Irish Trojan in Tennessee

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Two GOP sources tell CNN that Rudy Giuliani will drop out, endorse Sen. John McCain for GOP presidential bid.

Hillary Clinton doesn't get it

By Brendan Loy

Hillary Clinton, on CNN, just said, "I will do whatever I can, if I'm the nominee, to get the Florida delegates seated." Wolf Blitzer responded by sensibly noting something that so many in the media seem not to understand: "if this is a very close contest in Denver at the Democratic Convention, a brokered convention, those Florida and Michigan delegates could be decisive." He then asked Hillary, "Would you go to court to get them seated?"

Hillary's ridiculous response: "Oh, Wolf, this is all pretty premature. We don't even know who the nominee's going to be yet."

Did she honestly not understand the question? Of course we don't know who the nominee's going to be yet -- and in Blitzer's scenario, when the time comes to decide whether or not to seat those delegates, we still won't know! And the very matter at issue -- whether the delegates get seated -- could itself play a potentially huge role in determining "who the nominee's going to be"!

Hillary, along with most of the media, has it completely backwards. The prevailing theory -- that the nominee presumptive will insist on the delegates being seated -- only works if there's a nominee presumptive. The far more interesting scenario is the one Blitzer astutely raised, and Hillary flatly ignored. And it's getting to be a very realistic scenario.

It's going to be a huge stinkin' mess if that happens.

Obama, Clinton tied in Connecticut

By Brendan Loy

So says the latest Rasmussen poll, taken on Sunday -- the day after South Carolina, the day before Ted Kennedy. Obama 40%, Clinton 40%, Edwards 11%, Other 3%, Undecided 6%.

This is great news for Obama, as it's the first empirical evidence that Obama's recent momentum is actually translating into increased support in a Super Tuesday state. Previous polls, including a Hartford Courant poll 10 days ago, had Clinton leading by double digits.

The big question is whether this will start a trend. RCP's Latest Polls page will be worth watching in the coming days, to see whether other post-S.C. (and post-Teddy) polls in Super Tuesday states also show Obama gains.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN is projecting Sen. John McCain as the winner of the GOP primary in Florida.

McCain wins; Rudy to endorse him?

By Brendan Loy

With 54 percent of the precincts reporting, McCain leads Romney 36% to 32% in Florida. In comments, Ed writes, "Barone reported that the strongest county (Orange), in theory, for Romney already reported and Romney won it by less than 100 votes."

Giuliani is a very weak third with 15%, and has apparently come to the end of his road. He will reportedly endorse McCain as early as tomorrow. So much for me winning that dinner bet.

UPDATE, 9:18 PM: The networks are calling it for McCain.

P.S. Watching (and blogging) primary returns is fun. It's even more fun when you've got an adorable baby sleeping on your shoulder throughout. :)

Barock the Vote

By Brendan Loy

I went down to the grand opening of Obama's new Knoxville headquarters after work this afternoon to take some pictures:

And I met Rebecca Loy!

Becky's namesake seemed very nice. :) I also met Kevin Barry, vice chairman of the Knox County Democratic Party. (He's the guy in the blue shirt here, here and here.) Kevin walked up to me and asked if I'm Brendan Loy -- he's read my blog before, via InstaPundit. Heh.

Full gallery here.

McCain, Romney very close; Rudy toast

By Brendan Loy

The polls are closed in most of Florida. According to NRO and Drudge, the first wave of exit polls shows a razor-close race with McCain barely ahead: McCain 34.3%, Romney 32.6%, Giuliani 15.3%, Huckabee 12%. That's way too close between John and Mitt to draw any conclusions from the exit poll alone. I think it's safe to conclude, however, that Rudy is done for. But hey, at least he's on track to beat Ron Paul this time! :)

Those numbers supposedly (somehow) include early/absentee votes -- which reportedly favored Romney, proving once again that every single thing I predict this election season is wrong. :)

P.S. Hey, wait a minute, this has potential! I predict Hillary will win the nomination! Heh. There. You can thank me in your inaugural address, Barack.

Obama to open Knoxville HQ

By Brendan Loy

Barack Obama is opening a Knoxville headquarters at 5:00 PM today. It may open with a bang; severe thunderstorms are expected this afternoon.

Up until now, Obama's only Tennessee HQs were in Nashville and Memphis. Hillary Clinton's only TN headquarters at the moment is in Nashville. The only candidate to visit East Tennessee so far is John Edwards, who was in Chattanooga yesterday.

Meanwhile, one of Obama's main organizers in the Knoxville area is named Rebecca Loy. Not my Rebecca Loy (though she likes Obama too), but someone else by the same name. Weird!

Early voting could create a Rudy surprise

By Brendan Loy

The polls are open in Florida, where Mitt Romney and John McCain are in a knock-down, drag-out fight for Republican front-runner status. Even Rudy Giuliani says the winner of the Sunshine State's primary is likely to win the nomination -- a statement that has many folks speculating that Rudy will drop out if he loses, which polls suggest is extremely likely; he's in a battle for a distant third place with Mike Huckabee.

A word of caution about those polls, though. The polls are snapshots; the Florida primary is not. Floridians have actually been voting for weeks already. Absentee voting began in late December, and "early voting" started on January 14. As of last Friday, a whopping 400,000 Republicans had already voted. [UPDATE: Make that 474,000 through Sunday.] To give you an idea of how significant a number that is, a total of 699,500 voters cast ballots in Florida's 2000 GOP primary. Now, turnout will probably be much higher in 2008, since this year's primary is much more significant and hotly contested. (The 2000 primary was held a week after Super Tuesday; McCain had already conceded.) But even if the raw turnout total doubles, we're still talking about something on the order of one-third of the electorate having voted before election day. (Florida has 3.8 million registered Republicans. If 1.4 million of them vote, that'd be a 37% turnout -- which would be quite high for a primary.)

Giuliani's campaign has specifically tried to get their candidate's supporters in Florida to vote early (though hopefully not often), in hopes of "locking them in" before the inevitable decline in Rudy's momentum and poll numbers as the early-state results took their toll. As far as I know, the other candidates -- who, unlike Giuliani, actually focused their resources on competing in those early states -- have not focused on early and absentee voting nearly as much. So if Rudy does much better tonight than the current polls indicate, the reason is probably early voting.

[UPDATE: In comments, Derek suggests that I'm overstating the impact of early voting, as many of the pollsters have taken it into account. I didn't realize that.]