Irish Trojan in Tennessee

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Tornadoes tore across Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, killing 11 people, The Associated Press reports.

Yet another update

By Brendan Loy

Halperin has added Arizona and Missouri to Clinton's list, and Colorado and Idaho to Obama's list. Still undecided on the Dem side: Alaska, California, Democrats Abroad, New Mexico. No changes on the GOP side from the last update.

Latest prediction contest standings after the jump. The top two in the overall standings: Joe Loy and Brendan Loy. :) Well, I'm tied with Andrew Bottom for second.

P.S. The "Democrats Abroad" primary started today, but it won't be over for a week. I didn't realize that when I included it in the Super Tuesday contest. Oh, well. If the Democratic and overall prediction contests are close enough, we may not know the winners until next week...

Delegate dead heat

By Brendan Loy

Josh Marshall: "[O]ur very much in-progress spreadsheet...has the two candidates almost exactly tied in delegates. ... I think that's going to be the big story. For all the spin and nominal wins. It's a dead-heat where it really counts, in delegates."

On the other hand, Obama is claiming he'll end up with a 606-534 delegate lead, or thereabouts.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects Huckabee winner of Georgia GOP primary.

Update

By Brendan Loy

Okay, forget Drudge, I'm going to base my prediction-contest updates on Halperin's list. Here's the latest:

DEMOCRATS:
OBAMA: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah
CLINTON: American Samoa, Arkansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee
UNDECIDED: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Idaho, Missouri, New Mexico

REPUBLICANS:
MCCAIN: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma
ROMNEY: Massachusetts, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota
HUCKABEE: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, West Virginia
UNDECIDED: Alaska, California, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee

The actual numbers show the Georgia GOP race and the Utah Dem race really close, though. ... But CNN just called Georgia for Huck.

UPDATE: Contests standings after the jump.

Hmm.

By Brendan Loy

The Fox spin is very pro-Hillary.

Obama 10, Clinton 7 :)

By Brendan Loy

Again via Drudge, a more succinct summary:

CLINTON: AR, MA, MO, NY, NJ, OK, TN
OBAMA: AL, CT, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT

HUCKABEE: AL, AR, GA, MO, TN
MCCAIN: AZ, CT, DE, IL, NJ, NY, OK
ROMNEY: MA, ND, UT

Judging from Halperin's summary, the states where Drudge might be getting ahead of himself are Idaho (Dems), Missouri (Dems and GOP), Tennessee (GOP) and North Dakota (GOP).

Polls close in California in eight minutes...

Super Duperness

By Brendan Loy

Here are the states Drudge is calling:

AL: OBAMA
AR: CLINTON
CT: OBAMA
DE: OBAMA
GA: OBAMA
ID: OBAMA
IL: OBAMA
KS: OBAMA
MA: CLINTON
MN: OBAMA
MO: CLINTON
ND: OBAMA
NY: CLINTON
NJ: CLINTON
OK: CLINTON
TN: CLINTON
UT: OBAMA

AL: HUCKABEE
AR: HUCKABEE
CT: MCCAIN
DE: MCCAIN
GA: HUCKABEE
IL: MCCAIN
MA: ROMNEY
MO: HUCKABEE
ND: ROMNEY
NJ: MCCAIN
NY: MCCAIN
OK: MCCAIN
TN: HUCKABEE
UT: ROMNEY
WV: HUCKABEE

For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that all of his calls are correct. Also, CNN just (finally!) called Arizona for McCain. And Clinton won American Samoa.

That leaves Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and the Democrats Abroad undecided on the Democratic side, and Alaska, California, Colorado, Minnesota and Montana undecided on the Republican side. If that's right, here are the latest standings in the prediction contest...

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects that Clinton will win New Jersey Democratic primary.

Tornado nearing downtown Nashville

By Brendan Loy

Holy crap.

Earlier, 86 people were injured in Jackson, and there were reportedly fatalities; don't know how many yet. Two Union University dorms were almost completely destroyed. This is getting totally overshadowed by the election (which it also affected), but it is a HUGE deal.

UPDATE: More here from the Memphis paper.

What an absolutely nutty night if you're working for a newspaper in Tennessee, particularly West or Middle Tennessee.

Connecticut for Obama!

By Brendan Loy

Drudge is calling Minnesota, Connecticut, Idaho and Kansas for Obama. Dunno who else, if anyone, is doing so yet.

Connecticut would be huge, in light of New Jersey and Massachusetts going Clinton's way, and so would Minnesota, given that Missouri seems to be going for Clinton.

Wait, hold the phones: Fox just called CT for Obama.

UPDATE: CNN, too. Yay!

Huh?

By Brendan Loy

Via CNN:

Heh.

Update

By Brendan Loy

North Dakota and Utah for Obama. Also, Utah for Romney -- the upset of the night! ;) Oklahoma for McCain, according to Drudge. And did I mention Obama got Alabama?

Obama's Utah win is the first result that John Norris Brown has gotten wrong all night in the Irish Trojan prediction contest. He's still perfect on the GOP side, along with Andrew Bottom and Marty West. On the Dem side, Sam Cialek and Ben Brown are still perfect. Norris Brown leads the overall, combined contest with a 21-for-22 record.

Complete standings after the jump.

Clinton, McCain lead in Knox County

By Brendan Loy

With 39 percent of the precincts reporting, Clinton and McCain are winning Knox County.

Interestingly, Clinton won early voters 48% to 39%, while Obama is leading among election-day voters, 52% to 44%. That may have something to do with the 11% that John Edwards got among early voters.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects that Clinton will win Massachusetts Democratic primary.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects McCain as the winner of the GOP primary in New York.

Good news for Hillary

By Brendan Loy

Obama wins Delaware; Clinton wins Massachusetts and New Jersey. So much for the leaked exits showing a sweep of the non-New York Northeast for Barack.

And she's way up early in Missouri. Damn.

Latest prediction-contest standings after the jump. I've added a line at the bottom of each side's standings saying which states are in.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects Clinton as the Democratic winner in Arkansas; Huckabee the GOP winner in Arkansas.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects McCain as the winner of the GOP primary in New Jersey.

Bradley Effect?

By Brendan Loy

With 10 percent of the precincts reporting, Obama is "only" winning Georgia by a margin of 55% to 41%. That's a whole hell of a lot less than the 75% to 25% suggested by exit polls. I don't know whether these are Clinton-friendly precincts that are reporting so far, but the wide gulf between the exits and the actual numbers worries me a bit. Are we seeing the phenomenon of white voters voting for the white candidate and then telling exit pollsters that they voted for the black candidate? If so, it could bode ill for Obama elsewhere in the country with regard to those phenomenal leaked exits.

P.S. Similarly, with 12% reporting, it's 50% to 48% Obama in Connecticut, whereas the leaked exits had Obama winning by 7.

Fox: Tennessee for Clinton

By Brendan Loy

Hmm: "NBC has retracted its call on Mrs. Clinton in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Fox has called Tennessee for Mrs. Clinton."

In a related story, there has been some seriously severe weather in West Tennessee, which InstaPundit speculates could hurt Obama and Huckabee. (That severe weather is heading our way after midnight. Wind gusts of 50+ mph, etc.)

Meanwhile, John Judis says the Georgia results suggest that "almost all the John Edwards vote, which was primarily white, went to Barack Obama."

For the sake of argument, I'm going to keep Oklahoma in Clinton's column, put Tennessee in her column, and put New Jersey in McCain's (which everyone is now projecting). Based on that, here are the prediction contest results through nine states... with Mike Wiser no longer perfect in the Dem race, as he picked Obama in Tennessee...

No surprises yet; 3 perfect in contest

By Brendan Loy

CNN is being cautious with their projections. They only projected CT-R (McCain), IL-R (McCain), MA-R (Romney), IL-D (Obama) and OK-D (Clinton) at the top of the hour.

In the prediction contest, Andrew Bottom, John Norris Brown and Mike Wiser are still perfect on both sides, and Marty West is still perfect on the Dem side. (Lots of people are still perfect on the GOP side.) Wiser, you may remember, won the 2004 Electoral College Contest with a perfect prediction record. Latest standings after the jump.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

CNN projects: Romney wins Mass.; McCain wins Conn. and Illinois; Obama wins Illinois; Clinton wins Okla.

Early prediction contest results

By Brendan Loy

With just two states in -- the Georgia Dems and the West Virginia GOPs -- here are the very early results of the Irish Trojan Super Tuesday Prediction Contest:

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Sen. Barack Obama has won the Democratic primary in Georgia, CNN projects; Republicans in tight three-way race.

Obama winning everywhere??

By Brendan Loy

The leaked exit polls look incredibly favorable for Obama, with Clinton winning only Arkansas, New York, Tennessee, Oklahoma and (narrowly) California, and Obama winning everywhere else, including Arizona (by 6), Connecticut (by 7), Delaware (by 14), Massachusetts (by 2), Missouri (by 5), New Jersey (by 5) and New Mexico (by 6). Drudge has similar numbers.

But remember: the Seven-Hour Presidency of John Kerry.

P.S. And also: the Bradley Effect.

No irrational exuberance until we have real numbers.

Waiting in line to vote

By Brendan Loy

In my post earlier about my voting experience, one thing I didn't mention is waiting in line to vote. That's because I didn't have to. The polling place was reasonably busy, but there were at least two or three machines open (out of maybe a dozen) when I got there. A guy who arrived a few minutes after me had to wait until a machine opened up -- my machine, as it happened -- but certainly nobody was waiting in long lines. This was shortly after 9:00 AM.

Becky went to vote around 11:30ish, and she did have to wait in line, with Loyette -- who, per her checkup with the pediatrician today, is now 10 pounds, 4 ounces -- for about an hour. Becky was holding Loyette the whole time (figuring she'd be less fussy that way than in her stroller), and I'm sure it got tiring after a while. Still, I'm kind of jealous. You hear all these reports of people waiting in line to vote, yet I've never had to wait in line, for even 30 seconds, to exercise my civic duty. The effortlessness almost cheapens the experience somehow. :) Plus, if I was waiting in line, I could get photos of people waiting in line...

I remember going to the polls in South Bend on the evening of November 2, 2004, amid TV reports of voters waiting for hours in Ohio, Florida, etc., and finding the polling place almost completely deserted; aside from the fellow 1Ls who I car-pooled over with, I think there might have one other voter in the whole gym where we voted. (The best part of that trip was that I voted for Kerry, my roommate voted for Bush, and our other friend voted for Nader, so we completely cancelled each other out. We joked later that we might as well have stayed home and had some beers instead.)

Incidentally, the voting machine I used this morning, which I jokingly called an "iVote" because it uses an iPod-like scroll wheel, is actually called the eSLATE. It's manufactured not by Diebold, but by Hart Intercivic -- though I'm sure they're connected to Diebold, Halliburton and Dick Cheney somehow or other. :) Anyway, the machine's design was pretty counterintuitive and dumb, if you ask me. And there was no paper trail.

Only a few hours to go...

By Brendan Loy

Super Tuesday open thread

By Brendan Loy

Since the blog updates -- some from me, some from CNN -- will be coming fast and furious this evening, and rapidly scrolling off the homepage to make way for new updates, I'm setting this post to stay on top of the blog, in order to more easily facilitate uninterrupted discussion. Feel free to comment on the other posts too, of course. But this one will be here all night. All new posts will appear below.

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

Gov. Mike Huckabee is winner in West Virginia Republican convention, CNN projects.

A helpful Super Tuesday scorecard

By Brendan Loy

With apologies to Jay Johnson for contributing yet again to the horse-race mentality ("...and down the stretch they come!"), here's a handy-dandy Printable Super Tuesday Guide, so you can follow along at home as tonight's dizzying array of results are announced.

Please let me know if you spot any errors.

P.S. See also Chris Cillizza's Super Tuesday Viewer's Guide.

UPDATE: And here are the aggregate predictions of the contestants in the Irish Trojan Super Tuesday Prediction Contest.

Irish Trojan readers expect Obama to win Alabama, Alaska, California (!), Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri. Clinton is favored in all other states. The closest contests, prediction-wise, are the California primary, in which 25 predicted an Obama win and 21 predicted a Clinton win; and the Democrats Abroad caucus, in which 25 picked Clinton and 21 picked Obama.

On the Republican side, McCain is favored everywhere except Arkansas, in which Huckabee is the overwhelming favorite, and Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana and Utah, where Romney wins are expected. The closest states are Alaska (McCain 24, Romney 19, Other 3) and Montana (Romney 24, McCain 19, Other 2, Huckabee 1). "Other" presumably refers to Ron Paul.

It should be noted, however, that the Irish Trojan consensus is already 0-for-1, as it was just announced that Mike Huckabee has won West Virginia. Only 8 of 46 contestants predicted that; 24 thought McCain would win and 14 picked Romney.

(The eight who picked Huck in WV -- and thus now have a 1-0 lead over everyone else in the contest -- are: Andrew Bottom, John Norris Brown, thebeef, chazunga, Marty West, Jeff Morrison, Mike Wiser and Hal Strickland.)

UPDATE 2: Here's a spreadsheet showing everyone's picks in the contest. Be patient; it may take a moment for the spreadsheet to load.

It's a very wide and unwieldy HTML document, but it gives you the information you need if you're a contestant who's forgotten your own predictions.

California dreaming spinning

By Brendan Loy

I've been wondering whether California's vote tally distinguishes between absentee votes and in-person votes, such that it'll be possible to determine, based on actual numbers (not just polls), the "Election Day only" vote tally. Page 7 of the state's 2006 Statement of Vote indicates that the answer is yes. Assuming those numbers are available in real-time, if I were the Obama campaign, I would keep a running count of the "Election Day only" numbers, and be ready to quote the latest numbers from that count to media interviewers at every opportunity.

Polls suggest that Clinton will win among the early voters by a substantial margin, while Obama will win among those who go to the polls today. If that's true, Obama should be able to spin even a high-single-digits loss as a sign that he's got the momentum going forward into the post-Feb. 5 states. But he needs to get started with that spin immediately, before the "Comeback Kid" CW solidifies. Hence the need for a running tally, so they can say something like this:

Wolf, the final outcome in California may be too close to call at this point, but what's clear is that while Senator Clinton was favored by people who voted three weeks ago, Senator Obama won a clear majority of California voters who voted on Election Day. He is currently leading 54% to 43% among that group. Obama is currently the leading choice among Democratic voters, and we have the momentum going forward.

If California is close, the spin war tonight will be unbelievable.

Polling place report

By Brendan Loy

In case anybody's wondering, the only presidential candidate with a presence -- i.e., campaign signs -- at the Cedar Bluff Middle School polling place in West Knoxville was... Ron Paul. He had a ton of signs (as he has, all over this area, throughout the campaign), alongside the numerous signs for various local candidates. But there were no Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney or Huckabee signs anywhere in sight. I thought there were two never-say-die Thompson supporters showing their true colors, but it turns out their "Fred 08" t-shirts were a reference to Fred Sisk, a county trustee candidate.

I'll have more photos of the election-day circus later this evening. Stay tuned.

The best part of my voting experience -- well, aside from having my vote stolen by Diebold, of course :) -- was getting a free Krispy Kreme donut from the Cedar Bluff Middle School Student Council. Well, not entirely "free"; I made a donation to their little donation box thingy. A lot of others had donated, too. Those kids are getting a great lesson in the twin pillars of American life: democracy and entrepreneurialism. I love it! Anyway, the most I've ever gotten for voting before was a sticker, so a donut was an unexpected bonus.

On my drive over to the polling place, I caught the tail end of Freddy Smith's award-winning morning show on WDVX. As he always does, Freddy ended the show by saying "it's time for me to go home and feed them chickens," then played a gospel set -- "to tune up your heartstrings," as he always puts it. One of the songs he played had a chorus which stated: "Don't be afraid or ashamed to speak our savior's name." It almost made me want to vote for Mike Huckabee! ;) Okay, not really, but if any fence-sitting Christian conservatives were listening to Freddy while en route to vote, the song might have steeled their resolve to get off the fence, strategic voting be damned, and proudly vote for Huck.

Speaking of the Huckster, yesterday as I was driving home from work, I saw a pair of his supporters standing in the median on Henley Street, waving Huckabee signs in the rain. I was stopped at a red light for a while, so I watched them, and noticed that nobody was honking or otherwise acknowledging them. I felt sorry for the poor bastards -- getting soaked while campaigning for a lost cause, and getting no love for it -- so when the light turned green, I honked and waved as I drove by. They looked delighted, as if they were thinking: finally, a supporter! Heh. Well, not exactly. But although we may not see eye-to-eye, I'm glad they're passionate about their candidate.

Happy Super Duper Tuesday, everybody.

I Voted Today

By Brendan Loy

My first time using an electronic voting machine. Not actually "touch screen" -- you have to turn a little wheel thingy and press actual physical buttons. Sort of like a large, primative iPod. The iVote? :)

Time to vote!

By Brendan Loy

And people ask why I don't do early voting. I love this stuff! Election Day in all its glory. God bless America!

Super Tuesday

By Brendan Loy

The polls are open... may the best man/woman win!

(And by "win," of course I mean "arbitrarily be declared the 'winner' by the know-nothing national media, notwithstanding that proportional delegate allocation combined with the closeness of the race means there's no way anybody can really 'win' today.")

P.S. In case you're wondering, no, that picture was not taken today. It was taken a couple of weeks ago, and I've been saving it -- I thought it would make a nice patriotic Election Day stock photo.

P.P.S. Last chance to enter my Super Tuesday prediction contest! Deadline is noon today. Any entries received after noon EST will be disregarded.

Yes, we can

By Brendan Loy

If you haven't seen it, here's the celebrities-for-Obama music video thingy that's taken the Interwebs by storm:

I don't really see what the big deal is, to be honest; I prefer just watching Obama speak, without all the bells and whistles and MTV-ish-ness. But then again, I'm a crotchety 26-year-old geezer, right? ;)