Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Nevada, South Carolina and USC-UCLA

By Brendan Loy

I didn't realize this, but the Nevada caucuses are actually held in the morning and afternoon, local time, so results will likely be known by 3:30 PM EST for the Republicans and 5:00 PM EST for the Democrats, according to Mark Halperin. The polls close at 7:00 PM in snowy (!) South Carolina.

UPDATE: All of this pales in comparison, of course, to another event at 3:30 PM EST tomorrow: the USC-UCLA basketball game, a.k.a. Mayo-Love I, at Pauley Pavilion, which will be aired nationally on CBS. Beat the Bruins!!!

UPDATE 2: Fox News has called Nevada for Romney. He's got three golds and two silvers! Will he get his first bronze in South Carolina?

UPDATE, 2:15 PM: The CNN entrance poll suggests that Romney will get a vote percentage in the mid-to-upper 40s -- and Ron Paul will finish second with around 20%!

It also shows that a quarter of voters were Mormons (compared to just 7% of the state population), and Romney get 94% of their votes. But Paul got 63% of independents, who made up 14% of the electorate.

UPDATE, 3:03 PM: CNN's on-screen vote tally shows Obama 86%, Clinton 14%. It's a landslide! Of course, that's with 7 votes reporting. Not 7 percent of the precincts -- 7 votes. It's Obama 6, Clinton 1. [CORRECTION: I guess those are actually county delegates, not votes.]

The Civil War in four minutes

By Brendan Loy

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) [Bumped. -ed.]

The Loomer-Loys in Knoxville, then and now

By Brendan Loy

My parents are coming to town this weekend to meet their grandbaby. They're on their way right now, actually -- should be arriving any minute. It'll be their first time in Knoxville since the summer of 1982, when, on their first-ever road trip with me, en route to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Loomer in Arkansas, they (and I) stopped in Knoxville during the World's Fair. I was about eight or nine months old, give or take. Here's a photo of my mom and me in front of the various national flags:

Hey, I know where that bridge is! The flags are gone, though. :)

Alas, my parents apparently didn't take any pictures of brand-new Brendan in front of the brand-new Sunsphere. Now that would have been awesome. But after the jump, you can see a picture they took of a very shiny Sunsphere and a bunch of other fair-goers.

Anyway, who'd have thunk that, 25 1/2 years later, I -- born and raised a Connecticut Yankee -- would be living in Knoxville, with a gal from Buffalo who I met in Southern California and married in Arizona, and a brand-new baby who we conceived while living in Indiana? Heh.

Losing Bobby Fischer

By Brendan Loy

The great chess champion has died.

Carolina in my mind

By Brendan Loy

Politico on the McCain campaign's acquiescence in the MSM's obsession with South Carolina dirty tricks: "They recognize that there is sympathy to be gained by playing the victim and they’re milking it for all it's worth."

Speaking of South Carolina, Fred Thompson really needs to win tomorrow. But current polling suggests he needs to make a Hillary-like comeback at the last minute. Perhaps he should consider crying?

Vote early, vote often!

By Brendan Loy

Early voting got underway Wednesday here in Tennessee, and the Reynoldses -- InstaPundit and the Insta-Wife -- voted yesterday. Glenn reports that anecdotal evidence suggests lots of early voters for Obama and native son Thompson.

Personally, I'll wait until February 5 to vote. For one thing, who knows what will happen between now and then? (Those Thompson voters may find that their candidate is out of the race before their votes for him get counted. Same with any early Edwards voters.) Moreover, I like voting on the actual day of the election. There's something sort of romantic about it.

I wonder if any of the candidates will make it out to East Tennessee to campaign? I realize there are much bigger states voting on Pooper Scooper Tuesday, and there are also much bigger cities in Tennessee than Knoxville (namely, Nashville and Memphis), so I suppose the odds are against it... but hey, I can hope, right? I want a campaign event to blog about, like the forum in Phoenix that I went to in '04!

UPDATE: Aha! The Washington Post has a list of campaign events by state for Tennessee. That's helpful!

More racial silliness

By Brendan Loy

Like a duck in a noose.

His daddy's money, his mama's good looks...

By Brendan Loy

A look at the state of the GOP race. With everybody else running out of money, can Romney buy the nomination?

With all the other intriguing possibilities, a Mitt vs. Hillary general election would be about the most uninspiring, boring, cardboard combination imaginable -- sort like Bush-Gore, when we could have had McCain-Bradley...

The article also contains a rebuttal to my Obama-needs-Edwards-out thesis:

Who says that Edwards Hurts Obama? One constant refrain in news "analysis" of the Democratic presidential campaign is that the continuation of the Edwards campaign hurts Sen. Obama's campaign by "dividing" the "anti-Clinton" vote. Really? I would argue that Edwards helps Obama in South Carolina (and elsewhere) by draining white male votes away from Senator Clinton, thus making it all but impossible for her to win definitively in any state with significant African-American voting populations. I don't hear anyone in the Obama campaign calling for Senator Edwards to get out of the race. And for good reason.

Perhaps. I still think the Boyz 4 Change ticket (or alliance) would be politically powerful, at least for wrapping up the nomination. But I hope Ellis is right, because I don't want Barack to have to kowtow to Johnny Boy...

CORRECTION: On second thought, I hope Ellis is wrong, because I'd like to think we've gotten past the point where significant numbers of white males out-and-out refuse to vote for a black man, which seems to be what he's implying. So nevermind.