Early results, exit poll point to long night

March 4, 2008

Well, at least one contest was an easy call.

Senator Barack Obama appeared poised to pick up his 12th straight victory over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic nominating race on Tuesday as the television networks and The Associated Press projected that he would win the Vermont primary, the first of four contests on a potentially decisive night.

But attention remained focused on the contests in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas, where Election Day polls showed Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, locked in a tight race. They are also competing in Rhode Island.

OK, so we know, at a minimum, that Obama won’t be shut out tonight. What else do we know? Not much.

The first round of exit polls that are working their way around point to very close contests in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, with Clinton enjoying an ever-so-slight edge. (Of course, as JMM noted, “At this point in the cycle, though, I think we should remember that the early exit numbers have been significantly off the mark from the final results in a number of cases. So not just one grain of salt but several.”)

So, any predictions? Guesses? Over-heated complaints? The floor is yours … at least for a little while until I check back in.

I want to move to Vermont!

  • I have this funny feeling everyone keeps botching the “grain of salt” metaphor. If you take something with only a grain of salt, you don’t take it seriously. Doesn’t that mean if you take it with more salt, you take it more seriously?

    Anyways, I could be wrong. You may now go back to sniping each of the candidates.

  • Even if Hillary eeks out a victory in one of the big states what does that really mean about her viability/vulnerability as a candidate. Wasn’t it 3 weeks ago that she enjoyed large double digit leads in both Texas and Ohio? Isn’t it clear that her support is eroding? If she does stem the tide tonight, won’t it be just barely and by employing the sort of tactics that most of us find reprehensible in Republican candidates? I for one will not support a return to the cynical and devisive politics of the 90s and the Clinton’s are the left half of that equation and McCain who I used to grudgingly respect seems willing to go that path as well this cycle.

  • I will stay in Ohio. You “non-Ohioans” can have your “grain of salt” metaphor. We have entire salt mines in Ohio—and a salt mine can be an excellent place to hide all the bodies when “the purge of the Bushylvanians” begins in January.

    You are invited to take that with a grain of salt, if you wish…. ;

  • Roehl Sybing, @2

    Only one grain of salt is needed; more won’t make any difference 🙂 According to Wiiki (cum grano salis):

    The phrase comes from Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe for an antidote to a poison. In the antidote, one of the ingredients was a grain of salt. Threats involving the poison were thus to be taken “with a grain of salt” and therefore less seriously.

  • Hey all! First post here.
    I figured Obama would win, so I cast my ballot for Kucinich.
    I don’t feel like I threw my vote away, I was just voting for someone I agree with.

    My ballot goes to the Democratic nominee in the General.
    peace

  • Here in Texas we had a week of early voting before today, and the results were embargoed until today’s polls closed. Local talk radio is saying now that with 60% of those early returns counted, Obama is taking them about 2:1.

    It’s likely these skew urban which reflects his strong areas, but that’s still a scary early portent for Clinton supporters.

  • vermontdave said:
    Hey all! First post here.
    I figured Obama would win, so I cast my ballot for Kucinich.
    I don’t feel like I threw my vote away, I was just voting for someone I agree with.

    Good for voting your conscience. Don’t worry –everyone’s vote is statistically insignificant anyway.

  • I’ll second what Dale @12 said, re vermontdave @10…but not for the reason of statistical insignificance (which i won’t argue with).

    We should all vote what we feel is right and good. It’s stupid to vote for a ‘winner’ or out of scorn/revenge. And voting for the President is the least significant vote you can cast anyhow. Think globally, vote locally.

  • ***Don’t worry –everyone’s vote is statistically insignificant anyway.***

    Dale, you of all people ought to know better. Remember, the avalanche begins with but a single snowflake, and the tsunami always has it’s first drop of water. Speaking of drops of water, has anyone seen my copy of “101 Ways to Waterboard a Republican?” I seem to have misplaced it….

  • “Now that your state has been called, Steve… who did YOU vote for?”

    hey! not fair! 🙂

  • melior, @11

    New York Times has a map of Texas, divided into counties, showing some numbers. None of the big cities have reported anything so far but some of the smaller counties had. The ones which went for Obama — green and very few — went for him by about 4-5% (with one exception, where here got 70% and she around 30). The purply-blue ones, which went for Clinton, went for her *heavily* — about 2:1.

    Like I said… The cities haven’t reported at all, not all the smaller counties have reported, and many of the counties which *had* reported, reported only 10-15% of counted votes. So all sorts of things can happen before tomorrow. But I’m not breaking out champagne yet.

    Congratulations to Vermont; you did well. Too bad your state is the smallest, delegate-wise, of the 4…

  • And voting for the President is the least significant vote you can cast anyhow.

    Tell that to the soldiers doing multiple tours in Iraq and their families. Tell that to the soldiers in Afghanistan, whose president sent the majority of forces to the wrong damned country. Tell that to the objects of National Security letters, or to the kids who would have been covered by SCHIP if not for presidental veto, or to Jamie Leigh Jones, or the victims of 9/11, or Katrina, or the hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced Iraqis… getting the idea?

  • It’s my impression that those overworked soldiers are overwhelmingly Republican.

    Looks like Texas is tightening up now that the early votes have been counted. Maybe the nafta story is hurting Obama there too.

  • beep52, my point wasn’t intended to be that the President is unimportant. But if we all dedicated as much time, energy, bitching, and moaning to elections besides for the Presidential variety, then chances are we’d A. have much better Presidents and B. have functioning governance at every level.

    Look at our general turnout numbers for Pres elections…they’re pitiful. Now look at turnout for mid-term Congressional elections, they’re even worse. And the story gets more and more terrible the farther down the ladder you go.

    Presidents don’t pop out of nowhere. They get their starts at more local levels and then work up through the party ranks (or their dad gets them a job). A shitty President could be impeached – regardless of what Congress wants – if 2/3 of the State Legislatures decided to do so. How many people even know the name of their state rep? In the last election cycle here, one candidate’s whole platform was bringing tourism to a place with 9 1/2 months of winter. When i asked him about other stuff, he just gave me a blank look…he won.

  • Dale (#19) said: It’s my impression that those overworked soldiers are overwhelmingly Republican.

    Just goes to show what a Hillarybot knows about anything. A good 55+% are not Republicans. That doesn’t break that all the rest are Democrats, but a good 35% are.

    Not only that but that attitude of disdain could only come from someone who’d be a draft-dodger, were there a draft. You make me ashamed we’re in the same party.

  • After the way it turned out here in Missouri, I’ll just go to bed early and find out what the heck happened in the morninzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………….

  • Not only that but that attitude of disdain could only come from someone who’d be a draft-dodger, were there a draft. You make me ashamed we’re in the same party.

    You need a hug …

  • Steve said:

    ***Don’t worry –everyone’s vote is statistically insignificant anyway.***

    Dale, you of all people ought to know better.

    Ever heard of any election above dog-catcher decided by one vote? The statistical insignificance of any one person’s vote is even truer than evolution. It’s just one of those things we invest with meaning.

  • Ever heard of any election above dog-catcher decided by one vote? — Dale, @25

    Yup; in one of the Jeffrey Archer novels (First Among Equals? Something like that) 🙂 Does that count? It should… if the Repubs can invoke a TV show as an excuse for waterboarding…

    But, seriously… During the recent Polish elections one ad (a “public service” one, not for any particular party or candidate) struck me as valid. It was a cartoon, which started with an empty screen and a person in one corner saying “I won’t go and vote; my vote means nothing”. Then another one pops up, in another corner, saying the same thing. And so on and so forth. By the time the ad’s over, the screen is so packed with those “my vote means nothing” people, you can no longer see individuals.

    An individual vote may mean nothing, but those “nothings” do add up to a “something”. That’s how Obama has built up his current delegate lead: one “nothing” vote at a time…

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