Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

This blog will pay for itself.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Hot air and ill-informed banter

All your base are belong to Tunch.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

This fight is for everything.

Everybody saw this coming.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Devil in a blue vest

Reader Interactions

250Comments

  3. 3.

    J

    I’m sure I’m late to the party, but many, many congratulations for winning the coveted Moore award. Very well done indeed!

  4. 4.

    Mary G

    I read somewhere that the news media didn’t budget for this many states, they expected it to be over after Florida and didn’t do that much polling or send many reporters to the 46 other states.

  5. 5.

    beltane

    What an incredible day this has been. First we witness the bitter farewell of Karen Love-Handel, then you were nominated for the prestigious Moore Award, and now we end the day with a resurgence of Santorum. It is all a very fitting tribute for the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Thank you, wingnuts.

  7. 7.

    lamh35

    When Rachel opened her show, she made a show of saying that the caucus tonight are “vanity prizes”. I suspect MSNBC was caught short-footed and didn’t have their coverage team together to at the very least try to cover the returns.

  9. 9.

    pseudonymous in nc

    From the GOS:

    back in Missouri, a little extra indignity for Mitt: Barack Obama now leads him in actual votes: 64,019 to 63,489.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I was thinking that the weird nature of CNN, the Chuck Todd of news networks, is going to make them Willard’s worst enemy. I can just see Wolf, Candy and John all giggly and goggle-eyed that their sacred Conventional Wisdom has been proved wrong! With a side of David Gergen to solemnly intone that Santorum’s success proves that Obama has overreached.

  13. 13.

    lamh35

    BTW, I think it’s smart of Mittens to speak now while CO is too close to call, especially since there is an off chance that he may lose CO too.

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    David Axelrod tweets:

    If history is any guide, the bombers over at Mitt’s SuperPac have discarded the Newt coordinates, dialed in Santorum and are on their way.

  19. 19.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I haven’t been watching much live television, but do usually have the radio on at work all day and I swear I have not heard one campaign ad for Newt, Mittens, et al this past week. They really didn’t think we were important.

  20. 20.

    Dream On

    This is the power of Santorum – a wonderful thing to behold, and something I’d love all Americans of all age groups to see.

  21. 21.

    Anoniminous

    In Minnesota Romney is running behind Paul 17% to 27.4%.

    He’s not even taking counties he won in ’08.

  23. 23.

    sfinny

    Yes, congrats on the Moore award. Must say that the Santorum blowout is a bit of a surprise. And the whole Handel thing. Good lord, I spend a little time on spreadsheets for work and the whole blogosphere gets up ended.

  28. 28.

    lamh35

    Colorado caucuses with 30% reporting: Santorum 43%, Romney 29%, Gingrich 15%, Paul 13%

    BTW, Letterman going hard on Romney for the dog on top of the car incident. In the form of snarky jokes though…still it’s in the national conversation and I know from experience that when I tell people about the dog, theyall have a look of horror on their faces

  29. 29.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Next stop for the clown show (if you excuse the Maine caucuses) is Arizona/Michigan on Feb 28th, which seems like enough time for a Romney carpet-bomb, plus he’s back in Lower Mormonia.

  32. 32.

    freelancer

    Here’s the Moore Award.

    Opinions vary, but I’ve been told tonight’s primaries have the meaningful consequences of sweet. fuck. all. Someone smarter than me or more informed (which pretty much is anyone here) explain the repercussions or gravity of tonight’s results.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    Ok, simple rules guys:

    Interstates that go north-south are odd.
    Interstates that go east-west are even.

    Lower one and two digit interstates are south and west, higher numbers north and east.
    3 digit interstates are expansions to one and two digit interstates.

    That’s it.

  35. 35.

    Lev

    It was only on Sunday that I saw my first Romney bumper sticker/lawn sign/indication that an actual human being wants to be associated with the man. That was only the second instance of my seeing anyone publicly associating themselves with one of these goobers who wasn’t Ron Paul–I actually saw a Rick Perry bumper sticker in Sacramento with my fiancee and we both literally laughed when we saw it. This as opposed to 2008, when I saw a decent amount of McCain paraphernalia.

    Anecdata don’t count for much, but I see little evidence that actual people care for these candidates.

  40. 40.

    Dream On

    The Santorum is truly undeniable at this point. Mitt didn’t think that it would happen, he thought he was being so careful, but there it is – for all to see. Santorum. Everywhere.

  41. 41.

    lamh35

    ok, enough with the damn glitter-bombs people. It’s ridiculous and there is no need to make Romney seems sympathetic at all. Plus he has Secret Service protection now and one of the glitter-bomber is gonna get tackled.

    Darn even i felt bad for Romney, dude looked jolted. Did anyone else see that?

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @Lev:

    I almost committed seppuku when I started seeing “Jeb!” bumper stickers in the same neck of the woods, circa 2005.

    Glad that passed.

  48. 48.

    Dream On

    Romney quote (for real): “The race is too close to call in Colorado at this point but I’m confident I’ll come in number one or number two.”

    The fact that he would even say number 2 is a sign that he knows this may not go his way.

    Santorum is truly flowing tonight.

  49. 49.

    garbo

    John King’s touchscreen wall of inanity is all done up in My Little Pony colors. Maybe he’s a bronie?

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    Can’t we have a “2012 Moore Award Nominee” banner ad up top, nao? A fucking badge of fucking honor, golldangit.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @freelancer: There’s three lines of repercussions:

    1) Delegates. Not many delegates in play. None in MO. Mathematically it helps Santorum a little, hurts Mitt a little, and that’s about it.
    2) Momentum. Mitt wants to show he’s the inevitable guy. He wants to choke off funds to his opponents. This won’t help AT ALL. If it was close, it probably wouldn’t hurt. If he lost for obvious regional regions (such as winning/losing in Utah for a Mormon, or winning/losing to Ron Paul in a place like Alaska) it wouldn’t be a problem. This isn’t those cases. This is a real question mark over whether Mitt can reel in the next round of primaries. Tonight was multitasking for the first time, and Mitt should have done that better than anyone. It’s the place where organization and money help – a lot. And that’s his upper hand. He’s getting CRUSHED in the very kind of race that he should be running away with this. How does that impact the next round of fundraising and how does that affect the super delegate fight? The GOP has that as well, and that was instrumental in 2008 for Obama to slowly bleed supers away from Hillary largely based on the inevitability shift.
    3) Demographics/Electability. CO/MN/MO are pretty damn white-bread states. MO is still considered a bellwether for the general election. CO and MN aren’t so deep in the Dems corner that the GOP can’t win them – particularly someone who looks like Romney. Is Romney doing poorly because of the Mormon thing, where this portends trouble in November? Is it because GOP voters have finally soured on Mitt due to his unfavorables, and they don’t think he can win in the general? Was turnout just so low that this is representative of nothing about the candidates, but instead about the weakness of the GOP field in general? Lots of inside baseball bits to dissect. I have to imagine the big boys in the RNC are shitting radioactive bricks right about how.

  54. 54.

    The Other Chuck

    @lamh35:

    Darn even i felt bad for Romney, dude looked jolted. Did anyone else see that?

    Well sure, glitter is metallic and conductive, so it probably caused a short.

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This just in: Santorum takes Kit Carson County with nearly 60% of the vote!

    (admittedly this is a shit-kicker county, but, hey, it’s named after Kit Carson!)

  59. 59.

    Michael

    Up to 45% reporting and Santorum still leading comfortably. I wonder if the networks are going to call it soon.

  60. 60.

    Hill Dweller

    Willard’s only real selling point was his competitiveness with the President in head to head polling. If recent trends continue, and Romney falls far enough behind, it’s anybody’s nomination to win.

    I think that’s why the Romney campaign was ripping the methodology of some of the polling yesterday. They know people despise their candidate, and he engenders no loyalty. Consequently, once things start going bad for him, it tends to snowball.

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Interesting that our pet troll seems to have vanished after MN was called for Man on Dog.

  63. 63.

    freelancer

    @lamh35:

    Glitter Bombing is the Dan Choi of anti-homophobe activism. When it first happened, like to Newt, we all laughed and were like Fuck Yeah! Now it’s like, Jesus, did you really have to chain yourself to the White House fence? aka Did you really have to get tackled and embolden the GOP base in one fell stroke? Romney isn’t the first choice of the ghey-hating base, and anti-anti-ghey activism of this stripe fires them up in a way that they never would have been before in addition to hobbling the gay rights movement which in the last decade has just been struggling to say “We’re here, We’re queer, We’re the sons and daughters and co-workers and friends you’ve always known us to be, so just chill on all the selective Biblical talk, MmmKay?”

    I suck at chess worse than any smart person whose ever lived, but moar better activism pleaz.

  65. 65.

    scottinnj

    interesting factoid: So far Romney’s victories have been in states that Clinton beat Obama. Romney hasn’t carried any state won by Obama v. Clinton. Colorado was a Hillary state

  67. 67.

    Michael

    The GOP establishment might try to force Mitt on the base, but tonight the base delivered a resounding response: “We are going to shove Santorum down your throat!”

  68. 68.

    Martin

    @Left Coast Tom: Ooh, excellent exception! I-238 is east-west, so the even rule applies, but it’s named 238 because of the highway it extends, so there is no I-38 it’s an extension of.

    Forgot about that one. Well, rules wouldn’t be rules without exceptions. But it’s really short. Driven on it, even. In fact, I think I’ve probably driven on at least part of better than 80% of the interstates in the lower 48.

    @trollhattan: Canada? Fucking Canada doesn’t have rules. They have one highway. It’s called ‘Highway’. I’ve driven quite a lot of that highway. There was a section in Saskatchewan that was on fire. The actual highway was on fire. Not next to the highway – the literal highway itself. They don’t need to number it. If there’s any confusion about which highway, they can always call it ‘The highway that is on fire’ and that should be clear enough.

  69. 69.

    Mark S.

    @Martin:

    My unscientific take: Mitt can only win if he spends $20 million on attack ads for a solid week before the primary. I wish there were some statistic on money to votes with this guy.

  70. 70.

    Dream On

    @Michael

    “We are going to shove Santorum down your throat!”

    OK, now that makes me gag. Gross!

  71. 71.

    Martin

    @Michael:

    Up to 45% reporting and Santorum still leading comfortably. I wonder if the networks are going to call it soon.

    Well, there’s only about 8,000 votes in those 45% of precincts. They were hoping for 70,000, so think of it more like 12% of votes.

  73. 73.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @freelancer:

    I’ve been told tonight’s primaries have the meaningful consequences of sweet. fuck. all.

    In terms of delegates, “sweet fanny adams” is about right. In terms of the narrative — that Mittens can’t win in the midwest or the south — perhaps not.

    It makes me wonder whether any of the clowns have actually got a delegate-accumulation strategy in place, or whether they’re still treating it like a fight where it’s knockout or nada.

  74. 74.

    garbo

    We need to send a nice gift basket to Dan Savage for all the puns he has made possible. This primary season would be so much less fun without them.

  75. 75.

    Suffern ACE

    Didn’t Santorum take time off from campaigning to be with his sick daughter after the loss in Florida? While Newt and Romney went all in chasing Trump’s endorsement. It’s like losing to an empty chair.

  76. 76.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Funny, here’s Santorum taking a bite out of Mittens tonight and the lead story on the news was about the rescue of a dog from an icy pond.

    Even the local news doesn’t give a crap about the CO primary.

    See this is what happens in a state that loves their dogs, you fucking put yours on top of the car and they ignore you on the 10pm newscast.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Colorado latest results still don’t include the big urban counties, so this may take a while, but the trend continues to be Santorum.

    Now, admittedly, Colorado is not Oregon and vice versa, but the urban counties vote very differently than the hinterlands in Oregon. Basically, if you can take Multnomah County and Lane County in Oregon, you’ve got the upper hand in a statewide race, and those two counties are the last to report, for the most part. Merkley’s win over Smith in ’08 Senate, and Kitzhaber’s win over Dudley for Governor in ’10 hinged on Multnomah and Lane Counties.

  79. 79.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Via the Graun, from the twitter machine:

    Tonight’s political narrative: God this is stupid lame doesn’t matter boring insignificant HOLY SHIT WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT

  80. 80.

    Donald G

    @Michael:

    The GOP establishment might try to force Mitt on the base, but tonight the base delivered a resounding response: “We are going to shove Santorum down your throat!”

    That’s not where Santorum goes.

  81. 81.

    Anoniminous

    @Martin:

    A thing of beauty.

    I’ll add:

    1. Romney won Minnesota in ’08 with 41.6%. He’s coming in third with 17.1% tonight. The mark of a floundering politician is one that cannot hold on to his support.

    2. Aside from New Hampshire, Romney has only won states by negative and attack ads. In five years of campaigning he has yet to demonstrate he can convince people to vote for him, not vote against the other guy.

    3. One over-riding property of this GOP Presidential nominating campaign is the rejection of Romney by the Base, and even the GOP as a whole. Only in the last four weeks has he reached 37% national support numbers or, turning it around, 63% of the GOP don’t want him at the top of the ticket.

    4. A couple of weeks ago the Fundie-Cons got together and decided to back Santorum as their Candidate. It didn’t work in Florida but it may very well have happened tonight. These people have money but more importantly they have national organizations capable of raising a ton of money AND they have boots-on-the-ground. Santorum, tonight, has shown he can win and win big. Thus the Fundie-Cons have evidence that they aren’t throwing their time, money, and effort away by working for him.

    5. IF #4 is accurate THEN we may see the Fundie-Cons unite the Not-Romney vote and in which case Romney is toast.

    6. IF #5 comes around THEN the chances of a full-bore GOP faction fight breaking out greatly increases … just in time for a Presidential election.

  82. 82.

    priscianusjr

    @Mary G:

    I read somewhere that the news media didn’t budget for this many states, they expected it to be over after Florida and didn’t do that much polling or send many reporters to the 46 other states.

    Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !

  84. 84.

    Left Coast Tom

    @Martin: It’s an even bigger exception…it may actually go east-west, but it’s signed north-south, because Mission Blvd., which it extends, is…northwest/southeast, but parallel to the Bay, so it’s north/south.

    I-238

    At the time it was named, all the x80 numbers were taken (180 by CA-180 in Fresno, the others as I-80 loops/spurs, I-480 was since torn down after Loma Prieta did San Francisco a favor by damaging the road beyond repair).

    There’s also the ‘proposal’ for I-338, hopefully Jerry Brown can fit that into the budget somewhere.

  87. 87.

    Dream On

    @Garbo

    We need to send a nice gift basket to Dan Savage for all the puns he has made possible. This primary season would be so much less fun without them.

    What do you mean? Puns? I don’t find anything strange about someone walking up to me and saying, “have you heard the good news about Santorum?” Or, say, “we’re going to use Santorum to clean up Washington!” And I certainly find nothing hilarious about the dedicated supporters who live, breathe and work with the constant thought of promoting Santorum throughout the USA. Patriots and Santorum-lovers, the lot of them.

  88. 88.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Martin: One more rule: Add the interstate and the adjacent US highway and it equals 110:

    I-80, US30
    I-70, US40
    I-95, US 1 … wha? Maybe US15?

    OK, it works for two of them.

  89. 89.

    Anoniminous

    @JGabriel:

    Are you in Colorado? Do you know what the local political news people are saying?

    They generally have a pretty good idea of what is happening and why.

  90. 90.

    priscianusjr

    @freelancer:

    Someone smarter than me or more informed (which pretty much is anyone here) explain the repercussions or gravity of tonight’s results.

    It’s psychological.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    The actual highway was on fire. Not next to the highway – the literal highway itself. They don’t need to number it. If there’s any confusion about which highway, they can always call it ‘The highway that is on fire’ and that should be clear enough.

    Welp, considering the Canada Division of Big Roads, Eh? is staffed entirely by beavers, a burning highway now and then is to be expected. They don’t know from concrete but birch–oh yes.

  93. 93.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:

    In general, the old “US” highway system ran low east/north high west/south, with a few crazy exceptions. So, when the Interstate system was planned, the numbering scheme went the opposite way.

    The general rule for the three number Interstates is that even first digit is a loop or bypass (like I-405 in Seattle, Portland, and LA) and odd first digit is a spur off of the parent Interstate (see I 505 in the Sacramento Valley, which runs due south after I-5 bends towards Sacramento, to provide a route to the Bay Area).

  94. 94.

    Michael

    Big population precincts coming in…things tightened up pretty quick. 51% reporting, Santorum is only up 2%, a couple hundred votes. Just eclipsing ~20K total votes

  96. 96.

    Cat Lady

    @beltane:

    That must be why HBO was playing Hereafter. It was directed by Clint Eastwood, so I guess they got a two-fer in the hot topics department.

  100. 100.

    Dream On

    I lived in Colorado for a while (Boulder & Longmont, before the Front Slope was all paved over with now-forclosed houses.)

    We may be seeing the power of the Evangelical/James Dobson/Colorado Springs Axis. They will never ever vote for a Mormon – they believe them to be of Satan and His Works.

    Hell, even the Colorado Rockies were thanking God for a time when the team was playing well. And doesn’t Tebow play for the Broncos? Holy-rollers get a smooth ride in that state.

    Call it the Mormon backlash. Except nobody will actually say that publicly.

    Update: Romney closing in. Thank God they delayed the vote returns for so long, eh?

  101. 101.

    Mark S.

    I wonder if Huckabee’s kicking himself for not running. I think he’d be kicking ass. He’s a lot more likeable than Ricky or Newt.

    I don’t think any of the guys (Christie, Jindal, or Daniels) that Bobo and Kristol like to fluff would be doing any better.

  102. 102.

    garbo

    According to Jeremy Meyer of the Denver Post, Mitt Romney is losing badly to Rick Santorum in El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, trailing him by about 1,700 votes with 193 of 199 precincts reporting.

    This could make Mr. Romney’s math very difficult in Colorado. He won 59 percent of the vote in El Paso County in 2008, close to his statewide total. Although the area has a large number of evangelical voters, it is closer to being a swing region than other parts of the state in the context of a Republican caucus.

    According to Nate Silver

  103. 103.

    JGabriel

    @Morbo:

    “Apolitical”?! He can’t be fucking serious, can he?

    At Sully’s site? Not the brightest minions in the blogosphere.

    .

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Douglas County CO (due south of Denver) has gone Romneytron.

    El Paso County CO (home of Jeebofascist Dobson) still not reporting.

  105. 105.

    Anoniminous

    @JGabriel:

    Ah, OK.

    The Lower East Side (Avenue A, All the Way!) and Village were me old stompin’ grounds back mumblety-mumblety years ago.

  106. 106.

    Fwiffo

    It’s been said, but that glitter bombing shit is not funny. OK, haha, he’s a Republican. Fuck you, it’s stupid, knock it off. Making life more complicated for the Secret Service so you can make a candidate fucking sparkly is stupid. Are you trying to join the John Hinkley Jr. school of Winning Friends and Influencing People?

  108. 108.

    Martin

    @Anoniminous: Good point about MN. I hadn’t caught up to that trend, but that’s a HUGE drop in support for Mitt there. You could almost excuse it if Santorum was from MN and not in the race in 2008, but the dude is from PA.

    I wouldn’t worry tooo much about the vote-for/vote-against distinction, at least within the viewpoint of the GOP. There’s nothing vote-for in their plan for 2008. It’s all Nobama Muslim Abortion Soçialist. It’s a losing strategy, but apparently it’s the GOP strategy and has been since 2010 at least when the swept a bunch of teatards into Congress to say ‘fuck you America’ to everything.

    On your last point, I think the risk of a convention fight just went up a lot tonight. For all of optics of this, it doesn’t change the delegate race much. The winner take all states come later and big states like CA aren’t likely to fall to Santorum. I’d put my money behind the bond traders over Rick Warren here. That may indeed lead to a result where the delegates fell disproportionately on Mittens but the heart of the party stays between Santorum and Noot.

    Bottom line though – this is just awesome.

  111. 111.

    dead existentialist

    NYTime headline:

    Colorado Springs Puts Romney in Hole in Colo.

    SSSSSantoruuuuummmmmm

  112. 112.

    Mark S.

    Only around 4,000 people voted in Denver County? Who do you have to blow to get into one of these caucuses? Or is it so much trouble that most people don’t bother?

  113. 113.

    Tim F.

    Denver was Romney’s big chance to take Colorado. Colorado Springs (El Paso County) and the rural counties left to drop will go heavily for Santorum. C-Springs is the hometown of James Dobson Tony Perkins and is the Mecca for Protestant fundamentalism in the US.

  114. 114.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Left Coast Tom: All the X-80 numbers were taken? 295, 495, and 695 repeat all up and down the east coast. Maybe they have to be unique within a state?

  115. 115.

    Martin

    Hmm. Denver and Douglas (Boulder) are both in and both went for Mittens. Arapahoe (Aurora, Littleton) not in yet, but it’s big (3rd largest after Denver), and may well go for Mittens also. But Mitt doesn’t have much of a lead here.

    El Paso county also not in. It’s Dobson county, and is actually larger than Denver county (Denver county is physically small and the large population there flows over into the neighboring counties).

    This might be pretty close, and I think Mitts biggest vote haul might already be counted.

  116. 116.

    garbo

    CNN is actually showing tweets from their own commentators. How better to demonstrate “we don’t get it!”

  117. 117.

    MikeJ

    @Mark S.: Going to a caucus generally takes a minimum of two hours. Would you hang around with republicans two hours to show your devotion to Mitt, Newt, or Ricky?

  119. 119.

    Martin

    I love the counties that only racked up 54 total votes. We get more people than that at 4th of July parties.

  120. 120.

    Left Coast Tom

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I-xyy numbers have to be unique within a state, and California has a further requirement that numbers can’t be repeated even in different numbering systems. So, CA-180 in Fresno precluded a I-180 in the Bay Area because of California law, though federal law would have been OK with it.

  121. 121.

    Mike Goetz

    Just tweeted from Ari Fleischer:

    “My sources now tell me that Santorum will win CO…wow”

  122. 122.

    Tim F.

    Romney is going to get humiliated in Colorado. His margin in Denver and Boulder is nowhere near enough to compensate for Dobsontwn and the sticks. Let it be said that low-information religious Republicans fucking loathe their likely presidential nominee.

  123. 123.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Left Coast Tom: Good to know. I expect we’ve beaten this dead horse and hijacked the thread pretty well for now, don’t you? Mind you, at least these pissants learned something tonight.

    I’ll be quiet now and go back and work on my US+Interstate numbering some more.

    mumble mumble

    BSoSR +2

  124. 124.

    Martin

    24K votes so far in CO and Denver and Boulder are in. Unless turnout in CO Springs and Aurora are pretty huge, they may not hit their 70K target.

    MN had 62K votes in 2008. So far only 45K, with most of the big counties in.

    MO had 588K in 2008, 242K this year. Lower because there’s no delegates, but still.

    Not feeling the enthusiasm.

  125. 125.

    Anoniminous

    @Martin:

    Bottom line though – this is just awesome.

    You can say that again.

    I’ll take Obama over any of these goofballs in the General, but it sure would be nice to see them ripping each other up and slogging into Tampa without a First Round victor.

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    @scottinnj:

    Colorado was a Hillary state

    really? because i was there for 2 weeks working for obama in Colorado in 2008and i think i’d remember if we had lost.

  127. 127.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Over at TPM Santorum just surged back ahead, and we still haven’t heard from Arapahoe or El Paso Counties.

    OvenMitt is in a world of hurt.

  128. 128.

    bemused senior

    Nate Silver: “We have seen a pattern tonight in which turnout is reasonably steady in areas that Mr. Romney loses, but has trended downward in counties that he lost.”

    ETA: Nate’s coverage is great…live updates and great analysis about every 10 minutes or so.

  129. 129.

    Martin

    Romney barely won Jefferson county now in (west of Denver) and Santorum has a 500 vote lead. Romney would have to win Aurora by epic levels. He’s done – I don’t see how he doesn’t get crushed in El Paso.

  130. 130.

    Villago Delenda Est

    BTW, In MN, with 86% of the precincts reporting in, it’s Santorum, then Paul, then OvenMitt waaaaaaaay back in third place.

    So much for the Romenytron sweep that the pet troll was crowing about.

  131. 131.

    Tim F.

    @martin: Some of those counties are huge, sparse, rugged and snowed in. For a lot of folks just getting to and from a caucus is not a trivial problem.

  136. 136.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: He’s wrong. Obama won 2:1. He crushed Hillary.

    Obama lost only one caucus: Nevada. That was Hillary’s glass chin – she had money to be competitive in primary states, but didn’t have the organization to win caucuses. Even in the Texas two-step she won the primary, he won the caucus.

  137. 137.

    Anoniminous

    @Martin:

    HuffPo has a county map and comparison to ’08 totals here.

    What I’m seeing is Romney is mostly running behind his ’08 numbers both percentage-wise and in total vote.

    And, it appears, total voter turn-out is way down. Not much enthusiasm and the snowfall TaMara was talking about, I’ll bet.

  138. 138.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Time for someone (Dan Savage?) to register GaysAgainstGlitterBombs.com. It’s really not fucking clever.

    And all signs point to Dobsonia going to their man in the sweater vest.

    Mittens won in Aspen, at least.

  140. 140.

    Dream On

    @Veritas,

    You’ve bankrupted me! Can I stay at your house – I’ve nothing and nowhere to go.

  141. 141.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Bring out the brooms…you’ll need them if you followed the pet troll’s advice because you’ve been taken to the cleaners.

  142. 142.

    Dream On

    The Santorum was unstoppable on this day. Like trying to plug a hole in a leaking ship, overpowering.

  146. 146.

    marcopolo

    Who wants to explain the amazing drop off in support for Romney from ’08? It really is kind of gobsmacking.

    After all, Huckabee was in the running and should have picked up the hardline fundies while McCain was also in the race and one would think he’d have appealed to the GOP establishment.

    Seems a bit odd.

  148. 148.

    Martin

    @Tim F.: Hey, I used to live in Colorado. No such thing as snowed in there. If they’re using snowed in as an excuse, it’s because they didn’t want to vote in the first place.

  150. 150.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: you know, i even remembered the celebration we had after the win, so i’m glad to have confirmation that i’m not crazy!

  151. 151.

    JGabriel

    @sfinny:

    Well this a problem when we can’t even comment without it being an urban dictionary activity.

    I’m sorry? Do I need to be? Is that something I should be apologizing for, or is it just an observation?

    Anyway, it was a setup line I couldn’t resist.

    .

  153. 153.

    Donald G

    @marcopolo:

    ANd CNN calls it for Santorum via the head of the Colorado GOP!

    VICTORY!

    And remember what I said about losing the kids’ college fund by trusting Veritas and betting on Romney?

    I lied.

    Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf (a.k.a. “Baghdad Bob”, the former Iraqi Information Minister)has more street-cred as a political prognosticator.

    Reality has been checked … and mated.

  155. 155.

    mdblanche

    @Mark S.: Denver County is the city of Denver only. Except for a few old moneybags it’s all Democrats there. The GOP voters are in Jefferson, Arapahoe, etc.

  156. 156.

    Killjoy

    Someone check on Veritas, I’m afraid he might hurt himself after the trifailure by Rombambi.

  158. 158.

    Suffern ACE

    Maybe Romney supporters heard that he’d wrapped it up after Nevada so there was no reason to come out tonight. Too much celebrating on the five yard line.

  159. 159.

    Martin

    @marcopolo: I’m stumped by that as well. Maybe pushback against his tax/finance background in MN, which is fairly labor friendly? I don’t know, but that’s an amazing collapse.

    The bean counters are finally starting to tear through the aggregate results, and it’s looking more and more like Romney is winning by dominating the 1% vote – both in fundraising and in demographics. This might turn out to be a bigger referendum on SuperPACs and tax policy than we might have realized.

  161. 161.

    Yutsano

    @Donald G:

    Reality has been checked … and mated.

    I saw what you did there.

    @Killjoy: Nope. Watch for the shifting allegiances. He’ll be crowing about the virtues of Ol’ Frothy by morning. Because we have always been at war with Eastasia.

  163. 163.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Looks like Romneytron is winning Vail and Steamboat. Grab a lift ticket, kiddies!

  164. 164.

    pseudonymous in nc

    538 talks about the enthusiasm gap in caucus states. I’ll put in another way: if you’re a Romney supporter, do you really want to spend two hours in the company of the supporters of the other three clowns?

  165. 165.

    Comrade Mary

    Hey, those of you with well-protected / non-Windows computers: have you been by Washington Monthly tonight? My copy of Firefox (with NoScript installed) is claiming that it’s a reported attack page.

    I didn’t go past the warning, and I wouldn’t advise anyone with a potentially vulnerable browser to try it.

  167. 167.

    JGabriel

    Great Tweet from Molly Ball via Richard Adams @ Guardian:

    Tonight’s political narrative: God this is stupid lame doesn’t matter boring insignificant HOLY SHIT WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT

    Which, by the way, I confess, I was exactly the same way at the beginning of the evening — all “this is gonna be boring, I should watch those Justified eps I’ve been saving up” and then HOLY SHIT WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT li’l Man on Dog started winning everywhere.

    Please remember, folks, Ricky Santorum is our worst fear as liberals. Make sure all your GOP friends and relatives know we sockulist liberal Democrats are deathly afraid of Santorum running against Obama. There’s just no way we could beat a Santorum juggernaut. We desperately hope Santorum isn’t the GOP nominee.

    .

  168. 168.

    marcopolo

    @Martin: Here in MO (where I admit I voted for the frothy mix and had fun doing so), the vote was a clear repudiation of the GOP establishment in the state which has pretty much lined up behind Romney as evidenced by this article about GOP presidential fundraising in state so far.

    Perhaps you are right and the entire 99%/1% meme is working overtime in the GOP race too. Remember, Santorum has been positioning himself as the blue-collar/working man candidate on the R side.

  169. 169.

    Villago Delenda Est

    TPM is showing every county but El Paso reporting, and Rih ahead by nearly 2000 votes.

  170. 170.

    The Dangerman

    Hey! I have a check here, signed by our resident troll, that Rim-Me wouldn’t have any Santorum issues in Colorado. Well, maybe Veritas’ check can be used to wipe off the Santorum (there MUST be a handy wipe joke one can make ouot of Mittens, but I’m too tired and/or drunk to come up with it).

  171. 171.

    Cain

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Now, admittedly, Colorado is not Oregon and vice versa, but the urban counties vote very differently than the hinterlands in Oregon. Basically, if you can take Multnomah County and Lane County in Oregon, you’ve got the upper hand in a statewide race, and those two counties are the last to report, for the most part. Merkley’s win over Smith in ‘08 Senate, and Kitzhaber’s win over Dudley for Governor in ‘10 hinged on Multnomah and Lane Counties

    Pretty much every state race for governor has been decided by Multinomah county. Those guys keep it real for the rest of us.

    The rest of the state has no idea what is good for them. Those fools were willing to vote some real moronic weak Republican candidates. Kitzhaber has been doing a pretty good job working with everyone. He should win re-election quite easily.

  172. 172.

    Martin

    All in now. Santorum won by 3500. Total of 66K voters – below the 70K hoped for. So far every state but SC came in light. Bad, bad, bad trend.

  181. 181.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: We get a caucus in May. I’m considering signing up.

    OT: Just got back in town and haven’t unloaded my camera yet. Saw snowy owls in Ocean Shores and coasties training jumping out of helos in the ocean at Cape D. Fun!

  182. 182.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl: A cookie?

    (I have rugelach dough in the fridge!)

    @MikeJ: I don’t want to only because I’d have to affiliate. And without getting into too much detail that’s a religious no-no for me.

    U SHARE PIX NAOW!! :)

  184. 184.

    Left Coast Tom

    Way cool. Especially when curious GOP voters in other states start to google Santorum. I’d been wondering what would happen to the GOP if Newt were the southern Not-Mitt and Santorum became a northern Not-Mitt, we just may find out.

  185. 185.

    JGabriel

    @WaterGirl:

    What do I get for predicting the CO win on BJ earlier today?

    Heh. I predicted that too. I don’t know what the prize is, but we’ll have to share it.

    But I didn’t know the Frothy Mix would take all three.

    .

  186. 186.

    marcopolo

    Can you imagine the shitstorm inside the Romney campaign tonight! Oh to be a fly on the wall!

  187. 187.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Romney a distant third in MN? I love it. I don’t know what’s funnier, The Passion of The Willard, or CNN’s “all star panel”: Michael Reagan, Amy Holmes (Glenn Beck sidekick), and Andrew Breitbart, looking for all the world like a younger version of Nick Nolte’s DUI mugshot.

  189. 189.

    WaterGirl

    @Villago Delenda Est: @Yutsano: Thank you for the kind offers!

    @JGabriel: Of course I’m willing to share! You take the torn up keno cards and i’ll take the cookie?

    Everybody seemed to be predicting the two wins, so I kind of thought he would take all 3. But seeing the 3 losses is much more gratifying than I even thought it would be. :-)

  190. 190.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @JGabriel:

    There’s just no way we could beat a Santorum juggernaut.

    Sorry pal, but Pennsylvania won’t be buying it. Been there, done that. Saw the movie, bought the T-shirt, wiped everything up with it, tossed it out.

  191. 191.

    freelancer

    “Explain it to me as if I were a six-year-old child or a golden retriever”. What happened tonight? Is it big just for tonight? Or might a NotRomney get the candidacy at this point? Or is the glee just that Romney is going to take the stage six months from now in Tampa with a thousand more visible punctures in his hull and say, “You bet this ship is seaworthy!”?

  192. 192.

    JGabriel

    @The Dangerman:

    Well, maybe Veritas’ check can be used to wipe off the Santorum … there MUST be a handy wipe joke one can make out of Mittens …

    I think Mittens is doing that all by hisself.

    .

  193. 193.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    Isn’t anyone worried this could lead to a brokered convention and someone like Jeb or Christie coming in? I tend to think not, but still, that prospect is horrifying.

  195. 195.

    WaterGirl

    This sentence is a thing of beauty!

    Since I have been working the Komen beat almost exclusively, I have been remiss in pointing out that I fear that Barack Obama will in all likelihood be facing a socially maladroit charisma-challenged gaffe-prone filthy rich religious cultist who claims to be middle-class and unemployed, holds no deeply held belief that couldn’t be swayed by a stiff breeze, enjoys making money by dismantling businesses, firing the employees and shipping their jobs overseas and then taking that money and stashing it in off-shore tax havens and who has recently been spending tens of millions of dollars fending off the likes of Newt Fucking Gingrich and Rick Fucking Santorum because, even faced with those horrible choices, most Republicans still find him as palatable as a semen-flavored popsicle.

  196. 196.

    Dream On

    Going to bed. Watching the effects of Santorum has left me totally spent.

    As for a brokered convention – I never count Jeb Bush out.

  198. 198.

    Nate Dawg

    @J: HE DID NOT WIN THE MOORE AWARD!!!!!

    Was just NOMINATED!

    Lets not jinx the competition, mmkay?

  199. 199.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @marcopolo:

    Can you imagine the shitstorm inside the Romney campaign tonight! Oh to be a fly on the wall!

    You gotta figure Willard’s itching to fire someone, but he can’t fire himself.

  200. 200.

    Sarah Proud and Tall

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    In that scenario, the Republicans would be fronting a candidate, for a national election to be held less than two months later, who has no funding, no ground organisation, and who did not receive any votes in (what would presumably have been) a hotly contested primary season.

    It would be a slaughter. Obama would eat them up and dance on their bones.

  201. 201.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    Isn’t anyone worried this could lead to a brokered convention and someone like Jeb or Christie coming in?

    Honestly, no. I think the likely scenario is that Mittens will carpet-bomb Santorum from Michigan to Arizona, and restore some momentum for Pooper Super Tuesday — and basically throttle his way to the nomination in a way that pisses off lots of loyal Goopers and the general public who have to sit through endless negative ads during the local evening news.

  202. 202.

    Cain

    Romney is going to be spending a lot of money going negative on just about everyone. Rick is on the top of the list, but I’m sure Gingrich is also there. He’s going to blow through his wad trying to get Santorum first!

  206. 206.

    Alison

    OT but there’s no open thread – I just tried to go to washingtonmonthly.com and got a REPORTED ATTACK PAGE! warning. Anyone else have the same thing? I go to that site almost daily and this is the first time I’ve ever seen that, and I haven’t changed my security settings…

  207. 207.

    Kane

    Karen Handel resigns in shame, the 9th Circuit strikes down Proposition 8, and Mitt Romney gets his butt kicked by little Ricky Santorum.

    It was a very good day.

  208. 208.

    Cacti

    @AnotherBruce:

    Better spend lots of that Karl kash Mitt, wouldn’t want to lose Arizona

    Lots o’ Mormons here in sand-land. If Willard loses AZ, he is well and truly in deep shit. Or deep Santorum as it were.

  209. 209.

    Martin

    @freelancer: I don’t think we really know. I don’t think anyone knows.

    IMO, the most alarming problem within the GOP is that NOBODY has a positive favorability. Santorum can win over the god botherers, Romney the millionaires, Noot the ‘who will piss off liberals the most’ but each group hates the favorite of the other groups.

    In past years, I think they would have weathered this due to more traditional and moderate campaigning, but so far it’s been nothing but millionaire SuperPACs cluster bombing negative ads. And not just mild negative ads, but “If Jesus came back to earth tomorrow, my opponent would punch him in the neck and fuck him in the ass” negative ads.

    And for all the GOPs “Obambi is a cryptomarxist” bullshit, I think they realize deep down that the public like him in spite of their 24/7 smear campaign, and that he’s really goddamn competent at campaigning and they’re not going to to beat this guy with candidates that alienate voters and stumble over their own feet – and that’s all they have in the bullpen.

    Ultimately, Santorum may simply be this round of not-Romney.

  211. 211.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SIA: I haven’t watched CNN in I don’t know how long, but I just flipped back on to catch some woman I don’t know all ecstatic over Rick Santorum and…. Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, I presume as a one-percenter for Romney, I just caught the end of the segment. Makes MSNBC bringing in Michael Steele and Nicole Wallace look respectable.

  213. 213.

    GregB

    Rick is beside himself. He was so used to being the bottom for the entire campaign.

    This clusterfuck couldn’t happen to a better pack of losers.

    Also too, enough with the glitter.

    I don’t want wingnuts to start fetus bombing or holy water bombing. Knock it off.

  214. 214.

    Mary G

    The best thing is that now independent voters will get to know Santorum and after OvenMitt’s PAC gets through trashing him, they will really hate him too and say “WTF Republicans?” and vote to re-elect the president they know even if they don’t love him.

  216. 216.

    JGabriel

    @Alison:

    I just tried to go to washingtonmonthly.com and got a REPORTED ATTACK PAGE! warning. Anyone else have the same thing?

    Yep, I get it too. Could be that Washington Monthly’s site got hacked, could be a false positive. I’ve seen both happen.

    Best to check it again tomorrow or the day after. It usually gets fixed in a day or two.

    .

  217. 217.

    patrick II

    @Alison:

    Same thing here. I read them earlier today, so whatever is causing that attack warning started later in the day.

  218. 218.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I checked, and there’s an injected IFRAME in their template. Common exploit, payload looks fairly innocuous right now (some crap from Eastern Europe) but until it’s fixed, I’d heed the warning, because the exploit can easily be swapped out for something with a worse payload.

  219. 219.

    MikeJ

    @pseudonymous in nc: Isn’t this the third or fourth time they’ve been hit? You would think after a while they’d go beyond fixing the last mess and start trying to prevent the next.

  220. 220.

    Cacti

    What Mitt needs to turn things around is a charm offensive.

    More extemporaneous, unscripted events is what the doctor ordered.

    Speak from the heart Mitt, then you’ll win them over. (giggle)

  225. 225.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @MikeJ: Not sure. If it is, they need to pay for a proper security audit to do log forensics and harden the system, and not rely on the unpaid interns to fix it.

    Those kinds of injection attacks can be tough to pin down, especially if a site’s using custom code, but there’s a standard attack vector through Javascript, sometimes in cookies, sometimes in inline scripts, sometimes in the LikeMeOnFacebook shit.

  230. 230.

    Samara Morgan

    tolejaso
    /ultra smug sideways smile
    Romney cant win the general in colorado.
    we have experience with the polygs.
    there are two kinds of colorado voters with anti-mormon sentiment.
    focus on the family evangelicals.
    everyone else that isnt mormon.

  231. 231.

    Martin

    @Mary G:

    and vote to re-elect the president they know even if they don’t love him.

    Actually, they do pretty much love him. They just aren’t convinced that he’s doing good job.

    That’s not great, but it’s fixable. And between a candidate they like but don’t think is doing a good job and a candidate they don’t like, they’ll go with the one they like. What’s awesome, is that Obama doesn’t even need to muss his hands with going negative – he can attack Mitt just by running Newt and Santorum debate clips.

  234. 234.

    ulee

    I hope the glitter attacks end. Somebody or somebody’s kid is going to get glitter in the eye and really it’s not cool or funny or original. I hate Romney but that guy who attempted to glitter bomb him is a moron.

  235. 235.

    Mary G

    @Martin: Dana Milbank’s column is all about Pres. Obama having fun with a marshmallow cannon a kid brought to the WH Science Fair and that it’s better to be lucky than good. I think he’s both. I feel more enthused than I have in a long, long time.

  237. 237.

    amk

    twitterdom

    Rick Santorum has now won more states than Romney has and spent 30 million less doing it.

  238. 238.

    Martin

    Huh. Well, one explanation being offered up for Santorum over Mitt tonight, and for Mitt’s collapse over 2008 results is that in 2008, Romney was viewed as the conservative against McCain as the moderate, and therefore Mitt was somewhat more appealing as a result. This cycle Mitt is viewed as the moderate over Santorum and Newt as the conservative.

    In a way that makes sense, but to really buy that we need to accept that 2012 Romney, who is clearly staking out more conservative positions than 2008 Romney still managed to move to the left of the electorate. That’s astonishing. Not that I’m surprised that the GOP has shifted that far right, but that the GOP thinks they’re going to win jack shit by doing so.

  239. 239.

    Samara Morgan

    @Martin: its waay simpler than that.
    50% of the GOP is WECs now, up from 40% in 2008.
    they wont vote mormon if there is another godbotherer running.

  240. 240.

    Arundel

    There’s no Open Thread tonight, but may I be OT and say that Daniel Choi was kind of overbearing on the replay of The Ed Show?

    I’m gay, and I’m cool with the fact no one responds to anything I write here, especially after midnight. Don’t blame anyone!

    Choi was weirdly churlish and shouty, and I don’t know who elected him as the voice of gay America re: Prop 8. It was actually embarrasing, Choi barking at Ed about rights. I am far beyond wondering why the GLBT community depends on drama queens to make their case on national television. Choi honestly seems to have issues, I don’t know why he’s anyone’s spokesperson, he seems way more into the attention. Expressing this rigid “gay rights!” ideology without any subtlety, conversation, persuasion, talking about the issues as they are right now, day to day. I find Choi really unhelpful as a representative, but I guess we gay people have been conditioned to accept anyone who will defend us, and in the larger picture we have to salute the troops, coercivally. I don’t necessarily trust Dan Choi to speak for me, I think he might be a little unstable in the head with the attention.

    Yay troops! Yay war. Choi doesn’t speak for me, and I’d bet anything there’s a police incident with him in the next 5 years. Some strange incident. Choi’s not my spokesperson, but I wish he had acquitted himself better on The Ed Show. No need for shouting.

  241. 241.

    freelancer

    @Arundel:

    You watched the Ed Show and found Dan Choi overbearing? Lord, have mercy!

    /Uncle Jesse Katsopolis

    You might as well have been watching Michael Moore interview Cindy Sheehan about her run against Pelosi.

    See above for my unbeknownst, yet prescient analogy.

  242. 242.

    Schlemizel

    @Arundel:
    I worked very hard for the anti-war movement in the 60’s & at some point a group of very angry people rose out of the movement & seemed to take the lead. It was embarrassing to hear them use violet rhetoric and hate when our goal was supposed to be peace & non-violence. Part of it is anger at being ignored and abused when asking nicely some of it is just frustration for not being able to cross that imagined goal line. Sadly those folks became the face of the movement, partly because of spectacular stunts like bombings but also because they made better TV.

    In retrospect I think some of the same rise in ‘angry young men’ can be seen in the civil rights movement. You can only ask to be treated as a human for so long before the anger over takes you, some people have a lower tolerance for abuse & rejection so they get there first.

  243. 243.

    Schlemizel

    @MikeJ:

    They actually started that late last week. You knew it was going to be a good night for ol frothy because Willard completely ignored Salamander & focused only on Santorum. Never thought it would be a sweep but the power of morans compel the GOP these days

  245. 245.

    Lojasmo

    Had super hot pad Thai for lunch. Though I had to be awake at 0530, there couldn’t have been a better night to be up until 0100 shitting lava.

    Gonna be a long day.

    Funny…I knew rmoney couldn’t win MN in the general, I didn’t the MN repugs were as depraved as to vote en masse for frothy.

    Good to know.

  248. 248.

    Drive-By Nomad

    @Mary G:

    I keep imagining everyone at Obama headquarters breaking out in uncontrollable giggling every few minutes.

    I was at my local OFA HQ last night, where we recruited 5 new vols for my tiny little district. Giggling deferred til this AM.

    @Martin:

    I have to imagine the big boys in the RNC are shitting radioactive bricks right about how.

    I love you, man.

  249. 249.

    Amir Khalid

    @WaterGirl:
    I think the punctuation could do with a few semi-colons, the addition of a couple of relative pronouns and an initial cap on a proprietary name:

    Since I have been working the Komen beat almost exclusively, I have been remiss in pointing out that I fear that Barack Obama will in all likelihood be facing a socially maladroit charisma-challenged gaffe-prone filthy rich religious cultist who claims to be middle-class and unemployed; who holds no deeply held belief that couldn’t be swayed by a stiff breeze; who enjoys making money by dismantling businesses, firing the employees and shipping their jobs overseas and then taking that money and stashing it in off-shore tax havens; and who has recently been spending tens of millions of dollars fending off the likes of Newt Fucking Gingrich and Rick Fucking Santorum because, even faced with those horrible choices, most Republicans still find him as palatable as a semen-flavored Popsicle.

    There. Now it’s perfect.
    /grammar pedant

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