Election Night Open Thread

Exit polls also show Clinton with a big edge among voters who decided late. Good news for Clinton.

Exit polls show “change” beating “experience.” Good news for Obama.

Exit polls in Ohio show Clinton winning a surprisingly-large 61% of the white vote. Good news for Clinton.

Your guess is as good as mine.

The Politico and TPM have live updates. The floor is yours.

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  • That’s one of the most incoherent posts (#1) I’ve ever read, and to take a quick look into something is a “peek”, not “peak”. Would President Clinton suck up to women and make sure they got generous “reparations” to right past wrongs? Not if she wanted to be reelected to a second term, and I guarantee you she would.

    Candidates campaign for broad support for a pretty self-evident reason – they need it to win. If Barack Obama could win based only on the black vote, he’d save a lot of trouble campaigning only for that. Problem is, he COULDN’T win with only the black vote. Ditto Hillary and the female vote.

    This isn’t hard to figure out, so I’m afraid you’ll have to sell apocalyptic somewhere else.

  • Desperation Tuesday doesn’t matter. She can’t catch up, the race is over. Unfortunately, her campaign just hasn’t realized it yet, and her performance tonight rests on the back of Rush’s Neanderthal army will only bolster her denial of reality.

    Fitting end for a candidate who campaigned against hope: staying in the race when it’s hopeless.

  • He’s a racist moron who could have come from anywhere. But don’t feed the trolls.

  • Add John Shaw to the front of the list of wingnuts driven to complete incoherence and incontinence by the prospect of 8 years of a non-wingnut “decider”. There will be many, many more.

    Good times.

  • This dude believe in fantasy movies. I guess look to the movie King Kong and think that a big Gorilla is the next threat. John Shaw, do you think the president can order reparations? Are you insane?

    Senator Obama is the best and only change agent of this old crew of has beens, who failed their one great test of diplomacy in Iraq and have fueled and fanned the flames of war. The major job of the President is to the U.S. Constitution. Would rather have a brilliant attorney who taught the Constitution to a bottom dweller in his Naval Academy Class and a woman with a cyclothymic personality who will attempt to ruin her own party because of her self-indulgent behavior.

    Enjoy the next Spiderman movie.

  • Congratulations to Clinton for a victory in RI.

    [Hint: That’s how a concession speech begins…
    You acknowledge a loss. You respect your opponent.
    Even Republicans are that large.]

  • But don’t feed the trolls. -OFM

    I’m like the worst offender of this rule.

    Bad doubtful, bad.

  • I think you should see this movie called “Deep Impact” where Morgan Freeman was president and a COMET hit the EARTH and it really ruined everything if you want to see what Obama as president is like, yah.

  • Wow Clinton is kicking his butt in Ohio. And Texas is tightening. Obama has had some unfortunate timing with Rezko and the NAFTA thing.

    I’ll be willing to bet that SNL will have a John McSame being pampered by the Press skit in the general election.

    After Obama clinches the nomination I’ve resolved to never comment on Clinton again.

  • Well I just got back from caucusing here in Austin, and HOLY JEBUS was it crowded. It was obvious they weren’t ready at all for that many people and made us do it outside in the parking lot instead of inside the church. Fortunately, the Hillary people finished early and let us use their tables, or else I’d still be there. It took over an hour for me to sign-in, and I was one of the lucky ones. I thought we’d be a pro-Obama precinct, but this was a blow-out.

    The best part was when the Obama guy announced that we were getting their tables and everyone let out a huge cheer. Fun stuff. I also signed up for the county caucus. This is so exciting!

  • Wow Clinton is kicking his butt in Ohio.

    That may well wind up being the case, but I think the current results might be a little skewed by the fact that some of the Cleveland precincts stayed open ’til 9pm and will likely be the last ones to report.

  • Definitely could be. But 22% is a lot of skewing.

    Last week Bill talked about someone taking it away from Hillary on Tuesday night at the caucuses. Now the clinton campaign is claiming its supporters are being locked out of caususes by obama’s. Does this sound like a little scenario that the Clintons set up?

  • As I’m sure the political junkies among you noted, the Huckster just conceded and threw his support to John SIDNEY McCain (AKA JSM).

  • One of my fondest memories of this stretch of the campaign is the youtube “Hillary’s Inner Tracy Flick”. The Clintons don’t give a damn about the Democratic Party, or the country for that matter. Because of Hillary’s cheap and vicious shots, it’ll still be an uphill battle, probably all the way to Denver (and beyond?). But it will toughen us. It will pay off next November.

    Perhaps, now that this phase is over at last, we can take time to reflect on the words of David Mamet:

    ONE NEEDS TO know but three words to play poker: call, raise or fold.

    “In poker, one must have courage: the courage to bet, to back one’s convictions, one’s intuitions, one’s understanding. There can be no victory without courage. The successful player must be willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt”

    “The Democrats, similarly, in their quest for a strategy that would alienate no voters, have given away the store, and they have given away the country.

    “Committed Democrats watched while Al Gore frittered away the sure-thing election of 2000. They watched, passively, while the Bush administration concocted a phony war; they, in the main, voted for the war knowing it was purposeless, out of fear of being thought weak. They then ran a candidate who refused to stand up to accusations of lack of patriotism.

    The Republicans, like the perpetual raiser at the poker table, became increasingly bold as the Democrats signaled their absolute reluctance to seize the initiative.”

    “The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: “I served. He didn’t. I didn’t bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter.”

    This would have been a raise. Here the initiative has been seized, and the opponent must now fume and bluster and scream unfair. In combat, in politics, in poker, there is no certainty; there is only likelihood, and the likelihood is that aggression will prevail.”

    “One may sit at the poker table all night and never bet and still go home broke, having anted away one’s stake.

    The Democrats are anteing away their time at the table. They may be bold and risk defeat, or be passive and ensure it.”

    Or, in three magic words: Yes. We. Can.

  • Actually, let me retract my retraction. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd notes that the Ohio reports so far include virtually nothing from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and another city, and that so far we’re largely seeing rural areas reporting. I think Obama’s still in it, despite the early skew.

  • Nice to see #1 proves my point that too many white American males come from the species homo sap rather than “i>homo sapiens. A point that constantly, daily, disgusts me, as a homo sapiens white American male.

  • Doctor Biobrain said:
    Well I just got back from caucusing here in Austin, and HOLY JEBUS was it crowded. It was obvious they weren’t ready at all for that many people and made us do it outside in the parking lot instead of inside the church.

    Every caucus and primary this year has had record-shattering turnouts. And yet we’re still seeing polling places with too few ballots and caucus sites without enough room. Each time we hear, “No one could have imagined this many people would turn out.”

    Did someone put Condoleezza in charge of the primaries while I wasn’t looking?

  • The best thing to happen tomorrow would be for Hillary Clinton to gracefully bow out of the race, clearing the way for Obama to be the Democratic Nominee.

    That would drive the Rush Limbaugh wing nuts crazy. No more primaries to spoil, and all the progressive money left in the coffers can be use to fight the Republicans, instead of the silly infighting.

    Just a dream? Hope not.

    🙂

  • So is anyone else curious about the timing of the NAFTA “controversy”? I mean it was far enough from the vote to give Hillary time to highlight it as “proof” of Obama’s insincerity, but close enough that the statements from the Canadian government and the Obama’s campaign debunking it didn’t really have time to settle the issue.

    And the NAFTA issue is playing pretty well in OH.

    Unfortunately, this is one area I think both candidates are pandering. A lot of those jobs are not coming back regardless of how much they tweak NAFTA.

  • The Empress still can’t get the votes, no matter how much “Clinton mojo” (aka theft,chicanery, lies, bullshit, baloney ) she applies.

    I’m a Democrat who’s never voted for one of these two fyuppie slimeballs or dogcatcher, and I wouldn’t vote for them for that.

  • The Clintons played the best negative cards they had.
    They are out of ammo.
    Obama held firm and kept to his 60-minutes promise not to go negative.

    [Att around the 10 minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHe8N5hL0Wo%5D

    The Clintons got what they wanted: a couple of nominal victories at the cost of looking like professional asses. Barack got what he wanted: Maintaining the delegate math and his party dignity.

  • Cleaver tapped on his spittle covered keyboard:”
    The Empress still can’t get the votes, no matter how much “Clinton mojo” (aka theft,chicanery, lies, bullshit, baloney ) she applies.
    I’m a Democrat who’s never voted for one of these two fyuppie slimeballs or dogcatcher, and I wouldn’t vote for them for that.

    I’m proud to be proven right once again that obnoxious fundamentalists aren’t found only in religions. Drunk on their own bile and bigotry they spew hatred and cliche with equal vigor.

  • I’ve never seen such a hash… Some of the Texas counties have reported 100% — with zero votes (ie nobody bothered to go?) — but they’re marked as going for Clinton. Why? Most of the cities (again, in Texas) have gone for Obama (some more heavily than others) but they’re like little green islands in a sea of purplish-blue. In Ohio, not even all the cities have gone for Obama.

    While the win margins aren’t large enough for Clinton to gain much (in delegate count) on Obama, they’re certainly large enough to justify her staying in past tomorrow. And so, the skirmishes are likely to on past April and PA. I just hope that Obama applies all the resources he has into winning everything he can after today, to stay ahead.

    I still think that the maps (they now have both Texas and Ohio), available at a click on NYT’s website are fascinating. Better than the live updates on TPM.

  • All this really means is that the bitter feud is going to drag on and on, right up to the threshold of the convention. It would have been nice if it could have been decided tonight so that the Democrats could get on message against the Republicans, but I guess that’s not going to happen. Instead, John SIDNEY McCain is going to be allowed a clear field to consolidate his message, with basically nobody contradicting him, while the Democrats bicker among themselves – sweet, sweet, music to Conservative ears. This will cost the Democrats in the general, no matter how it turns out, and if Hillary somehow gets the nod, I strongly doubt she can beat McCain.

  • There’s going to be some serious irony to the Clinton “victories.” She spent millions on her aggressive campaign here in Ohio alone, and she spent huge sums in Texas as well. It will be absolutely hilarious if she takes the prize tonight—and runs out of gas before the month is out. Her “big-game” donors can only give so much, and I do believe that most of them are pegged out at the top-end limit for their donations.

    And we’re still “how many” months from the convention?

    Add to that the muddies message that she’s playing to the super-d’s about how her votes are all real Dems, while many of Obama’s votes are crossovers that won’t support the Dem nominee in November. The message is “muddied” because it’s based on her intrinsic belief that she IS the Dem nominee. It is—or at least should be—common knowledge that crossovers and Indies won’t support her campaign, even though they’ve demonstrated repeatedly that they will support Obama. She—and her staff—have repeatedly rejected the validity of these votes—and the people casting these votes—for 2 full months now.

    I look forward, with unbridled anticipation, to the day when she realizes that these “meaningless Lilliputians” will not give her their votes, or their cash. The “Lilliputians” are going to look at her, and see “Hilla(R)y….”

  • Chrisbo, let’s not forget that in 2006 the Canadians made some spectacular terrorists arrests right before our elections. Feeding into the “they’ll nuke you, if you vote Dem.” But no, a conservative government in Canada would not at all want to jump in to our elections. It’s kinda like Rep gov Charlie Crist wanting to pay for a do-over of the dem primary after they do the June Puerto Rico primary. Methinks he wants to keep this going as long as possible to keep Dems fighting amongst themselves, because the real John McCain will be unnacceptable and untenable to the majority of Americans.

    Barack did a smart thing tonight in his concession speech he tied McCain to the failed Bush policies, and since Hillary has already said she and John have the most experience to be CiC, Obama tied Hillary to McCain and Bush’s failed policies.

  • in rhode island the nbc affiliate reported in their primary election special reporting that hillary clinton is “damaged goods” and that barak obama is a “cult figure” but mccain is “resilient” and “heroic.”

    wow. glad i was watching the “news” — i might have been confused!

  • So is anyone else curious about the timing of the NAFTA “controversy”? -Chrisbo

    Not curious, 100% sure it was a political stunt because of how much they have to gain/retain if Obama doesn’t get in the White House.

  • see you all at the convention. -Jim

    Good win in Ohio, but that doesn’t make up the delegate gap from all of those unimportant states. Sorry, but the math still says she loses. Her campaign’s protracted death throe is nothing but damaging to the Party.

  • I agree with doubtful…. Time to do the ‘right’ thing and step out, instead of doing the ‘Right’s’ work by bashing a fellow democrat.

  • The one true progressive, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D – Ohio) in the race for the Democratic Party’s 2008 Presidential Election has long since been marginalized and winnowed out by the corporate media. I was listening to Mr. Mike Malloy on NOVA-M talk radio tonight and he basically said that we are left with three corporate imperialists, none of whom are actually even willing to completely get out of Afghanistan and Iraq. It is an absurd notion to think that muslim fundamentalists living in countries in the Middle East of South Asia, armed with at most, rifles, are somehow “a threat” to us. We continue to try to occupy Afghanistan to try to enforce a regime that will allow us to run an oil pipeline through their country. The Taliban did not agree with this imperial design on their territory and so they were put on our imperial hit list.

    Also, none of the Big Three remaining candidates (Obama, Hillary, McCain) are willing to commit to introducing a universal single-payer not-for-profit health care plan for all Americans. They all want to keep the greedy corporations (HMOs, insurance companies and pharmaceuticals) deeply involved in our health care.

    How about status quo you can Xerox?

  • I’m proud to be proven right once again that obnoxious fundamentalists aren’t found only in religions. Drunk on their own bile and bigotry they spew hatred and cliche with equal vigor.

    Eat shit and die, Dale, you worthless yuppie fuckwit.

  • Also, none of the Big Three remaining candidates (Obama, Hillary, McCain) are willing to commit to introducing a universal single-payer not-for-profit health care plan for all Americans. — james k sayre, @ 39

    Introducing… no. Nor would I expect it of anyone, Dems included, since it’s a toxic subject in more ways than one.

    But, actually, Hillary did say at one point, during this campaign, that she’d sign such legislation, if the Congress passed it. If anyone asked the same question of Obama, I never heard it, but I would expect the same attitude. So. All the more reason to turn out, en masse, in November and vote in as many Dems as possible, to facilitate that outcome. Neither Clinton nor Obama can do it on their own; a President proposes, but the Congress disposes, as we’ve seen with Bush’s Social Security overhaul.

    I don’t put much of my trust in either of the Dem candidates, unless they have a solid backing in Congress. I just happen to think that Obama has a better chance to ride us some more Dems into Congress on his coat-tails than Clinton will. That’s why I voted for him in the primaries (VA) and that’s why I hope he’ll manage to keep the edge over Clinton and get the nomination. I would soooo much like to see US finally catch up to the rest of the civilized world and get single-payer healthcare…

  • Although the spin later this morning will boast of “glorious victories” for Fortress Clinton, I think it’s safe to say that she didn’t garner that magic number—that “57% of everything”—needed to put her back into this race. She went “gonzo nuclear” with the attack tripe, and it still didn’t get her to where she needed to be.

    If I’ve crunched the numbers correctly, she’ll now need (best-case scenario, based on how the final delegate split works out in Texas after the caucus votes are tallied) about 62-63% of all remaining delegates to garner the nomination. Each and every state that doesn’t deliver that amount will result in the “net-need” going even higher—just like an ARM on a subprime mortgage.

  • Jim @ 24 see you all at the convention

    This evening I returned to my computer after being away all day, and the returns from Ohio were beginning to come in and Texas was starting to report. I got a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that I had not felt since – dare I say it – an afternoon in November 2004. High hopes draining like sand in an hourglass. Up to this point I had thought myself agnostic about Clinton and Obama. But, over the past couple weeks, it felt like we were going to break free of the Bush / Clinton vortex. I had not realized how unburdened and (again dare I say it?) hopeful this had made me feel. (Free at last, free at last…).

    Now the pundits who just days ago had so blithely declared Clinton dead are hailing her resurgence and giving SNL the credit for her rebound. I have to admit to myself that I am discouraged that a stake was not driven into the heart of her candidacy this night. A fight all the way to the convention is NOT a good thing, but I believe this is what we are looking at. In the morning I look forward to finding some lemonade squeezed from what I believe to be the lemons handed to me this evening.

  • I’m proud to be proven right once again that obnoxious fundamentalists aren’t found only in religions. Drunk on their own bile and bigotry they spew hatred and cliche with equal vigor.

    Has Mary been around again?

  • NYT’s banner now says “Big Wins for Clinton in Texas and Ohio”…

    Ohio *is* big, yes; with 92% reporting, it’s 55% to 43% for Clinton. But, Texas? With 82% reporting on the primaries it’s 51% to 47%. 4 point difference is hardly “big”, especially since we don’t know how it’ll translate vis a vis delegates. And there are still the caucuses. At the moment, with 13% reported, they’re going for Obama (as expected), 54% to 46%. Being a female (of a very little brain), I’m unable to figure out what that spread, calculated on 35% of delegate allocation translates to but, added to the smallish Clinton win in the primaries, it’s bound to come out about even-steven, rather than a “big win”.

    Tom Cleaver, @40.
    You don’t have to live up to your surname at all, you know; much less do it twice daily… Dale, at least, has a sense of humour as well as a sense of proportion; all *you* seem to have is your everlasting hatred of everything and everyone. May I suggest an adjustment to your meds dosage next time you see your doctor?

  • Lets look at the delegate math again.

    VT and RI cancel each other out. Hillary gets seven delegates in Ohio, and despite her narrow primary victory in Texas, Obama is likely to net a a few delegates there with a win in the caucuses (Hillary’s Bush-like lack of preparation for the Texas primary/caucus system has come back to bite her big time). In the end, she’ll be lucky if she nets three additional pledged delegates tonight.

    Unfortunately for her, it’s not nearly enough. Those February landslides put her too far back…way too far. She’s more than 100 delegates behind. She needed to win all four states with 60 percent of the vote…at a minimum…depending on who’s doing the arithmetic. She didn’t come anywhere close.

    In addition, Obama is likely to win in Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi in Tuesday. Two states he doesn’t need, but what the hell?

    Pennsylvania can’t save her (remember, she failed to file her full slate of delegates in time), even if she wins by a landslide there (she won’t). She’ll march on, like Sherman and continue to try to burn her opponent to the ground just for fun, but in fact, she’s “dead (wo)man walking”.

    Like it or not…Obama is our nominee. (Me? I like it.)

  • Clinton is running a classic republican campaign against a democratic challenger. I guess the only really good news in all of the this is it will vet him against the same exact attacks the McCain people would want to run, next we will get a ‘Hey, Barak call me” add from the Clinton campaign.
    It is disgraceful and it is racist but I suppose if this stuff gets out in the open now it will not work against him anywhere near as well in the general election. That’s about the best I can say about it for now. I hope when the time comes she really makes sure she campaigns hard for him, if she doesn’t she will get the blame for President McCain.

  • Hum, Clinton did win pretty big… But it’s not much of a boost. Looking at the numbers, she’s gone from 110 down to 90 down. Which seems weird, was she more than 110 (not counting super-delegates) down before this week?

  • What a shame…

    This “exciting” race was fine so long as it was positive. When it was two candidates generating excitement and positive news cycles about the Democratic Party it served November hopes well. It stopped doing that about two weeks ago. Now there will be more than a month of slimy politics and nasty attacks. There will be mocking and accusations and nothing but negative news cycles.

    It doesn’t affect me much if Sen Clinton is willing to throw Sen Obama under the bus for her own, personal gain. But i now cannot help the feeling that she’s willing to throw all of us and any of us under that same bus for the same reason. Sen Clinton and her supporters are now excited to take the all the way to the convention where the Democratic Party can implode on national TV two months before the general election.

    Remember when the blogosphere was giddy at the prospects of the Republican Party self-destructing this year? My, how the worm has turned. Now Democrats are at each other’s throats, developing hatred for each other. The “i will never vote for your candidate” numbers are bound to go up and up.

    Congratulations, Sen Clinton, you won by fighting dirty. Don’t forget to thank Rush for his tireless work on behalf of your campaign. If you win the nomination, i’ll probably end up being a sucker and voting for you, but don’t expect me to lift a finger to defend you against the Republican smear machine…live by the sword, die by the sword.

  • If Hillary wants to use fear as a weapon—then so be it. A career corporate lawyer who mysteriously goes from being millions of dollars in debt to amassing a fortune of $35 million, in 7 short years, on the salary of a United States Senator, should know better than to throw stones at an imagined glass house.

    Today, Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes an obstacle course.

    Today, she becomes a crash test dummy.

    Today, she becomes “the opening act” for Obama’s main event against McCain.

    Today—it begins. If she seeks to draw blood, then she may want to invest in a blood bank. Several, in fact, as she may find herself bleeding from numerous self-inflicted, large-caliber political exit wounds by the time she reached Pennsylvania in 7 weeks.

    Today—IT BEGINS.

  • 26. “So is anyone else curious about the timing of the NAFTA “controversy”?”

    In the sense that it bears a striking resemblance to the Canuck Letter? I suspect it is a Republican dirty trick that Clinton has taken advantage of, rather than anything her campaign had anything to do with.

  • 43. If I’ve crunched the numbers correctly, she’ll now need (best-case scenario, based on how the final delegate split works out in Texas after the caucus votes are tallied) about 62-63% of all remaining delegates to garner the nomination. Each and every state that doesn’t deliver that amount will result in the “net-need” going even higher—just like an ARM on a subprime mortgage.

    Neither side can win on pledged delegates and Clinton has far more Democratic politicians who owe her or her husband favors. I suspect if she runs off a string of wins in the remaining primaries with just a few of them by double-digits then the super-delegates could break heavily for her. And don’t forget that Florida may well vote again and it should be a big win for Clinton too. It isn’t close to over, sadly.

  • I suspect if she runs off a string of wins in the remaining primaries…

    Don’t count on this…she’s not. Hillary will blow off the other states too. She only wants to win PA…she thinks that should be enough.

    In Hillary-land…only states she wins count and states her opponent wins do not count. Fortunately, the only person who lives there is Hillary.

  • It still comes down to the general election in November. All indications are that Obama will beat McCain, by drawing new voters, independents and repugs. Hillary will lose to McCain by galvanizing the GOP.

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