Oh. I guess I am supposed to write something. Okay.
The Democratic debate tonight didn’t change anything and probably didn’t move the race a single point in any particular direction. If you liked one of the candidates going in, you probably still like them. Same if you didn’t like them. If you’d never seen them debate before, you were probably most impressed with Clinton and Edwards, as Obama opted less for soaring rhetoric than sober analysis. But they were all impressive, all had their moments, and no one made any big mistakes. The caucus is still up for grabs and polling is narrowing.
As for Michigan, there are two stories to tell there. Mitt Romney won. Mitt Romney was polling ahead in Nevada before he won in Michigan. Mitt Romney will probably win Nevada. Following his big win in New Hampshire, McCain jumped out to a sudden lead in South Carolina. Will that lead now evaporate? Will Huckabee reemerge as the favorite down there? Or will the Mittster gather some Mittmentum and race to the front of the pack? I’m not sure. Ironically, Rudy Giuliani, who got only 3 percent of the vote tonight, will benefit from the fact that the Republicans are splitting the early contests. It gives his long-shot Florida-first strategy at least some measure of plausiblity.
On the Democratic side things were so screwed up that it is hard to draw many conclusions. Let’s just say that some guy named ‘Uncommitted’ came in second with almost a quarter million votes (40%). On top of that, there’s this:
Hillary Clinton faced a grim statistic in Michigan tonight, despite her primary “win” there: results revealed that she may have reason to worry about her grasp on the African-American vote.
The Michigan primary vote was essentially meaningless: the national party stripped the state of its delegates because it held its contest too early in the election season, and Clinton was the only major Democratic contender whose name appeared on the ballot.
Even so, roughly 70 percent of Michigan’s African-American voters — a group that makes up a quarter of Michigan’s Democratic electorate — did not cast their votes for Clinton, choosing the “uncommitted” option instead. Yet these voters weren’t uncommitted at all: in fact, according to CNN exit polls, they overwhelmingly favored Barack Obama, whose name did not appear on the ballot.
Had Obama’s name been on the Michigan ballot, CNN exit polls show that he would have won an overwhelming 73 percent of the African-American vote, in contrast to 22 percent who say they would have voted for Clinton under those circumstances.
Josh Marshall sez that Rep. John Conyers helped mobilized Obama voters to get out and vote ‘uncommitted’.
The story of the night is really about who is more pathetic, Dennis Kucinich or Rudy Giuliani. They both got less than 25,000 votes, but I think Dennis takes it. In a two-way race with Hillary Clinton, he got 4%. Time to quit.
http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=229
Not much explanation for us non legal types, but the pdf of the suit is there.
“We Interrupt this Debate: DNC Asks to Be Made Defendant in Nevada Lawsuit
Here’s the legal motion, courtesy of Jon Ralston.
(Howard Dean strikes back in defense of the at-large caucuses.)
Incredibly, the biggest issue in the Nevada caucuses has not yet been mentioned by control-freak moderators”.
I gotta admit I feel a little sorry for Kucinich for getting his ass handed to him by Uncommitted.
Not unexpected since Dennis is obviously not running to win. He is running to remind the Democrats who they are and what core liberal-socialist values they are expected to represent. Edwards now comes closest to those values, while Hillary and to some extent Obama obscure the distinction between Republicans and Democrats, as during the Clinton 90s. Nader was not incorrect in his analysis of of the problem, especially the Democrats joining rather than opposing the Reagan Revolution a la Clintonism.
Slightly off topic, but Glenn Beck is truly an asshole of gargantuan proportions. I haven’t even seen this guy before. I know Atrios picks on him all the time, and now I know why.
OMG, he is such an ass. And I have to see his mug all around town on billboards advertising his radio show. It’s the same design for both Glenn Beck and Dennis Miller…the guy’s face and the words “Look who’s talking”.
Makes me think of the movie Look Who’s Talking, and the painfully unnecessary sequels. That’s amusing to me in a way. “Look, a baby is talking–can you believe it?!”
Look, an untalented xenophobic gasbag is talking–actually stringing words together. On the radio, no less!
Hey, I’m glad Kucinich is hanging in there. Without him, we’d have no recount starting in NH tomorrow. I hope he stays in if only to have the option to ask for more of those.
Yup.
The two least videogenic ones left.
From the day that Nixon lost the debates to JFK, THAT has been the order of the day in Presidential elections.
The massive eye of the TV does not lie.
Really.
Not about areas of mythos.
It even showed that G. W. Bush was less devious…more innocent…than Small K kerry.
It was the innocence of stupidity over the guilt of mediocrity, but nevertheless, that was what happened.
And now we are left with two and a half on the DemRat side vs. one and a half and a third on the Ratpub side.
Magic Mommy, the off-white male Messiah (The Second Coming of JFKhrist) and a sincere (if necessarily two-faced, trial lawyer that he is) Legal Functionary vs. Grandpa War Hero, a Reagan clone robot and Nosferatu, Savior of the City.
Next to go down?
Legal Functionary and Nosferatu.
Stay tuned.
This is better than Godzilla vs. Mothra.
AG
The Mysteries of the Double Posts.
AG
I still don’t see the point in stripping the delegates. Michigan moved up the primary to a point where it did not really change anything. Potentially the party has alienated thousands of voters.
Anyone notice Tweety doing a 180 with regards to Hillary Clinton after the debate? He’s been hammered (rightly so, it pains me to say as an Obama supporter) for his bias against her, but he gushed over her performance. Message from someone at MSNBC?
He was all up in her junk after the debate. It was so transparent.
ABC, NBC whoever now has absolutely no reason to invite him to the debates. He’s done just as well, if not worse than Kucinich. He’s come in 4th and 5th in all these races. It was a farce that ABC invited him to the debate, but wouldn’t let Kucinich on stage.
Especially when you consider that Giuliani lost to Ron Paul, who was excluded from debates. In countries that care about their democracies, citizens would be taking to the streets by now to take arbitrary political decision-making out of the dirty hands of the gasbag networks. But this is America, and American Idol is back.
That’s so funny because I posted the same thing on my blog:
The more I think about it, the more pissed I get. I see/hear people talk about sham elections in other countries because their media is part of the gov’t propaganda machine. They say, “Well, those elections were a sham because [insert rebel/freedom fighter/US friendly puppet here] wasn’t on the ballot.” And their people march in the street because of the obvious unfairness. Meanwhile, look at us. It’s a farce and the American public is in on it. Too many choices means that many more people they would have to research, that is if they actually researched anything. Instead they take at face value the lies and misinformation from TV, pundits and “informed” friends. They let themselves be badgered into thinking someone is unelectable because the TV says so, or hordes of bloggers on one blog say so.
I agree with the poster above that coming into the race Kucinich had no expectation of winning, just using the race to raise progressive positions on the issues.
I don’t know why people would want him out of the debates or have him cease campaigning, that is, unless they want to stop hearing progressive positions in the debates. Then we can go back to what was being spewed over the last week and a half.