Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktHow many of you are in a state that is voting today? I am. And you are welcome to call me old-fashioned (because I am officially old now), but I really like going to my neighborhood polling place to vote in person on election day. It is such an honor to be able to vote that it almost brings a tear to my eye every time. So I don’t do mail-in or early voting.
Today I voted much later in the day than usual due to scheduled appointments, and got there about 15 minutes before the polls closed (7:00pm CST). I was the only voter there at the time, so I asked the poll workers if they had a good turnout today. They said there had been 189 votes. To put that in perspective, they also said 400-500 is “high” turnout for a presidential general election. I don’t study that kind of thing, but subjectively that seems to me a pretty good turnout. Of course, I don’t know how many were Rs and how many were Ds, so I have no idea what that number means (OK has closed primaries). By the time I got home and turned on the TV, less than 10 minutes after the polls closed and with zero precincts reporting, CBS had already called OK for Santorum. I found that interesting since I heard/saw local ads for Gingrich and for Romney, but none for Santorum. OK has 40 or 43 R delegates, I’ve heard it both ways.
Anybody else in states voting today have a report or observation?
Filed under: 2012, Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
Virginia is a dead zone today. Ballot restrictions have killed the interest here
Bb
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fb, “Ballot restrictions have killed the interest here.”
What do you mean? I’m not trying to be obtuse, but sometimes I’m just naturally that way. 🙂
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Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were the only two on the ballot. It’s an open primary and I know several Democrats who voted for Paul just for giggles.
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189 votes in the primary vs 400-500 in the general sounds like extremely high turnout to me; or your general turnout is extremely low.
MN had meaningless caucuses a couple weeks ago (in which Santorum won); we’ll have a primary election this summer.
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bsimon, I really don’t understand having caucuses and then a primary later. Can you explain that logic to me?
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Okie, WMR will do no better in TX than he did in OK. End of May. I get the impression from you that WMR’s spending was for next to nothing. Is it possible that he spent enough to be counter-productive?
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“I really don’t understand having caucuses and then a primary later. Can you explain that logic to me?”
I can’t. It may be that they want to hold an early caucus to participate in the POTUS discussion / selection process, but aren’t ready for selecting local candidates until later. But that’s a guess.
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mark, I’m not a good analyst on this so I don’t know. I can only say anecdotally that WMR’s spending did not seem to get him anything here in the primary.. Counterproductive,, I don’t know. Maybe not if he ends up being the nominee as all presume. I listened (AARRGGHH, her shrill speaking voice is like the fingernail on the chalkboard to me) to the OK gov’s rah’rah speech. It was focused on “get behind whoever is the R nominee and defeat Obama.” So at a later time WMR’s expenditures may not be for naught here in the long run.
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bsimon, do the primaries have any binding effect in your state’s allocation of delegates? Is that solely based on the primaries rather than the caucuses? Any info you have handy about how it works in your state would be welcomed by me. Those of you in other states too.
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Okie, the parties are still goofy up here. The local Dems are called the DFL, for Democratic-Farmer-Labor, from when those parties joined forces. Until recently the Repubs were the Independent Republicans, but they’ve dropped the Independent. I don’t pay too much attention to how the Ds and Rs pick candidates (I typically cast an IP ballot in the primary).
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Good morning!
It’s now the day after and WaPo reports the current delegate count as follows:
Romney: 415
Santorum: 176
Gingrich: 105
Paul: 47
Huntsman: 2
1,144 are needed for the nomination.
In other years, the depleted campaign war chests and the delegate math would probably cause the non-Romney campaigns to largely fold up within a couple of weeks.
But this is 2012. The GOP thought it wanted a protracted campaign and the schedule got set accordingly. And SuperPAC money can keep Gingrich and Santorum in the race right up to Tampa if they choose.
So how will this play out? Will the non-Romneys be encouraged to suspend their campaigns quickly for the sake of party unity? If so, will they listen? Will a protracted campaign hurt the GOP as much as some pundits think?
Note to yello: Four.
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Everyone stays in. The Newt has something to prove & will stay in for upcoming southern votes. When he performs poorly there, he’ll drop out. Santorum will stay in until Romney wins a majority of delegates & will be a hero to the social cons as a result. Does he parley that into a Fox gig or 2016 frontrunner status?
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Does he parley that into a Fox gig or 2016 frontrunner status?
Any chance Santorum ends up getting the VP nomination? If not, who is Romney’s VP going to be? It has to be someone with pretty good conservative bona fides, right?
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I’d pick someone from the rust belt. If you can’t hold the south, it’s already over, so don’t worry about it. Fight for the states you need to flip. PA, OH, IN, ID.
Maybe Tom Cobertt from PA who can run around talking about coal and natural gas and how those prius driving elitists want those jobs to go away or something.
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ashot, I’d say no to Santorum getting the VP slot.
My view is the GOP would need to balance the ticket with a younger person, probably a sitting Congresscritter with a compelling life story and more political experience than Palin had when she got tapped. Senator Rubio, for example, would be higher on my GOP VP short list than Santorum.
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I voted in VA yesterday – late afternoon I was number 97 which is low. I was at 2 polliing places, the one where i voted and the one where my son’s Cub Scout Den meeting was held. Outside both were Ron Paul people (no Romney people to be found anywhere). I know that VA has taken a lot of crap for the other candidates not making it on the ballot. At first I was miffed but got to thinking that if a campaign can’t managed to get on a ballot, then it is lacking in organization and would not be able to mount an effective campaign against BHO. I am ok with the way things work in VA. As Romney said, the only ones to blame for not getting on the VA ballot were themselves.
As far as VP goes, our current gov has been mentioned and would probably make a pretty good one. VA is a (sort of) southern state, McDonnell is fairly conservative but pragmatic. He is smart and has had a focus on energy and technology. That said, there was that little abortion issue in VA that some may have heard about, however, which certainly does not help his chances. My money is on Rubio for VP followed by Christie.
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Despite / because of the outsider schtik, WMR needs an insider. Rubio is too new & we recently learned he was briefly a Mormon in his youth. Romney needs a Cheney (circa 2000 not 2008) or Biden to convince swing voters he will be able to get things done.
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Someone who would flip VA back would help; an McDonnell, or is he damaged goods? I have Cantor as a dark horse pick. He probably wouldn’t help with nationwide swing voters though.
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I would read it that because of the outsider schtik, an insider is the last person he wants as VP, since that would pop that balloon. The message that people don’t want politics as usual seems to continue to be popular election cycle after election cycle. In any case, the VP is about 5th on the list of having a requirement to get things done after Chief of Staff, Senate Maj/Min Leader, Speaker of the House, etc. He, like all new presidents, will need council from someone but my opinion is that it does not have to be the VP.
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“convince swing voters he will be able to get things done.”
I know its me, but that’s the last thing I want in a politician.
“then it is lacking in organization and would not be able to mount an effective campaign against BHO”
I agree. I don’t think it was that onerous. 10,000-signature minimum, and 400 signatures in each of 11 congressional districts. Out of a state with 8 million people. Maybe if they didn’t spend weeks camped in IA they’d have made the cut.
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bsimon, WMR turns 65 next week. Cheney, at 59, was considered ‘senior’ when he ran in 2000 as Bush-43’s VP.
I agree WMR would benefit with an insider. I’m just not sure two 60+’ers would resonate that well. Could be.
Rubio may well be too new to the national stage. That could be spun as an asset, though. I’d be less inclined to go with a sitting governor, which would lower McDonnell’s and Christie’s chances.
I’ll bet Team Romney’s already got a short list.
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If you look at winning tickets, when the nominee is an outsider, they’ve run with an insider. Reagan-bush. Clinton-gore. Bush-cheney. Obama-biden. Romney will follow that pattern.
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What about Lugar, since he’s going to get primaried from the Right? Too old and white?
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Re: turnout, i found the unofficial results from my precinct:
Total registered voters 1,718
In person voters 106
Absentee 5
Total Votes 111
Paul 44
Romney 62
[My wife and I were voters 10 and 11]
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NoVA, that much enthusiasm, eh? 🙂
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If Lugar’s getting primaried from the right, I’d say that’d put him out of the running, Michi. I know the NRA’s endorsed his opponent, which is also a big negative. He’s also been accused of being ‘too’ inside, having lived primarily in DC for the last 20+ years. That and the fact he turns 80 next month…I’d say doubtful.
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well, those 5 absentee voters are super excited.
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Kay Bailey Hutchison? Or is she insufficiently evangelical?
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I say this as someone that likes both KBH and SP, but I think the chances of the GOP having a female VP candidate this time after what happened last time is somewhere between slim and none with slim leaving town. Granted, KBH comes across as smarter than Palin, nicer than Bachmann and does not, as far as I know, practice witchcraft. But she would be 69. And a Republican woman who will have some fatal flaw come to light.
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I say this as someone that likes both KBH and SP, but I think the chances of the GOP having a female VP candidate this time after what happened last time is somewhere between slim and none with slim leaving town.
Dave!, that got me thinking about the contraception coverage issue.
Does anyone know if contraception is included in Congresscritters’ medical package? If the answer is yes, and if the GOP VP nominee either avails herself of that benefit or has daughters who do, might that be a talking point for the Democrats? Not a deal breaker to be sure, but why bother with the headache if it can be avoided.
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Well, a quick check of one version of the FEHB documents that I found on line listed
A broad range of voluntary family planning services, limited to:
• Voluntary sterilization
• Surgically implanted contraceptives (such as Norplant)
• Injectable contraceptives drugs ( such as Depo provera)
• Intrauterine devices (IUD’s)
• Diaphragms
Note: We cover oral contraceptives under the prescription drug benefit.
At no cost other than the associated visit’s co-pay.
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Primary Update from Okieland:
Dems: Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you must have heard that OK drew first blood in denying Obama a unanimous renomination, giving a delegate to Randall Terry. Sorry for the huffpost link. I first saw this exact article in online local “newspaper” but it does not appear to be there any longer. I’m sure other states will pile on, but we were first! Heh, it doesn’t really matter since I think the odds of Obama getting an EC vote from OK is somewhere between zero and negative infinity.
Reps: Santorum “won.” But he got 14 R delegates and Romney and Gingrich each got 13. Some win. There’s an interesting interactive map again at huffpost. (Hey, I was there anyway.) Romney only won two counties: Oklahoma, where Oklahoma City is, and Payne, where Oklahoma State University is located. Gingrich won some blocks of counties in far southeastern OK (think “Deliverance” country) and far northwest OK excluding panhandle (which is desolate oil, cattle and wheat country). Santorum won a huge majority of the counties.
Unfortunately, I could not yet locate any current public data on number of registered voters in my precinct (it’s pay-for info from our State Election Board) to evaluate the turnout beyond comparing primary turnout to a presidential general election turnout. But to give you an idea of how very conservative OK Dems are, there are more registered Dems than Reps in OK.
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I’ve wondered for quite a while now who might be Romney’s VP pick, and I’m always stumped. Guess I just cannot think like an R. And I know for a fact it’s not genetic because most of my family is hard-core R.
msjs/michi: Seems to me that congress having contraception coverage in their healthcare package might be a potential problem for any congresscritter, male or female. Males might have daughters or others taking advantage of that coverage that daddy wants to deny to others.
Hooray for healthcare benefits. My first cataract surgery is next week. I’ve been carefully nurturing them for a few years now and they finally are ripe.
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VP Portman. WMR does not need help in the south against a D. He needs help in OH. He also would use a sharp VP. I don’t see a businessman picking a dumbass who will waste the space, or picking a nullity like Quayle. I don’t see him stretching a bridge too far for a perceived change in the public perception.
Portman’s CD gave WMR the victory in the primary.
Say: Portman, or maybe Daniels. But not Condi or Rubio.
Dave! – my classmate will not be 69 until summer after the Inauguration. KBH is one month older than I. But she has two adopted kids late in life, and she would like to get them out of private schools in DC and into public schools in either Austin or Dallas.
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Dave!–now we know what KBH’s fatal flaw is–she knows Mark. 😀
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A question I have been pondering during this primary season, which I thought maybe someone here could answer:
Why are rules for party primaries determined by state law rather than by the parties themselves?
For example, some states have “open” primaries and others have “closed” primaries, still others have caucuses instead of primaries. Why should this be the case? The selection of a party’s candidate for national office is a party issue, not a public issue. There is no reason that I can think of for state law to dictate to the party how it selects it’s candidate for office. And I would imagine that it is in the party’s own interest to both standardize the selection process across states and also to prevent non-party members from participating in the selection process.
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Why are rules for party primaries determined by state law rather than by the parties themselves?
Part of the answer comes from the history of white primaries in the south and some places outside the south, and in the Jaybird primaries in TX. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), found that primary elections were so pervasively regulated by the state that, in doing their part to run primaries, political parties were state actors and thus subject to the 14th and 15th Amendments. Texas Democrats evaded this ruling by arrangement with the all-white Jaybird Democratic Association (a leadership caucus within the party), which held elections unregulated by the state. The winner of the Jaybird Party election would enter the Democratic party primary, and the Democratic party would put up no opposition, thus ensuring victory to the Jaybird Party candidate. The Supreme Court saw through this ruse in Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953), finally putting an end to the white primary after 9 years of acquiescence and 26 years of litigation.
I don’t have time for more, but you should get the idea from this.
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Interesting question, Scott. I thought the rules for party primaries were determined largely by the state party organizations, with some limited aspects determined by national party organizations and more limited still aspects by the states. I can see states having some interests, especially as they are footing the bill for the primary election process if that is the case. Now my curiosity is piqued and I’ll have to look into it.
Have a good day, all.
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okie:
especially as they are footing the bill for the primary election process if that is the case.
That’s another thing. The parties themselves, not the states, should be shouldering the costs of holding primaries.
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” That’s another thing. The parties themselves, not the states, should be shouldering the costs of holding primaries.”
No argument from me. Perhaps the state ought to bill the parties for the service. I can certainly see why the parties wouldn’t want to invest in the equipment necessary to hold an election. There’s also value in holding the events at standard locations & on the same day.
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bsimon:
Perhaps the state ought to bill the parties for the service.
Agreed.
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Weigel on santorum 2016:
http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/03/07/santorum_2016.html
I agree, with a caveat that Romney’s running mate may also become the presumed front runner.
All this based on the scenario that 1) Romney is nominated and 2) Romney loses.
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Speaking of KBH, my wife was at her office yesterday. I’ll plan on a related post.
Missouri had both a primary and a caucus due to Republican party rules. They would have lost their delegates for hosting a primary before Super Tuesday, so they had a non-binding one to get some attention. In essence, it was the biggest straw poll of the election season to date.
The news isn’t looking good for WMR. Turnout is down when Republicans really hate Obama (not personally, well, not always personally) and really want to get him out of office. If the economy continues to stabilize, it’s hard seeing Romney beating Obama, absent a shock. Take your pick. Europe melts down. Pyongyang nukes Seoul. Israel strikes Iran and Iran shuts down the straits.
BB
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markinaustin, on March 8, 2012 at 9:53 am said:
[Quoting] Why are rules for party primaries determined by state law rather than by the parties themselves?
mark, if this is a topic that’s worth your time, I would love to read your thoughts on this question. I admittedly know little about this and have just started reading a bit about it. Besides, you always seem to have great personal stories to accompany/illustrate your information.
FB, am I remembering correctly that on some other thread(s) you promised posts on a couple of interesting topics? [Not said in my Church Lady voice.] I’d love to read those too.
[Edited for clarity]
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Okie- you asked about the goofiness of the MN practice of holding both a caucus and a primary. Here’s a story that provides some answers…
http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2012/03/what%E2%80%99s-really-behind-tarryl-clark%E2%80%99s-dfl-endorsement-decision
Tarryl Clark is running for the DFL nomination to face Chip Cravaak for the job of representing MN-8. The article is about Clark’s decision to skip the party endorsement process. Instead she’ll take her case directly to primary voters. The party prefers that candidates “abide” by the party endorsement, making the primary moot. The party endorsement comes out of the state ,party convention.
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Part II: Delegates to the convention are selected at precinct caucuses. So… the caucuses are step one in deferring candidate selection to party bosses.
The Republican process is similar but they seem to place less emphasis on the endorsement.
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