ads from YouTube, cleansing his record (and history) of all such negativity -- though one of them at least is still available (see below). And he's also already ramping up the silly anti-Obama rhetoric that makes Republicans salivate and is at the core of Romney's appeal to the GOP base.

Of course, Huntsman was never what he and his admirers, including those in the media, claimed he was. He frequently went negative, particularly on Romney and Paul, is a hardcore conservative on many key issues (including taxes), and when he needs to be can be viciously partisan. Compared to the rest of the Republican field, sure, he was steller. But being better, in this sense, than Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, and Bachmann (I'll leave Ron Paul out of it -- there's no doubt he has integrity, however much an extremist right-wing libertarian he may be) is hardly much of a compliment.

And yet I still like him and still respect him -- at least as much as I can like and respect any Republican. I can't say it's too bad he's out of the race and never had a shot, because I want the Republican Party to be an extremist party of mostly unelectables. It just makes it easier for Democrats -- and, this year, for Obama. But certainly he raised the field a bit closer to respectability and was able to make the contrast between a reality-based campaign and the lies and delusions of his rivals abundantly clear. Which is to say, when he's around, he exposes just how crazy and just how extreme the Republican Party really is.

Live-blogging the 2012 New Hampshire primary: Does it really mean anything at all?

By Michael J.W. Stickings, with Richard K. Barry

UPDATED FREQUENTLY.

6:42 pm - Okay, we did it with Iowa last week, now let's do it with New Hampshire. How 'bout some live-blogging, baby?! (I'll do frequent updates throughout the evening (and into the early-morning hours), reporting on the results but also breaking off into tangents about the race generally, and Richard will add some additional commentary.)

6:45 pm - BREAKING NEWS: The Reaction declares Willard "Mitt" Romney the winner of the 2012 New Hampshire Republican primary. Take that, Wolf Blitzer!

6:47 pm - The polls don't close until 8 pm, but the outcome is in absolutely zero doubt. Romney will win easily in his "backyard," neighboring Massachusetts being his "home," and that will be that. So let's move on to South Carolina, where a much more meaningful vote is scheduled for Saturday, January 21. Okay? No? No. I suppose we do need to work our way through tonight's results, to derive some sort of meaning them (or to impose meaning on them, rather). Here are the key questions: How much of the vote will Romney win (and by how much will he win)? How will the non- and anti-Romneys finish (and is there any possibility of any one of them picking up some momentum heading towards South Carolina)?

6:56 pm - Just going to have some dinner. Be back shortly. Stay tuned. And feel free to add your comments if you so desire.

7:47 pm - Alright, here we go... But first, let me tell you what I'm drinking tonight. I'm just polishing off a nice Creemore Springs pilsner from one of the best Ontario craft breweries. We'll go darker and deeper as the night goes on.

7:49 pm - The polls over the last few days show Romney with about a 20-point lead in New Hampshire. Again, there's no question he's going to win. But what will the numbers be? I tend to think that the inevitability of his win could dampen his support somewhat. He's been polling in the range of 35 to 41. Let's say he ends up with 37 percent of the vote. And then let's say Paul finishes second at 19, then Huntsman at 17, Santorum at 12, Gingrich at 10, and Perry way back at 1.

What would all that mean? Actually, I'd say that wouldn't be all that impressive for Romney, who should at this point, and with divided opposition, be able to win well over 40 percent of the vote. Paul will likely stay in the race until the very end, but even a second-place finish here wouldn't give him much of a bump. This is Huntsman's big shot at respectability, and he's put a lot of energy into New Hampshire, but the Republican Party is no place for him these days and he'll fall off badly in South Carolina. Gingrich is done. His role now is to try to knock off Romney in South Carolina. So it falls to Santorum to be the leading anti-Romney. Even a fourth-place finish here wouldn't be all that bad considering where he was just a couple of weeks ago. But he'll have his work cut out for him to build support over the next 10 days. It's possible that he'd emerge as a viable alternative to Romney were Gingrich to drop out, but there's just no way he has the staying power to mount a serious challenge over the long term. He might finish second in South Carolina but then fall off again in Florida.

But it's all about expectations, as you know, and about "narrative." And the problem for Romney tonight is that he has nothing to gain and much to lose. And if he underperforms, particularly with all the battering he's been taking over his destructive work at Bain Capital, he could emerge even from a decisive victory as a still-very-weak frontrunner, even if his ultimate victory is all but assured given his money, his organization, and his support from Republican elites.

RKB: Does anyone doubt that Huntsman is playing for the next time, that this is all about 2016? What else could he be doing? I can't imagine he really sees a path to win the nomination now. Maybe if Romney failed to meet expectations in New Hampshire there might be some room for another "electable candidate," but that's not going to happen. Romney will do well enough in New Hampshire to pretty much lock this thing up. And after he wins South Carolina, it really will be over. No surprises tonight. 

8:01 pm - Yes, CNN (and I assume everyone else) declares for Romney. Done.

8:02 pm - Exit polls, according to Wolf, show Romney at 36, Paul at 23, Huntsman at 18, Gingrich and Santorum at 10. A result closer to 35 than 40 would be even worse for Romney, obviously. Possible strong showing for Paul, though I suspect he'll fall short of the exit polls. (Results here.)

RKB:  Woo-hoo. CNN projects that Romney wins. Never saw that one coming. Carville just said that Huntsmann has implied he would drop out if he didn't do well in New Hampshire. It looks like a distant third for Hunstmann, and Paul is still hanging in. Santorum isn't going anywhere, currently at 10%. CNN exit polls has Romney at 36, Paul at 23 and Huntsman at 18. If that holds, this thing is over, and not just NH.

8:11 pm - I'm not disagreeing with Richard. The race is pretty much over. It's Romney. Conservatives find him "acceptable." Hardly a huge endorsement, but they're obviously willing to living with him. The question is whether the lack of enthusiasm on the right, and really within the new right-wing GOP mainstream (with Dear Leader Rush as one of the key spokesmen), will hurt Romney in the general election. Even if most on the right come around, hold their noses, and vote for Romney as anyone-but-Obama, that general lack of enthusiasm could translate into somewhat lower turnout among conservatives, particularly with the spotlight on Romney's relatively progressive past (at least in terms of social policy) that will come with him being the nominee.

But I think there's more going on here. Romney currently has just 35 percent of the vote (with 17 percent of precincts reporting) in a state that is perfect for him: close to home, socially liberal or libertarian, economically conservative, where he's been campaigning since before the '08 primaries, where he has an extensive ground campaign and huge name recognition, where, as a clear frontrunner, he should be able to win over 40 percent easily, if not over 50 percent. Am I overstating the expectations? Look, even with 35 percent he'll be able to declare a decisive victory and head on as the clear frontrunner to South Carolina. But I think we're still seeing just how weak he is, not to mention just how weak and divided the opposition is. Put a credible conservative in here and you'd get a much closer race and anything but a decisive victory for Romney.

RKB: Paul in second place is more than Romney could have hoped for. It effectively marginalizes the other real contenders because Paul can't win. Wow. Perfect for Mitt.

8:22 pm - Indeed. Romney certainly has luck on his side. Or a horseshoe up his ass. Or something.

CNN declares Paul second and Huntsman third. So no surprises whatsoever.

RKB: Huntsman people are now saying that Huntsman is not getting out. In fact, it appears that no one is getting out, which is good news for Romney. His opposition remains fractured.

8:25 pm - What position do you think he'd get in a Romney administration? Secretary of state?

8:26 pm - "Tonight we made history." -- Romney. Yup, he's already giving his victory speech. Let's see if this is any better than his disaster of a speech in Iowa. Oh, already attacking Obama. Surprise, surprise. It makes him appear to be the nominee already, as if he's already running against the president. "We still believe in that shining city on a hill." More meaningless bullshit. Romney is a plutocrat and a panderer to the right. And so he resorts to attacking Obama with lies and distortions.

"President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial." And, he adds, he's been joined by some Republicans (looking at you, Newt). This, of course, is ridiculous. The president has proven to be nothing but a free enterpriser, rescuing Wall Street and industry and refusing to do anything serious about the havoc the American capitalist system is wreaking on most Americans. And I assume by defending free enterprise he's defending the right of unregulated capitalists to make millions destroying jobs and ruining lives. 

Yes, yes, Obama is a European-style socialist. Has Romney ever been to Europe? Seriously, in what world can this be taken at all seriously? Right -- in the world of Republican insanity.

"He passed Obamacare, I'll repeal it." No mention that Obamacare is based almost entirely on Romneycare.

Obama's "appeasement" strategy around the world... no need for American military superiority. Right, like how Obama refuses to use drones to take out terrorists, or how he refused to approve that mission to take out Osama bin Laden, or how he's pulled out of Afghanistan. Funny, eh? There appears to be no connection whatsoever between Romney's rhetoric and reality.

"We still believe in the America that is the land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom." There's a line with absolutely no substance to it.

What a massive pile of bullshit.

RKB: Just listening to Romney's speech. Is anyone going to believe that Romney gives a damn about middle-class Americans? What a phony bastard. He is one cringe-making politician. I almost can't wait for Romney to secure the nomination so the Dems can focus on him and hang him by his own pathetic cliches. He is so embarrassing. So full of shit. What an ass. 

9:04 pm - "President Paul!... President Paul!... President Paul!" So chant Paul's supporters, who prove once against just what utterly delusional nutjobs they are. (Okay, they're not all nutjobs. Just a lot of them.)

9:05 pm - Am I completely anti-Paul? No. I respect and for the most part agree with his views on civil liberties, American militarism and foreign wars (including the military-industrial complex), the war on drugs, etc. It's quite admirable that he's willing give voice to some harsh truths that most Americans would rather not hear, to speak out against some of the most dominant and most destructive forces in American life (and politics). But he's quite mad, raving against the Fed (and paper money), as if gold is the answer, as if somehow America could really withdraw from the global financial system. And don't be fooled. He's an extremist right-wing libertarian who would gut government and subject everyone to the forces of the unregulated market. He says he wants to protect liberty, but there's a dark side to that, is there not? What "liberty" would there really be for most people in Ron Paul's utopia? (And on capitalism and the economy, he's certainly siding with Romney.)

Fine, fine, it's good to have him in the race, good that he's doing fairly well, good that someone is talking about civil liberties and the follies of American militarism, but let's not give him a free pass just because he happens to be more sensible on these issues that pretty much every other Republican and even many (if not most) Democrats.

"We will restore freedom to this country." Yeah, good luck with that.

9:19 pm - How about an update? With 46 percent reporting, it's:

-- Romney: 34,702 (37%)

-- Paul: 21,956 (24%)

-- Huntsman: 16,124 (17%)

-- Gingrich: 9,324 (10%)

-- Santorum: 9,227 (10%)

-- Perry: 679 (1%)

Paul is doing a bit better than I expected, but he's being helped by independent / Democratic support in an open primary. A lot of his support, in other words, is non-Republican.

Santorum is doing worse than I expected. Will he be able to regain his footing, and recapture the attention he got after Iowa, when the focus shifts to South Carolina?

Gingrich is doing about as I expected. Will he carry through with his threats to go after Romney in South Carolina? Can he recover at all in a state where he's fairly strong? Will he and Santorum continue to divide the conservative vote?

Remember when Perry mattered?

9:26 pm - Romney's now up to 38 percent, with 49 percent reporting. 

9:29 pm - Now down to 37 again, with 50 reporting.

Huntsman at the podium: "Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're in the hunt." Uh, no you're not. "I say, third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentlemen." I just lost a ton of respect for him. Does he really believe this? He was all-in on New Hampshire, a state receptive to his old-school brand of conservatism. Of course he's done well -- by his lowly standards. If he stays in the race, he'll do well in Vermont and Maine as well. That doesn't mean he has a shot at winning the nomination, just that he's a moderate (relatively speaking) who can do well in liberal/moderate parts of the country.

Afghanistan is not America's future. Iraq is not America's future. He's talking economy, and the challenges America faces, particularly in the Pacific. Look, I can't say I agree with him on most issues, but I do respect him and his positions. I did once upon a time call him "Huntsman the Formidable." In a saner time, the GOP would hand him the nomination. But Republicans are too crazy and too stupid and too extreme to know what's good for them.

Term limits for Congress? Really, we're back to that after all these years? What is this, 1995?

End the war in Afghanistan? Wait, is Ron Paul still speaking?

His speech is a bit disjointed, all over the place, a bit like Romney's last week but without all the anti-Obama nonsense and hyper-nationalist bullshit. Though Huntsman did just pull out the "greatest nation on earth" line. Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever. This is when much of the rest of the world laughs at American arrogance even from its more thoughtful public figures.

"We have the greatest and most courageous armed forces this nation has ever seen." Um, what about those who fought in World War II? Wait... so we'll have another Greatest Generation now, helping to rebuild the country? I wouldn't bet on that.

On to South Carolina... (He's running either for a top spot on Romney's administration, assuming he doesn't destroy Romney in the process, or for 2016, when the GOP may be more receptive to him.)

9:41 pm - Did you know that CNN's election coverage tonight is being brought to us by... fossil fuels? Yes, by propaganda from the oil and gas industry, by "clean" coal, by global warming and the destruction of our world as we know it, by the mass murder of potentially hundreds of millions. Good times.

9:46 pm - I was going to follow up the pilsner with a smoked stout from Iceland, but I'm not sure I can do that. Just too heavy. Maybe some bourbon. With a toast to Obama for winning the Democratic primary. In case you were wondering.

Waiting on Newt and Rick... Just going to take a break. Be back in a bit.

10:21 pm - Quick reflections on Santorum and Gingrich: 

Santorum: Decent speech, if rather more muted than last week's in Iowa. He said what had to be said. On the one hand, he hasn't done well, battling it out for a distant fourth with Newt. On the other hand, he'd done really well, moving up to 10 percent support after being in the low single digits not so long ago. He was never going to do all that well in New Hampshire, but he actually downplayed his presence in the state. Last week he bragged about how much time he'd spent there. Tonight he treated the state like an afterthought. But he's on to South Carolina, where his social conservatism should allow him to do significantly better.

Gingrich: Give him credit, he talks ideas (even if they're unpalatable right-wing ones). His speech was sober and, from a conservative perspective, sensible. He presented himself on the one hand as a uniter of all Americans and on the other as a Republican with a record of getting things done even when faced with intractable Democratic opposition. He talked about his indebtedness to Reagan and Thatcher, and even, succumbing to his usual egomaniacal self-aggrandizement, took credit for the economic success and job creation of the Clinton years. His selling point is that he's the best candidate to debate and defeat Obama. But what of his recent attacks on Romney's unethical capitalism? In the speech, he defended capitalism as the be-all and end-all but didn't draw that distinction between "true" capitalism and the job-destroying venture capitalism of Bain Capital. And as much as he's been talking of an all-out assault on Romney in South Carolina, I just don't see it coming.

Basically, if anyone is to beat Romney, either Gingrich or Santorum has to withdraw and endorse the other, uniting the conservative vote against Romney and Paul. As of right now, with everyone's attention turning to South Carolina and with optimism still high, that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Which means that Romney's path to the nomination remains clear. How fortunate he is not to face any truly serious and credible conservative opposition.

10:33 pm - Not much new to report. With 74 percent reporting, it's Romney at 38, Paul at 23, Huntsman at 17, and Gingrich and Santorum at 10. 

12:12 am - Just watched Stewart and Colbert... Alright, let's wrap this up. Romney is now at 39 percent, with 92 percent reporting, followed by Paul at 23 and Huntsman at 17. Gingrich appears to have finished fourth, at 10, with Santorum declining to 9. All this as votes came in from the more populous, Romney-oriented parts of the state.

So what are to make of this? I still think Romney continues to be an extremely weak candidate, though there's no denying his clear victory here. There's no doubt he's the favorite to win South Carolina and that this win will help build the aura of inevitability that seems to be engulfing his campaign. The question is whether anyone will emerge to challenge him not just in South Carolina but in Florida. Everyone was talking big tonight, but at some point either Santorum or Gingrich is going to have to get out of the race is conservatives are to have a shot at taking down Romney. As it is, it looks more and more like Republicans are resigning themselves to a Romney candidacy that will have a hard time arousing much enthusiasm on the right. The overwhelming desire to beat Obama will likely bring most conservatives into the fold, but Romney is still a tough sell, and he'll have to balance securing conservative support with moving back to the left to try to win independents and the new generation of "Reagan Democrats."

12:19 am: Stay tuned for extensive coverage of the Republican race as we now turn our attention to South Carolina. Keep coming back. You'll find a lot to like, or a lot to infuriate you.

12:22 am: Good night, everyone. We'll be back at it in the morning.

Live-blogging the 2012 Iowa caucuses: The greatest day in American democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED FREQUENTLY.

9:06 pm - Okay, here we go. The 2012 presidential nomination season is underway. And by "underway" I mean, votes are actually being cast.

Is it a great day for democracy? Well, that's the intention. Old-school democracy. Caucuses (particularly in Iowa), unlike primaries, represent a sort of idyllic (if mostly obsolete) Jeffersonianism, the people actually coming out, talking politics, and making their choices. Unlike the atomized process of voting in a booth, in privacy, this is about community, about political engagement as something other than, more than, the mere casting of a ballot.

And by "the people," of course, I mean a tiny fraction of an otherwise alienated and disengaged electorate, the hardcore of the hardcore, extremists of partisanship, ideology, and political temperament. In this case, a tiny fraction of the electorate in a small state that, all due respect, isn't exactly representative of America. So why should it be so important? Why should it be the focus of our political obsession?

Exactly. There's really no good reason for it. If not for the fact that it's the first in the nation, a tradition that defies common sense. The nomination process is a long slog, but we do love the horse race, don't we? And any indication of who's ahead and who's behind is like a drug. For months, all we've had is polls, poll after freakin' poll. Now it's the real thing, baby. As crazy as it is, as ridiculous as the Iowa caucuses are, at least we're getting some votes. At least it all means something now.

And so here we are.

9:24 pm - Yes, it's what we thought it would be, a tight three-way race between Romney, Paul, and Santorum. With 18% reporting, here's the breakdown (via CNN):

-- Paul: 5,348 (24%)

-- Santorum: 5,283 (24%)

-- Romney: 4,988 (22%)

Yes, in a nation of 312,796,207 people, we're talking about a few thousand people launching the 2012 presidential race and holding enormous sway over where the race goes from here.

Let's just say Iowa's impact is a tad disproportionate.

All due respect.

9:31 pm - It's now even closer:

-- Romney: 6,297 (23%)

-- Santorum: 6,256 (23%)

-- Paul: 6,240 (23%)

Gingrich is back at 13%, Perry at 10%, Bachmann at 6%. Remember when each one was not least leading in Iowa but looking like the inevitable winner there?

9:45 pm - In case you missed it, the past couple of days were all about playground politics in Iowa. Which is to say, they were all about juvenile name-calling. For example:

-- Santorum: "Ron Paul is disgusting." (Oh yeah? Your mama is so fat...)

-- Paul supporters to Santorum: "nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye." (Okay, that's pretty amusing.)

-- Gingrich: Mitt Romney's a liar. (A Romney Super-PAC has been relentlessly attacking Newt, contributing to his rapid decline, but Romney has denied any connection to it. Newt: "This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC -- it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth.")

Well, he's right. Just as he's mostly right about this:

It's just like this pretense that he's a conservative. Here's a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in "Romneycare," puts Planned Parenthood in "Romneycare," raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he's magically a conservative.

I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine.

For a variety of reasons, Romney has largely escaped any sustained criticism from his rivals thus far. (See what I wrote about this earlier today.) But this conservative critique of Romney isn't going away. It just needs the right spokesperson. Maybe it's Newt. Maybe with his bad loss in Iowa he'll actually go on the offensive.

10:35 pm - Santorum now has a narrow lead over Romney, but we're only a little over halfway through this. Paul has fallen back a bit. (It's 24-24-22.)

10:37 pm - For a good look at the Iowa caucuses, and how they came to be so significant, see Ezra Klein's interview with Rutgers political scientist David Redlawsk. Key quote:

In fact, every cycle we have this question of whether somebody will try and leapfrog or jump ahead and that's how we get frontloading. The national parties try to penalize those who do that. This year, for instance, Florida is only getting half of its delegates because it violated the rules by trying to go early. So the system stays in stasis through a combination of Iowa and New Hampshire jealously guarding their privileges and the national parties penalizing anyone who tried to change the status quo. No one loves the current system, but no one has come up with something they would like better.

Even here, in this supposed democratic paradise, politics -- and power -- is about privilege.

10:46 pm - In case you were wondering, the population of the U.S. is now 312,796,488.

10:50 pm - Suddenly we're up to 88% reporting. It looks Paul has slipped to third and will end up there. It's now a two-man race between Santorum and Romney:

-- Santorum: 26,443 (25%)

-- Romney: 26,398 (25%)

-- Paul: 22,728 (21%)

Just 45 votes. Pretty amazing, really. We knew it would be close, but this is crazy.

And even though Paul is well back now, I'm sure his fanatical supporters will declare his third-place finish an historic victory heralding the Age of Ron Paul, the present and future of the Republican Party. They don't have a monopoly on delusion, to be sure, but they seem to have more than their fair share. 

10:56 pm - And Paul remains a bitter, nasty, and vindictive man. Here's what he (or one of his minions) tweeted (via) a while ago:

@JonHuntsman we found your one Iowa voter, he's in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks.

Nice.

Huntsman actually has 629 votes, a whopping 1% of the vote. Honestly, though, what's the point of kicking him when he's down? (Whatever the outcome, he's a bigger man than Paul will ever be.) 

11:07 pm - So we've moved up one to 89% but now Romney has the lead. What? How did this flip-flop so quickly? It's still 25-25, but he's up 27,101 to 26,976.

11:09 pm - Dan Amira at New York mag, with the funniest line of the day:

A few weeks ago, Rick Perry said he wanted to be the Tim Tebow of Iowa, and now a Michele Bachmann super-PAC ad is trying to make the same comparison. So which campaign is actually like Tebow? Both of them!: They were both wildly, inexplicably successful for a brief period of time, and now they are just embarrassing.

As a Steelers fan, I shouldn't laugh at jokes like this. I mean, what if Tebow beats them on Sunday? We're six days out, but my anxiety is already ridiculous.

11:13 pm - Did I mention that on the Democratic side Barack Obama has been awarded all delegates in Iowa? Yes, today isn't just about Republicans.

11:14 pm - At Crooks and Liars, where I do the blog round-up now and then, Rick Perlstein argues that Iowa doesn't matter, as Republicans always go with the "next in line":

Another pattern: the desperate attempts of the political press to drum up evidence of a competitive race, whatever the historical lessons that point obstinately in the opposite direction. It's not a hard argument to make: "on the ground," things always look competitive. The vaunted party "base" plain their disgust with the sell-out moderate party elites want to shove down their throats, dutifully falling in love with a series of far-right saviors in the earlier innings: President Pat Robertson, who nearly won Iowa in 1988; President Pat Buchanan, who took New Hampshire in 1992; and All Hail Huckabee the choice of Iowa caucus-goers in 2008—but not before Fred Thompson's moment in the sun later in the year, and after Rudy Giuliani dazzled conservatives who hadn't yet figured out that he was a cross-dresser with gay roommates The same thing always happens next: The insurgents fall by the wayside. The base comes around. Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

Is he right? Historically speaking, yes. And he may be right about 2012. Maybe it really will be Romney. But is that because Romney is "next in line," or because the various alternatives have been so weak? And while it's true that Republicans generally "fall in line," things may be changing in an age of social media and the decline of central-party politics. The moneyed elite, represented by Karl Rove, still wields enormous power in the GOP, as do mainstream pundits like Charles Krauthammer and George Will, but there isn't really a center anymore. Media giants like Dear Leader Rush are just as influential, if not more so, and they can reach millions (particularly grassroots primary/caucus voters, those in the base who have so much influence in these contests) without going through the party apparatus or requiring the approval of the establishment.

I agree with Perlstein that Iowa is far less important than people think -- or rather than the media tell us it is as they try to drum up drama -- but his assessment of how the GOP works may be based on a reality that has shifted over recent election cycles.

And as for Romney, I'm not sure he's "next in line." Why not, oh, Sarah Palin?

11:28 pm - 93% reporting, and Santorum has swung back into the lead, 28,201 to 28,086.

11:33 pm - Interesting results from CNN's "entrance poll":

-- 57% men, 43% women. (Doesn't sound fair, does it?)

-- By age: 17-29 (15%); 30-44 (16%); 45-64 (42%); 65+ (26%).

In other words, this whole damn thing is being decided by older white men. (Actually, that sounds pretty damn Republican.)

Also check out the results man. It's like a general election dividing the Democrat and Republican. Faux conservative Romney is winning the urban areas (like any Democrat would), notably Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Davenport, while social conservative Santorum is cleaning up in the rural areas (like any Republican would). Paul is doing well in the eastern part of the state, along the Illinois border. Perry has actually won a couple of counties in the southwest.

11:39 pm - 96% reporting, and it's tightened, now 28,958 to 28,879 for Santorum. Yes, fewer than 100 votes separate the two leaders. There's no reason to get too excited about any of this, unless you're a loyal follower of either one, but, again, it's pretty amazing that it's this close with almost 60,000 votes between the two of them.

11:44 pm - In case you were wondering, I'm rooting for Santorum. (Actually, I would have been rooting for Newt, until his fall. I'm still hoping he recovers and re-emerges as Romney main rival.) Because it's just so... ridiculous. And funny.

12:11 am - A CNN panel featuring Ari Fleischer and James Carville. Horrendous. I'm turning back to Family Guy or Chopped.

12:12 am - Crazy. It's even closer now. 97% reporting, and Santorum is up by just 37 votes, 29,210 to 29,173.

Whoever comes out on top, even by just a few votes, will declare victory, but I'm not sure it really matters. It's basically a tie.

It looked bleak for Romney in Iowa for a long time, but he's managed, if only because his conservative rivals are so weak, to come out with a fairly strong showing. And Santorum, of course, came out of nowhere to pull even with the supposed frontrunner, if only because Newt collapsed. Romney will go on to win New Hampshire easily. But he continues to struggle with a fairly low ceiling of support across the Republican board and needs to prove that he can win after New Hampshire, in South Carolina but even more importantly in Florida.

Meanwhile, Santorum needs to build off this result, in a state where he campaigned furiously (and where he put all his eggs), and show that he's for real. He won't be able to, because he isn't, but he might just be able to divide the anti-Romney vote long enough to guarantee Romney the nomination.

And what of Newt? Can he recover from this? Let's say he finishes a distant third in New Hampshire, behind Romney and Paul? What then? Will he have anything left? Will South Carolina be another Iowa, with the vote split and no clear winner? And can Newt, if he hasn't been thoroughly crushed by then, contend with Romney in Florida, where the polls have shown a one-on-one battle?

And what of Perry, who's now mailing his eggs to South Carolina. (Oh, he's still quite mad. He compared the 2012 election to Omaha Beach. I wonder what "The Greatest Generation" thinks of such nonsense.) Update: Scrap that. He's done.

12:17 am - Santorum on the TV. Just declared victory. (A surprise? Maybe not so much.) Before quoting that good Catholic mythologist C.S. Lewis. And thanking his wife. And then giving a public thanks to "God." And then thanking Iowans: "You... you... by not compromising... are taking the first step to taking back this country." Typical Republican BS, of course. What, take back the country from centrists like Obama? From the right-wing Republican majority in the House? From the 5-4 right-leaning Supreme Court?

Anyway, isn't today's result in Iowa the definition of not taking a stand?

12:25 am - Santorum favours cutting taxes and balancing the budget. No word on if he believe in unicorns and fairy dust. Then again, he believes in Jesus, so it's not like he lives in a rational world.

But... am I really saying this? He actually looks and sounds fairly impressive. He's certainly sincere, however delusional and extreme, and he's really come into his own, sweater vests and all, during this surge in Iowa. I still don't think he can pull this off, but maybe, if Gingrich can't recover, he'll be the guy who unites the right even at this late date. Raise your hand if you saw that coming.

12:32 am - In case you missed it, Santorum said that states have the right to ban birth control. Don't believe all his freedom talk for a second. He's a theocrat who values freedom only for plutocrats and within the confines of Christianist authoritarianism.

12:36 am - What motivates Santorum? -- "the dignity of every human life" (including "every working person"). Well, unless you're poor, or black, or whatever else he doesn't like or that in any way disturbs his God-fearin' worldview. But look, he's certainly more a man of the people than Romney...

12:38 am - ...who just emerged in front a big American flag. His wife: "we don't know who's won yet."

12:39 am - Well, Romney's being magnanimous, congratulating Santorum and Paul for a good campaign in Iowa.

12:41 am - With 99% reporting... get a lot of this: It's still 25-25, but now as close as it's been all night, 29,662 to 29,657 for Santorum. Five votes. That's it.

12:42 am - So what's Romney doing? Why, fearmongering about a "nuclear" Iran, of course, as if he wants to declare war right now, blaming Obama for not doing anything. (And what exactly should he have done?)

I can't listen anymore. It's typical Romney. Piling on Obama, saying nothing of substance, speaking too quickly, without pause, and also not connecting the way Santorum did, not telling his story the way Santorum did. He's just bullshitting. Like on energy: take advantage of oil and gas and nuclear and renewables. What does that even mean? Does he actually believe anything? Does he have any sort of concrete policy agenda? No and no, it would seem. Now he's talking about what programs he'd cut. But not really. He's just take a look at all of them. The only thing he mentions is Obamacare, which, of course, is based on Romneycare. (He neglects to mention that.) And now he's getting philosophical. This election is about the soul of America. Please. This isn't working. It's like he's just reciting lines that have been pre-approved by various focus groups. He's just ticking off the key bullets. Now he's attacking the "entitlement society." Now he's talking about the founding patriots. "Let us restore the greatness of America." He's all over the place. There's absolutely no coherence to this speech whatsoever. It's awful. And it's just Romney being Romney.

Happy, Republicans?

12:50 am: The website is ahead of Wolf Blitzer's wall. Santorum is now up by 27 votes, 29,892 to 29,865. But John King, who if nothing else can read numbers off a screen, is saying that the remaining precincts may favour Romney. We shall see.

12:52 am: Idiot Brit right-winger Piers Morgan, would-be Larry King Part Deux, just showed up. That's my cue. I'm done.

12:53 am: Stay tuned for much more 2012 election coverage here at The Reaction.

12:54 am: Good night, everyone.

**********

1:39 am: Dammit. I just can't resist. Romney has taken the lead, by a single vote -- 29,957 to 29,956. An outright win would certainly mean more to Santorum than to Romney, but, again, I'm not sure it matters all that much. It's a tie, and that's how it'll be reported.

1:41 am: Oh, now it's Santorum ahead again, but by just four votes -- 29,968 to 29,964.

1:42 am: Alright, enough. Good night.