Iowa Three-Way Holds
The Iowa Republican whatever is over and Romney, Santorum, and Paul each won 7 delegates, while Newt ‘Efting’ Gingrinch and Governor Goodhair got two each.
What about the big win for Romney by 8 votes? Irrelevant, as he didn’t get any more delegates that Ron Paul, and delegates are what count. The nominating conventions are like the Electoral College, the popular vote doesn’t matter – it’s the delegate count.
If Romney could only manage an 8 vote popular win with all of the money and organization at his disposal, he is not going to get the turn out for the general.
Ron Paul got the young and independent voters in Iowa. If he mounted an independent run for President, he would pull more votes from Zero than Romney.
It is to be seen if Santorum can turn his showing into a credible run. He lacks money and a national organization. The ‘usual suspects’ are holding their cash in reserve for Romney, so Santorum will have a tough row to hoe.
On the Democratic side, Zero’s operatives made damn sure there were no embarrassing uncommitted delegates selected. The Democrats vote by a show of hands, not paper ballots like the Republicans, and you must get at least 15% of the caucus with you to get your vote recorded. The ‘viability count’ was ruthlessly enforced to ensure that uncommitted didn’t make the cut, according to Iowa Democratic caucus attendees who were part of the uncommitted bloc.
Update: PZ Myers condenses hours of media coverage in one post.
9 comments
I seriously doubt Ron Paul is going to mount an independent (or Libertarian Party) campaign for President. He already did that once, remember? Ballot access rules have been changed since then to make it *extremely* hard for an independent or 3rd party candidate to get onto all 50 states’ ballots. It takes boatloads of money to jump through all the hoops to do it, and one thing Paul does *not* have is boatloads of money backing him.
For the general election I expect Obama will win handily, for the simple reason that the Republicans sent in the clown car team rather than their A-list. Of course, what *is* their A-list? Christie of New Jersey, who is swiftly becoming the most hated governor of their state since William Franklin? Jeb Bush, whose sole qualification for office is that he’s the smart one of the Bush brothers, which is sorta like saying that border collies are the smart ones of the dog family i.e. the pole ain’t exactly high there, just sayin’? I’m not sure, given the clown college aspect of the current Republican party, that there is anybody even in their A-list who could have mounted a decent campaign capable of toppling Obama.
Badtux, I believe you’re forgetting the GOP ace in the hole… baldfaced election theft. It worked for GeeDubya in 2000. I’m just sayin’…
Ol’ Newt will probably be the real problem for the Repubs. He is livid over what Romney did to him in Iowa, and will want revenge, no matter what anyone else thinks. There are no more ‘party elders’ to rein him in, and they didn’t have a lot of control over him before.
It will turn out to be Rove vs Gingrinch before this is over.
Paul has the money and organization in place to hold out for a long time. He made it onto the Virginia ballot, which was too much for the everyone else, except Romney, so that will be an interesting race to watch, to at least give an idea of how much support Mitt has in the party.
I don’t actually see Paul wasting the time or money to run as an independent, but if he rolls up some delegates, the convention is going to have to deal with him, something they have been trying to avoid.
I don’t have a horse in this race, so I’m going to sit back and enjoy the show.
Yah, watching the dwarf-tossing competition that is the GOP race has been entertaining, in a sick sorta way. I sorta feel ashamed of watching it, but look. Doughy is out, now Crazy and Dopey are out, Grumpy is sorta in just to spite Creepy, Goldy, Frothy, and Creepy are still in, then there’s the dwarfs that didn’t even bother showing –Bathy (who once received a Japanese trade delegation at the governor’s mansion while wearing his bathrobe and fuzzy slippers) and Oily (hint: Huntsman Chemicals). The only thing that could make this more entertaining would be if David Duke donned his white robe and joined the entertainment (hey, if Bathy’s around, surely the Dukkke can’t be far behind, right?).
– Badtux the (Sickly) Entertained Penguin
The humane thing to do would be to arrange an appointment with the vet for the GOP.
The Humane Society should complain to the FCC for allowing the Republican primaries to be televised.
The ratings for any further ‘debates’ will be way down without Bachmann and Perry, although Santorum will do is best to fill in for them. He just doesn’t have the sense of madness they brought to the event.
Hmm, this has all inspired me to create a hilarious post about the Republican candidates in dwarf terms with a thumbnail sketch of each. It had me laughing anyhow. It should pop up on my blog sometime tomorrow evening, your time. (Yes, I do schedule things to pop out in the future when I have sudden bursts of creativity that I don’t want to distract readers from the current top post on the blog 😉 ).
Hey, if we can’t laugh, what else can we do?
Regarding Newt, he once shut down the government because he felt insulted that the President made him ride in the back of Air Force One rather than let him ride up front with the kool kids. Somehow I suspect Romney forgot just who, exactly, he was playing with…
– Badtux the Sickly Entertained Penguin
Mitt wouldn’t stoop to negative campaigning – it was ‘an unknown outside group’ [/snark]
The Republicans are making life too easy for political comedians – they have become editors, using the scripts that the candidates have written. The primary is becoming ‘Last Comic Standing’, a modern ‘Gong Show’. It is a hell of a way to select ‘the leader of the free world’ [for a given value of ‘free’].
Yah, among the top candidates we have: A man who once tied his dog to the roof of the family car while taking the family on a family vacation, a man who appears to obsess about man-on-dog sex when he’s not making his children cry, a crotchety old man who rants at kids that gold is the only money and smoke his grass, a grumpy old dood whose hobby is putting coal in children’s stockings, a vain dude with great hair who makes an anti-gay speech while wearing Heath Ledger’s jacket, a woman whose hobby is conversing with the voices in her head, a guy whose gubernatorial term was most notable for receiving foreign dignitaries while wearing bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, and of course let’s not forget the guy most famous for making a mediocre pizza chain no less mediocre and, oh, btw, feeling up lots of pretty white women, thereby living up to every stereotype of black men ever floated by white racists. I couldn’t *invent* this list of characters if I were writing a novel, my editor would say that nobody could believe that such an assortment of characters would *ever* be serious candidates of a major party, people just wouldn’t believe such a silly thing. Yet here we are. Yes, life *is* easy for comedians :cry:.
– Badtux the Sadly Laughing Penguin
As long as they make the right noises about G*d, guns, and taxes, everything else is overlooked.
If there is a murder on the campaign trail, especially if it is in Florida, Carl Hiaasen will probably write a book about it, because the Clown College are his kind of characters – crooked, crazy, and power-mad. Of course it will be ‘a work of fiction’, like all of Carl’s books 😉