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Wisconsin/Hawaii Primary Open Thread (UPDATED 2)

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Guest Post by dnA

Early exit poll info from Marc Armbinder:

Info from our trusty pals at CBS News: this electorate is very white; only four in ten have a “college degree.” They’re “less affluent” than Dems in other states. The percentage of late deciders is declining: only 27% made up their minds within the last seven days.
— Issue number one is, of course, the economy, followed by health care… adding the economy and health care brings you to nearly 70% of the electorate.
— Change trumps experience, 52 to 24.
— Very few first time voters — only 17%.
— 27% of the electorate were independent
— Clinton was seen as the most unfair attacker;
— Obama (55%) was seen as the candidate most like to improve relations with the res tof the world.
— Clinton and Obama are seen as equally qualified to be commander in chief (50% and 48%), while Obama draws 60% or more on the questions of who best can unite the country and beat the Republicans.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty claims exit polls show Obama winning, but take these with a grain of salt, since they are very early and voting hasn’t ended yet.

Otherwise, consider this the end of the day open thread.

UPDATE: More exit poll crack from Time’s “The Page”

Women: Obama 51%, Clinton 49%

Families with income under 50,000: Obama 51%, Clinton 49%

Independents: Obama 63%, Clinton 34%

Seniors: Clinton 60%, Obama 39%

Top quality — experience: Clinton 95%, Obama 5%

Union households: Clinton 50%, Obama 49%

UPDATE 2: Exit polls from CBS and CNN.

The nets haven’t called it yet, so it’s much closer than the Potomac Primaries.

Comments

  • J.L.R.

    says:

    TPM — Hillary Mailer In Wisconsin Hits Obama On “Present” Votes:

    A last minute mailer dropped in Wisconsin by the Hillary campaign hits Obama on the “present” votes.

    Key line: “Illinois state legislators can vote `present.’ But a president has to make the toughest `yes’ or `no’ decisions in the world.”

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Clinton the candidate who missed the telecom immunity vote and has yet to state a position on the issue?

    Of course, CB and others put that present vote silliness to bed long ago. I guess Clinton figures that bringing it out the night before the election will work since Obama doesn’t have much opportunity to respond. Like her other b.s. attacks…it will backfire.

  • novice?

    says:

    oh bright political minds of the blog, help me understand a mystery.

    i support Clinton, but I cannot understand her strategy w/r/t Wisconsin.

    some polls as recently as the past week have shown her ahead or statistically tied. demographically it should be a competitive state for her. Slate has an article up rigth now saying she could win. she needs it in the worst way and there isn’t a lot else going on this week. even in the worst polls, she is closer to Obama than in many other states lately. it is not a caucus (right?) and now the exit polling above looks fairly decent for Clinton.

    . . .and so she pulled out a day early and essentially sent every possible signal that she anticipated a loss and that it was fine given Texas and Ohio coming up.

    WTF? Seriously – I’m not looking to slam Clinton or to encourage others to do so; I am honestly seeking to make some sense out of what appears to me to be a blown opportunity. Anyone have any ideas?

  • MsJ

    says:

    …exit polls show Obama winning, but take these with a grain of salt, since they are very early and voting hasn’t ended yet.

    Good god, when are we going to do something to stop this insanity. No exit polling until the polls close! We have to stop this tide so that people don’t go to the polls (or don’t go) thinking “does my vote matter at this point? Why waste my time? It’s just not right.

  • Gerald G

    says:

    Who is surprised by recent revelations that Hillary plans to steal Obama’s pledged delegates?! Come on, People!

    By now we know the Clintons are capable of ANYTHING, whether legal or ethical or not, to get power. There is NOTHING NEW here, is there!?!

    Enough of Washington politics as usual. The politics of personal destruction, as perfected by the Clinton Dynasty over the years, has gone far enough!
    So, turn the focus where it should be: have Bill and Hill immediately release their incriminating tax returns and have them immediately release their secret White House papers (which they are pretending they can’t release now!) so that we all can judge for ourselves whether Hillary really had any experience in the White House besides parties with dignitaries and her miserably failed Hillary-Care-Gate.

  • Wendy

    says:

    Ready on Day One?

    “Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign failed to file a full slate of convention delegate candidates for Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary…It appears Clinton came up 10 or 11 candidates short across a number of congressional districts, including two in Philadelphia…It appears the shortage would’ve been double that if [Clinton supporter] Rendell hadn’t extended last week’s candidate filing deadline by a day and a half, ostensibly due to bad weather.”

    Senator Clinton wants to run our country, but she can’t even handle the fundamentals in her own campaign.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/15759032.html

  • comstock load

    says:

    HEY! You did a nice job with the mini-report yesterday (despite the naysayer). Any chance of one today? I for one am going thru withdrawl!

  • beep52

    says:

    novice? @ 2: I’ve been wondering how tensions and staff shakeups in that campaign over the past few weeks may be affecting things in ways we won’t know until someone writes a book some years hence. Their handling of Wisconsin is curious, but so is not getting a full compliment of named delegates on the ballot in PA, as well as recent statements coming out of the organization on all manner of topics. I don’t mean to bash anyone either, but I can’t help thinking that the campaign is flitting about in a panic rather than following a cold, logical strategy.

  • beep52

    says:

    … And in case anyone gets bored while waiting for the results to come in, check out this article at American Prospect on McCain’s second loan: Betting the Spread. They cite the exact language of the agreement and it’s mindboggling.

  • CJO

    says:

    Piggybacking on beep52’s comment, I’m clueless too. My guess — I think Clinton might be just a clueless as we are. They seem to be taking a shotgun approach with the hope that something, anything, will work.

  • angry young man

    says:

    When the Packers were courting Reggie White, they had to convince him that he wouldn’t be the only black guy in the state, and he ended up becoming a local hero. If Obama can win them over the way Reggie did, Clinton is done.

  • Dale

    says:

    Thanks for keeping the regular features alive, dNA.

    Both candidates left Wisconsin yesterday I think. They got March 4 on their minds.

    The Dems should do the old hidden ball trick. Nominate Obama and if he starts to wither put Hillary in.

  • Fred

    says:

    Novice?… You asked why Hillary pulled out of Wisconsin a day early. My bet is that her team did their own polling and concluded it was a lost cause. Since Wisconsin seemed tailor-made for Clinton (all white, working class…), losing there would indicate that she is losing her core support groups to Clinton. If she can’t win in Wisconsin,where CAN she win? By now, she seems to be concluding that she can’t win anywhere, and will just try to steal the election at the convention via superdelegates and trying to illegally seat the Florida & Michigan delegatons. But I don’t think party leaders are going to like that idea. The last thing in the world they need is a party-splitting fight at the Convention. They’ll want to wrap this up as soon as possible, which means that if Clinton keeps losing, she’ll come under intense pressure from the party to step aside for Obama.

  • libra

    says:

    novice?, @2

    My guess is that Wisconsin was one of those states which weren’t supposed to count, after the Super Tuesday, so she didn’t have anything planned for it. Then Obama did better then expected on the ST and followed up with other “unimportant” wins, so she had to throw something together at the last minute. But last minute things really are difficult to organize well. And the weather didn’t co-operate, either; at least one event had to be called off because she couldn’t get there (but then, what can you expect from Wisconsin in February?).

    Meanwhile, Obama is breathing down her neck in Texas (almost even) and is closing the gap in Ohio. And, although nobody’s taking the temperature in the other two — no count — states with primaries on March 4th, I bet Obama has been picking up there too. He doesn’t seem to be leaving much to chance, nor is he too proud to bother about “small change”. She *has to* do all she can to salvage those two big states or she’s a goner… So, she threw in the towel in Wisconsin.

    Her campaign certainly looks like it’s been in disarray since Feb 5. Nobody could have predicted, I guess 🙂

  • Helen

    says:

    With the best of intention, hope, and support for change, the decision by Obama to run in 2008 instead of 2012 may have the unanticipated consequence of preserving the White House for the Republican Party. His biggest supporters, apart from progressive democrats: neoconservatives who will clobber him directly and indirectly on issues of race, ethnicity, terrorism fears and assumed religion if/when he wins the nomination at the convention. The so-called Republican “machine” hasn’t even turned its motor on yet with regard to Obama…they are waiting for Democrats to cannibalize each other first. And Democrats are obliging, with the help of media spin. Good thing I can listen to the candidates directly myself!

  • Shalimar

    says:

    I didn’t post one because of the primary, but I’ll try to get one up before the end of the night.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you. That is probably my favorite blog feature anywhere, I regularly check 2 or 3 times between 4 and 5pm central just to see if it is up yet.

  • Shalimar

    says:

    His biggest supporters, apart from progressive democrats: neoconservatives who will clobber him directly and indirectly on issues of race, ethnicity, terrorism fears and assumed religion if/when he wins the nomination at the convention.

    Do you even know what a neo-conservative is? I wish Obama would be even more anti-war than he is, but given his positions on Iraq and Iran Obama is pretty much the opposite of a neo-con dream candidate. Hillary is far more likely to give them the next war they want, while McCain is the candidate people like Kristol were longing for in 2000.

  • Tamalak

    says:

    His biggest supporters, apart from progressive democrats: neoconservatives who will clobber him directly

    The neoconservatives are just about the only kind of conservatives who AREN’T rooting for Obama. Many prominent neos have said that they want a Republican but that Hillary would be “OK”.

  • TR

    says:

    the decision by Obama to run in 2008 instead of 2012 may have the unanticipated consequence of preserving the White House for the Republican Party

    I know we Democrats tend towards pessimism and paranoia, but every bit of polling and projection so far is indicating that Obama will run better against McCain than Clinton. To quote Douglas Adams: “don’t panic.”

  • TR

    says:

    Clinton was seen as the most unfair attacker

    I guess the whole state must’ve been unfairly biased against her.

    Anyway, Mark Penn tells me Wisconsin won’t count because of all the cheese. Totally unrepresentative.

  • Steve

    says:

    My “Mark Penn” prediction is that “Obama’s inauguration on January 20th, 2009 doesn’t count.” Of course, Mark Penn will be a pundit for Faux News by then—if Clinton doesn’t shoot him first.

  • libra

    says:

    What time did Wisconsin polls close, anyway? It’s 21;49 in VA, so it’s 20:49 in Wis, no? And NYT has only 7% of precincts reporting (54% O, 44%C)

    Mark Penn tells me Wisconsin won’t count because of all the cheese –TR, @23.

    Then you’d have thought Wisconsin would go for cheesecake, no?

    […] the decision by Obama to run in 2008 instead of 2012 — Helen, @ 18

    It seems to me that ’08 was his best window of opportunity. If he didn’t run, and if Hillary got the nomination, and if she won the presidency, which is likely, since most of the country is sick and tired of the Repubs… In 2012 he’d have been running against an incumbent from the same party. Bad manners at best and a guaranteed loss, since he’d have been tearing up the party and projecting an image of “care for nobody but self”. So, 2012 is out.

    2016? By then, the country is likely to have swung back towards the Repubs, unless Hillary proved to be an *exceptionally* good President. Which may or may not not have been possible, given the depth of the doo that the next Dem president will have to dig us from under.

    No. Given the — residual maybe but still there — amount of racism in this country, a black Dem’s best chance is *this* year — when so many are so sick and tired of the Repubs, they’re willing to put their prejudices aside, at least temporarily. So his decision was a clear-headed and correct one.

    I think what even he might not have counted on was how strong a candidate he’d prove to be. That he’d catch fire to quite this extent. I suspect that, at the beginning, he was, probably, positioning himself to be a strong *VP* contender — a bit like Edwards in ’04. Then, if the president elected in 2008 did prove to be exceptionally effective, as the heir-presumptive he’d have had a clear shot at the top spot in 2016, having gained the necessary “experience”.

    I think the events overtook him; at this point, being a VP is no longer an option, since there’s no way Hillary would prove to be exceptional, though she might be quite good.

  • libra

    says:

    MsJoanne, @24

    She’s doing a one-two punch, isn’t she? First, it’s “he’s all words, no substance”. Then “…and it’s not even his own words”.

    I don’t like her very much anymore, either. OTOH, as a Polish “saw” goes, “the drowning man will grab (even) a razor (to save himself)”

  • MsJoanne

    says:

    I don’t like her very much anymore, either. OTOH, as a Polish “saw” goes, “the drowning man will grab (even) a razor (to save himself)”

    Well, there ya have it. 🙂

  • DevilDog

    says:

    It might be overstating it to say a great Obama tsunami was generated in Hawaii this evening, and it’s heading for Texas and Ohio . . . but not by much. Tonight’s Hawaii caucuses went extremely well for Obama. Quadruple the normal turnout (or greater!) and apparently most of it going to Obama. A nice way to begin the Wednesday news cycle: 10 in a row for Barack!

  • Shalimar

    says:

    Anyway, Mark Penn tells me Wisconsin won’t count because of all the cheese. Totally unrepresentative.

    Then I guess they might as well not vote in Vermont since it won’t count either.