For those of you who turn exclusively to Absolut Rufus for your election
news, John McCain has won the South Carolina primary. In this case
winning matters: McCain's 33% of the vote won him 19 of 24 delegates,
with Mike Huckabee's 30% second place finish winning him only 5. (The
state party was stripped of half of its 47 delegates for holding an
early primary.) Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney got most of the rest of
the votes, but no delegates.
Meanwhile in Nevada, Mitt Romney spanked everyone with 51% of the vote
and 18 of 31 delegates, but everyone picked up a couple delegates.
Shockingly, lunatic fringe libertarian congressman Ron Paul came in
second, but he's also the only one to buy TV ads in the state.
Here are the updated delegate counts, as near as I can figure:
Mitt Romney 72
John McCain 38
Mike Huckabee 29
Fred Thompson 8
Ron Paul 6
Rudy Giuliani 2
Duncan Hunter 1
There are a couple of consequences to these results, one of which is
that since South Carolina was supposed to be the state that kicked off
Thompson's campaign, so picking up no delegates and getting about half
the support of McCain and Huckabee is bad. The second result is nobody
has any clue what's going to happen in the Republican party right now,
because McCain, Huckabee, and Romney have all won primaries, and Rudy
Giuliani (who still has less delegates than Ron Paul) may change the
dynamic again if he does well in Florida.
The third result I found interesting is the failure of Mike Huckabee's
two big SC messages: change the constitution to reflect the will of God
(don't worry, I'll tell you what it is), and I love the Confederate
flag. He can't possibly win a general election threatening to stick a
flagpole up the ass of anyone who decries a racist symbol and being the
pro-theocracy candidate, and Republican voters are going to figure that
out. (Isn't that why we're supposed to fight the War on Terror, to
prevent the rise of a caliphate that would impose theocratic rule over
the West?)
The Democrats:
The South Carolina Democratic Primary isn't for another week, but the
results are in from the Nevada Caucus. It turns out Hillary Clinton won
the primary... sort of. She won just over half the vote, but because
delegates are assigned proportionally by each county, she and Obama
split the votes in Clark County down the middle, and Obama won many
outlying counties with odd numbers of delegates, meaning when it came
time to allocate the 25 national delegates, the odd delegate went to
Obama. So Hillary won the primary, Obama won more delegates. (If you
would like the special math of the Democratic Party explained to you,
ask the Captain, I just report what the AP tells me.)
Here are the update delegate counts, as near as I can figure:
Hillary Clinton 210
Barack Obama 123
John Edwards 52
Dennis Kucinich 1
Mike Gravel 0
Hillary and Obama continue to split delegates in the regional contests,
and her lead is down to greater support by superdelegates in the
national party, so anything can still happen.
Up Next:
Democrats vote in South Carolina on Saturday, January 26, in a primary
very heavy with black voters, so this could be interesting following
Hillary Clinton's recent missteps on Martin Luther King and all the
racial issues stirred up recently. Next Tuesday January 29 is the
Florida Primary, when Giuliani enters the race, and the last primary
before Super Tuesday.
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