Clinton …

… is turning herself into electoral poison. First Mike Huckabee cracks an unfortunate joke, now Hillary goes there, too.

Makes one wonder if Obama is in danger of being “Vince Fostered?”

From the second link:

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

And so it begins …

… from a GOP reeling and gearing up for the final act in a historic fall from grace.

From the link:

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

 

Texas and Ohio get out the vote

I’ll periodically update this page tonight as results come in from Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont. All numbers from CNN unless otherwise noted.

Right now CNN is calling both Ohio and Vermont for McCain. I expect him to handily win all four states in contention tonight since the Huckabee protest voting seems to be dwindling.

In fact, in Texas and Ohio a number of Republicans will likely vote in the Democratic primary for Clinton hoping to extend that contest.

CNN has called Vermont for Obama, an expected result.

7:30 — Very early — less than 1% reporting — Clinton leads in Ohio and Obama in Texas. Keep in mind all numbers from Texas tonight will reflect only the primary votes. The caucuses will take up to a week to report and the delegates earned in Texas won’t be final until then.

8:00 — CNN calls Texas for McCain and announces those delegates give him the GOP nomination. I’m not sure about that delegate math, it seems I read somewhere he couldn’t secure that number tonight, but it was/is a matter of time. As reported on CNN, it’s amazing to think where McCain was just months ago. Broke and trailing the field. Now he’s on the ballot in November. Congrats to John McCain and his staff.

8:20 — CNN calls Rhode Island for McCain. Still very early and Obama leads in Texas, Clinton in Ohio and Rhode Island. The Texas caucuses are going on and pretty crazy from what I hear.

9:15 — CNN calls Rhode Island for Clinton. She still leads in Ohio and Obama is holding a narrowing lead in Texas. To offset the expected Obama win in the caucuses Clinton needs to win the Texas primary by a sizable margin.

10:00 — CNN calls Ohio for Clinton. From the exit polls she cleaned house with the female vote. Clinton has pulled slightly ahead in Texas, but based on numbers I checked out at the NYT’s website Obama won heavily in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris and Travis counties (that’d be Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, respectively.) The only major urban area Clinton is leading (by a smaller margin than Obama in the other four) is Bexar, San Antonio’s heavily Hispanic county. I’m going to guess Obama will regain the lead as these major urban centers fully report. Very close vote at any rate.

10:15 — To further solidify the GOP, Huckabee called McCain to concede and McCain travels to D.C. tomorrow for Bush 43’s official endorsement.

11:00 — Last update of the night. Clinton is holding a slim margin in Texas — numbers right now from the state Office of the Secretary of State stands at 50.58-47.45% Clinton. From what I can tell from online tools, a lot of votes have yet to be registered from Dallas and Harris (particularly Harris) counties. Both Obama strongholds. The actual numbers are close enough those two counties could swing the total vote back to Obama.

Clinton had a good night compared to the entire month of February. On the downside is she was expected to completely blow Obama out of the water in both Texas and Ohio as recently as three weeks ago. Of course the night will probably a draw, at worst delegate-wise, and once the Texas caucus results roll in sometime next week Obama will most likely go down as the overall winner.

Clinton’s not leaving the race, but by every method of reckoning she has almost no chance of winning the pledged delegates or the total vote nationwide. For more on that follow this link to a Jonathan Alter article for Newsweek. On the Democratic side of the field, let the spin begin.

McCain and the GOP have to be very pleased with tonight’s results.

Wisconsin vote

Polls just closed in Wisconsin and CNN calls the GOP vote for McCain (surprise.) The Democratic side is too close to call, but exit polls indicate Obama has the lead. If he wins Wisconsin that’ll make nine states in a row. That’s some momentum.

I’ll periodically update this page tonight with fresh numbers. As usual, all numbers will come from CNN unless otherwise noted.

Update 8:20 — CNN just projected an Obama win.

9:05 — Right now with 28% of the vote in Obama leads 55% to 44%. If he gets to 60% or higher with all votes in, Clinton should seriously consider conceding tonight. She won’t, of course, and will at least fight on through March 4.

Some serious holes are being punched in her core message right now. She’s running a statistical dead-heat with Obama in Texas, one of her three latest firewall states (Pennsylvania and Ohio round out that trifecta.)

All the big mo is going Obama’s way. The ongoing memes about Clinton are how her campaign resembles Giuliani’s failed efforts by focusing on big states and ignoring smaller states and caucuses. Ouch. Her readiness to lead on day one? She can’t even figure out how the delegates are distributed in Texas. A potential loss her campaign is already spinning in a state she fully expected to win as late as last week.

9:10 — I know other states, namely Washington and Hawaii, are voting today. I don’t have any number for either at the moment. Anyway I bet Obama will get Hawaii 100% to nil. And I’m just barely joking there.

And I know the GOP is voting tonight, too. With a little over 30% of the vote in, Huckabee is pulling over a third of the vote. I’d say conservatives are still involved in a bit of protest voting. Ron Paul is back there, but he’s getting some votes

10:50 86% reporting and Obama’s up to 58%. Considering recent polls had this vote pretty tight, this is a blowout. His numbers are actually rising as more of the vote comes in. The Washington vote looks pretty close, but Obama’s leading there right now.

Huckabee is actually running behind Romney by a hair in Washington.

11:15 — Final update of the night. With almost half the Washington vote in, Obama leads 50% to 47% and will likely take the state. Over at the GOP McCain obviously leads, but Huckabee has taken a tiny lead over Romney for the runner-up slot. Each is pulling 21% of the vote.

More on Dem’s superdelegates

Here’s some NY Times letters on the subject, and with a tiny bit of work I could’ve found much more incendiary material out there.

Somewhat like how the GOP threatened to boycott the election, or vote Democrat, if the nominee was perceived as not “conservative” enough, the Democrats are now in danger of doing the same if the nomination is perceived as “stolen” by the superdelegates.

Of course, at this point, that pretty much would only happen for Clinton. It’s very likely Obama will lead in total vote and earned delegates by the time of the convention. If that’s the case and Obama’s not the nominee, the Democrats may face problems in the general election. Maybe even downticket.

The GOP is probably avoiding any problems in the general because disgruntled primary voters still have a protest vote — Huckabee — available to get that lever pull out of their system before the general.

Potomac primaries

Three primaries are now voting — Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland. I’ll periodically update this post tonight to track results and commentary.

8:45 CNN has already called all three primaries for Obama and McCain.

9:00 Don’t know where these numbers come from, but if true Clinton should seriously consider conceding the nomination tonight.

From the Daily Kos post:

Update: Chuck Todd just said Clinton has to win TX, OH and PA by 63% or so to catch Obama after Wisconsin and Hawaii. I’d like to see the math, but if so, that’s insurmountable. She won’t get those numbers.

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Tags: Virginia, Barack Obama, president, Hillary Clinton, 2008 (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

9:30 Clinton faces more defections from the team.

From the article:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Hillary Clinton’s deputy campaign manager has resigned, her campaign confirmed Tuesday night as the New York senator faced another round of disappointing primary results.

Mike Henry is the second senior staff-level departure from the Clinton team in the past three days. He was hired by Patti Solis Doyle — Clinton’s former campaign manager — whose resignation was revealed Sunday.

10:20 I guess this answers the losing with grace question.

From the article:

EL PASO, Texas (CNN) –For the second election night in a row, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge or congratulate Barack Obama after he won the day in dominating fashion.

11:50 Obama wins big. 75% in DC, 64% in Virginia and 60% in Maryland. Clinton has been epically spanked in eight straight primaries.

Huckabee wins Kansas

McCain may be more than the presumptive GOP nominee, but Huckabee’s still in the race and getting votes. At this point something of protest votes more than anything else.

Today Huckabee won the Kansas caucus with 60% of the vote.

I don’t think it’ll happen, but he is making a case for veep. If McCain/Huckabee is the Republican ticket in November, Huckabee could be a drain on McCain’s independent votes.

Based on previous statements I’d say Huckabee is much better suited for a new cabinet post — Department of Christianist Law. He can go around upholding Biblical Law, not unlike those imposing Islamic Sharia around the world.

Dobson endorses Huckabee

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and religious right kingmaker, has formally endorsed Huckabee. This Commentary Magazine post from Jennifer Rubin explains just how inane this move is considering the timing.

From the post:

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson has decided to endorse Mike Huckabee in a truly senseless gesture, the timing of which can only be compared to the Battle of New Orleans. (Didn’t he hear the war is over?) Just to be clear: Huckabee has 196 delegates of a required 1191. There are approximately 1165 delegates (actually fewer since California and Illinois delegates are not yet fully allocated) still outstanding. (Huckabee is not likely to get more than 85% of the remaining delegates, you think?) Coming after McCain’s remarkably successful CPAC speech and just before President Bush’s expected nod to the new nominee, the decision to endorse a man perhaps even less beloved than McCain among the conservative base will, I think, be largely ignored, if not mocked.

This most reminds me of the members of far left in 2000 who decided to back Nader because, “there’s no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.” That bloc’s conceit was to send a message to the Democrats the party needed to make a hard turn to the left.

Given the way that election turned out with Nader giving Bush the razor’s edge needed to get into the White House, I wonder how many of those idealistic protest voters wish they had a do-over on that pull of the lever.

I’m with Rubin that Dobson is more likely just going to be mocked for this similar exercise on the far right. McCain has the nomination wrapped up. If evangelicals avoid him in the general election due to Dobson’s irrational politics, McCain’s slim hope to win vanishes.

In current polling he loses to Obama and beats Clinton, each swing tied to the independent vote. Polls aren’t elections and I doubt evangelicals are taken into account in those numbers. They are a significant bloc on election day, however. Take away the religious right vote from the GOP base and I bet Clinton’s numbers against the Maverick get a lot closer.

GOP Florida roundup

McCain wins the Sunshine State and all 57 awarded delegates. He is in the GOP driver seat heading into Tsunami Tuesday. Giuliani avoided a fourth place finish, but his vote combined with Huckabee’s didn’t match Romney’s second place total.

The final figures (taken from CNN.com — 99% reporting):

• McCain            36%     693,323
• Romney           31%     598,083
• Giuliani            15%     281,744
• Huckabee        14%     259,651

Ron Paul managed a very distant fifth with three percent of the vote. It looks like a two man race for the Republican nomination from here on out considering the margin between second and third place coupled with Rudy and Huckabee’s money problems.

Update: It looks like the right leaning blogosphere is already giving the nomination to McCain. Mostly grudgingly.

Update pt. 2: Make that very grudgingly, particularly at the Corner, Ace of Spades, Power Line and Hugh Hewitt’s Town Hall. Captain’s Quarters is a bit more circumspect. And rumors of Rudy leaving the race look like they will come true as soon as tomorrow followed by a McCain endorsement from the ex-NYC mayor.

More GOP money problems

First Rudy, now Huckabee.

It seems the preacher’s top staff isn’t getting paid right now. He’s not advertising in Florida, and maybe even more damning is he’s no longer providing transportation for the press. The press pays their own way, but most campaigns offer planes, buses, etc., to and from events. Huckabee’s contingent of press corps followers isn’t large enough to justify the expense of even offering transportation.

Romney, of course, will not face these issues since he can self-fund all day long if necessary.