Redstate

I'll try not to be frustrated. Your prediction was wildly optimistic for Romney. Your current prediction is wildly optimistic.

How many delegates do you have Romney winning in CA? I'm guessing he gets 21-35. I presume you're giving him a much bigger amount.

There is no way Romney breaks 400. I'd put a big wager on that.

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He probably got about 40 in California. It was all of those Caucas states that everyone seems to not care about. But you really don't know, because its a CD state. Which means, it is possible for Romney actually to get more delegates than McCain. But I am not counting on it.

Because there are no delegates at stake there.
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You are correct, except that McCain and Huckabee have made a deal and we will have a McCain-Huckabee ticket. That is something I cannot even consider.

CHECK THE FACTS! Mitt does worse with Huckabee out. Huck was in it to win it. Mitt should thank Huck for staying in or this would be even more over than it is.

McCain is the GOP candidate.

Its all over. Now the question is, how bad do you want the GOP to win

GO to NYTimes page and click on CA results they have map of state and show what percentage is in and from what counties

Only Fresno is close right now

Hillary is doing very well minus San Fran and Santa Barbara

Or are you just guessing.

here

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I did not expect to see numbers like that when I got up this morning.

Romney didn't even win in OC. So much for his being the True Conservative choice.

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my guess this is another assist from Huck, as CA voters probably saw Romney fizzled in the South and backed the winner they knew McCain-not Huck...

McCain had a huge advantage for absentee voters and late-voters... according to exit polls.

Especially with HRC having a great night.

We are poised to have a conservative steal the middle, with an 80+ conservative record...

McCain will win this.

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whining losers before we can move on as a team.

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Molon Labe!

The whole GOP field is so flawed that HRC must be chuckling with Bill right now.

While I supported Fred at first, I am now more worried about the GOP surviving this mess than winning the WH with a deficient candidate in McCain.
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"It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage; that is our song. We sing it still."

-RWR January 21, 1985

Actually a rhetorical question because the answer is so obvious. The only real question is whether your whining is for real or you're just a moby.

Predicting that after tonight things are not as bright as they were when this whole primary started and everyone thought the "anti-Hilllary" vote would be sufficiently strong to coalesce the GOP.
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"It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage; that is our song. We sing it still."

-RWR January 21, 1985

... and cry yourself to sleep in a fetal position (if you actually believe your own whining)

to today's political climate. The primary system worked well.

We weeded out the liberal (Rudy), the slack (Thompson), the irrelevant (Brownback, Keyes--was he even running), and the fringe (Tancredo), and the fake (Romney)...

while rewarding the hardworking (Huck) and the loyal established candidate (mccain)...

if hrc wins... we win huge...

if obama wins, we narrowly eak out a victory with a positive message to carry some congressional seats.

I am pumped.

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Molon Labe!

HRC with another prospective 4 years of Clinton control will chill moderates and conservative dems... it may even keep african-americans home.

Republicans hate her, and some dems hate her.

The country does not want at least 24 years of 2 families in the WH.

See the forest from the trees, and look at the potential we have.

McCain will still the middle, while HRC will galvanize the right. I love it!

Granted, people may not want 2 to 3 decades of the same family but that's what's going to happen if HRC gets the nomination. I can't vote for her so once again, I'll write in which is about the same as a no show. The voters are simply not going to vote for John "we're going to have another hundred years of war(s), the jobs are never coming back, and the illegals are here to stay" McCain.

It's a long time to November. There is a process to this that will bring some - not all - of the disaffected home and to the polls.

This time a year ago we were thinking about who would be the ideal candidate. This time three months ago we were thinking who was the best of the lot we had to choose from. Right now, we are thinking about how the likely nominee falls so very far short of what we would have wanted.

But, come November, we are going to be thinking very seriously - Do I really want four years (or more) of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President? Do I really want to take a chance that Obama is ready to take on the big national security issues?

It will look different then. Sure, an 82 percent conservative rating is at best a C plus, but it beats a zero, which is what the Dem nominee will bring to the table. As the Democrats learned in 2000, it really does matter who gets elected.

If she's the nominee a lot of freshman Democrats are going to be hurt when it comes to keeping their House seats (especially since most of them can't claim that they've actually done anything for the last two years). Heck, in a lot of those districts HRC showing up to stump for the local guy will be counterproductive.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Keep throwing around those insults. See who is left by November. If I didn't know better, I would say you were a troll trying to depress the Republican vote.

Looks like both Hillary and Obama will be around the 1000 delegate mark with Obama winning states 13-8 (NM still undecided).

This will probably give Obama some momentum given that the next 6-7 contests are pretty strong for him.

And he has the money advantage as well.

Dem contest is likely to continue well into March, at least.

Considering that just about everything in the world is working against the GOP this cycle, I'm cautiously optimistic about McCain's chances if Hillary is the dem nominee. Assuming that Iraq doesn't blow up between now and the election (I oppose the war and am much, much less optimistic about the situation in Iraq than is Redstate in general), I would give McCain something like a 40 or 45% against Hillary though I think that if he wins he'll do it with an electoral map that looks at least a bit different than the recent versions. I think that Romney, by way of comparison, would get absolutely stomped even by Hillary. Based on what we've seen tonight, I think that he might even get rolled in the South.

-exits

The past couple years his rating has been in the low 60's - on par with the rating of Democrat Ben Nelson.

if we just switched from regular voting to a series of caucuses. There is no way you can make a case for Romney as a better consensus-builder than McCain after a drubbing like the one Romney took tonight.

You can't afford the price of free corn.

Here is a link to the CDs, so if you can figure it out, good luck.

http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html#ca

I really want to be in your party, OCBILL, which one would that be? The anti-mormon, anti-north, bigoted redneck division of the
_______??? party. I thought we were talking about Reagan, big tent Republicans.

I was just about to let Romney slide into the background and along came you.

Maybe Coulter is right.

late conversions to conservatism don't work in the South.

I'm in the south and voted for Romney, but a lot o my friends went Mccain just to avoid Huck and the baptists went for Huck in large numbers.

Why do I have a feeling that there are going to be posts by Romney supporters on the morning of McCain's acceptance speech at the convention, detailing some list of various clerical errors which incorrectly awarded an extra 700 delegates to McCain and expressing optimism that the situation would be rectified before McCain actually goes on stage to speak?

-exits

This is a basic statistics question. If McCain wins by 10 point across the state (and he's up 14 right now), then he wins almost every CD. It would take Romney exceeding his state score by 10 points to win a set of 3 delegates.

Before the election, I conjectured that breaking the 8% win would be the tipping point. Because of recent polls, I didn't think either candidate would do so. But it now looks like McCain will do so easily.

Most CDs do follow county lines in CA. And if you lose every county, it would take some major oddities for Romney to win many CDs. I am spotting him 5-10 of the 52, but that's about it.

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Well, I've lurked in RedState for years, but finally was motivated to register when I saw all the battling over who will win which congressional districts. Here's the link to the California Secretary of State's webpage that breaks down by district which Republican won.

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/rcd/all.htm

For what it's worth as of 12:12 am Wednesday morning, McCain is winning 52 districts by margins between 4 and 25 points each, while Romney is winning won district by a little under half a percentage point.

It's still relatively early though so there could be changes, but at the moment it looks like McCain will probably win at least 45-50 Congressional Districts in California.

-Tim

Looks like (12:30 PST) Romney will take District 21 by a hair, other districts are not looking too good for him.

Would venture a guess that McCain takes 50 districts, at least.

Wow.

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but I'll assume you aren't.

Part of what you are seeing is people buying into Bush is a total conservative (when he's not) and hence people running from the conservatives.

Part of what you see are people who don't like the BS of Washington (and Bush) buying into "The Straight Talk Express" line.

Part of what you are seeing is people simply STILL upset over the GOP and how they handled spending and immigration and THINKING that going Democrat will be better or no worse than the GOP.

and thank you for reminding me why this is important.

NC

You can't "bring about change" if you can't win the general.

Fred would have wrapped things up by now

I would say someone who has acquired the wealth he has, (without scandal) was willing to spend much of his own money in his campaign, has a solid, upright family - is far from being a loser.

I would have preferred Gulliani, as well. But, he has already left the race. And I was speaking "from a strategic standpoint" regarding Romney. It seems glaring, to me anyway, that an energized, motivated Democrat party running on changing Washington, and fixing the ravaged Republican (they do/will claim) economy - and their opponent is an old, Washington establishment, stay the course administration candidate - would seem to be their most welcomed opponent.

I did ofcourse not mean he was a loser in his personal life.

But his campaign has been celebrating every loss as a win, that is what I mean as a loser. It doesn't inspire confidence if you claim your still gonna win when the boat is sinking and you refuse to admit it. McCain handled his early setbacks much differently, showing he'd fight hard and dirty. Instead we got this everything is fine attitude from Romney. That is what I mean with a winner or loser. Someone who'll fight hard. A great example is how the different campaings handled West Virginia.
McCain seems to have learned from the 2000 Bush Campaign, you have to fight for every vote, and dirty tricks are part of winning campaigns.

I don't deny the inevitable, with McCain - and it is what it is. But, it defies logic to put forward a 72yr old man, 25yrs entrenched in Washington, part of the congress responsible for the highest debt and pork barrel spending, now all of a sudden a change agent - is the right matchup against an energized, motived, youth involved, change touting Democrat base, when we have an on the rope economy, and long term toll inflicting war our party is hold the bag for.

When you take the Republican primary results and throw them out the window - the bottom line is there will be a coalescing of the divisions to whatever degree. The real question is how many will stay at home with McCain as nominee vs how many would because it was Romney as the nom - and there is no way to really know that. Regardless of what the results have shown - as you have discussed.

But, again, from a match up with a change touting, motivated Democrat party - with eveyone on both sides realizing Washington is broken, our economy is in trouble - it defies logic to claim McCain is the best person to confront that - when he has been part of it from their perspective. Especially with his professed lack of economy accumen, and his comittment to war (100yrs - and both will be pounded home by the MSM, no doubt). Don't forget, the Democrat biased liberal papers, and players all picked McCain to be the one they fear the most, yet, they endorse him to be our candidate select. Or in other words = they can't wait to go after him with all they have from his years in gov't and his contrast to their candidate. They would have much less negatives on Romney. How many have bought into the old reverse psychology ploy?

And, it does seem quite arrogant for McCain to have aligned with liberals so often, screwing the conservatives - then expect them to come running to him.

As stated before - it is what is now - so, only time will tell how this will play out against the Dems.

When will Romney supporters concede he never could have won the South!!!!

McCain finished better than Romney in TN, in GA etc and ALL the polls show that if Huckabee had gotten out that McCain would have won more easily. The South HATES Romney. It is not hard to see. The man has spent more and gotten less than any candidate in recent memory.

When will Romney supporters concede he never could have won the South!!!!

I don't know. Try asking a Romney supporter.

McCain finished better than Romney in TN, in GA etc

Yes, it was a three way race. In three way races polling evidence in the run up to the election is often unreliable.

The South HATES Romney. It is not hard to see

Especially not when you are projecting.

Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net

International Editor of

Note how I hedged with the estimated. The correct way to do it would be to take the difference between the candidates (say 2 point) and divide it by the standard deviation of the poll (I have not idea what this is for these polls). If you are one standard deviation away, then your chance of winning is roughly 68%. If you're two standard deviations away, you're up to 95%.

By the way, that's the first step calling a race as well. If the exit polls show a two standard deviation lead (say 10-12 points) then it doesn't take many real votes counted to allow the analyst to be 99.5% sure that the winner will not change, which is their standard for calling a race.

And yes, 3 candidates makes this math much harder which is one reason I didn't even try to do it and took rough estimates.

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Your estimates looked right to me.

Obama will accuse Clinton of hating African-Americans and Clinton will accuse Obama of raising a finger to Florida and Michigan.

It should be a riot. Maybe even literally.

Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net

International Editor of

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Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

No. It's a serious question.

Now is the head of the same group within the Southern Baptist Convention renamed the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He and Albert Mohler are the two main conservative leaders within the SBC. Land was one of Fred Thompsons only gets. The ticket will be McCain Thompson and it will do quite well in the south.

And not to burst your bubble, but I am still 100% convinced that there will be no divided convention. I was 85% sure before FL, but my contention was you needed 4 viable candidates on 2/5 and 3 afterwards. We only had 3 on 2/5 although we may still have 3 (I would argue we have 1 now). It doesn't matter if they both stay in, McCain has over 650 of the 1150 he needs. And these things hit tipping points and we're probably just past one.

Romney has always needed more votes and the idea that he was going to win Huck votes was misguided hope more than real analysis of the data.

FWIW, Fred would not have done well. He had two states that were great fits and barely eeked out third in both. His the Republican Howard Dean, an internet sensation who never caught fire in the real world. And I like the guy a lot.

As for Romney, he burned a lot of bridges. I can't see how he's on the VP long list and I would be very surprised to see a cabinet position although I think he would be fine at several of them. I would recommend GOV MI, SEN MI or GOV UT. If he really wants to help the party and not just himself, MI is a place where the Party needs a strong candidate who can self-fund.

Alternatively he could become a big part of the Conservative Movement, which he was not before. He could do like Toomey and take the leadership of a major organization in the Movement.

But any of these politically-oriented futures requires him to strongly endorse McCain, not drag this out unnecessary, and to campaign and help McCain however he is asked. Pretty much what McCain did for Bush.

Of course there is always the likely possibility that he just gives up on politics. I would put my money on that option.

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And the reason is that he is not a conservative, he is a man who is desperate to be President. At 60 he has been crushed despite being good looking and articulate because he ran so far and so fast to the right that no one believed he was real. Then he bought and paid mercenary leader after leader to shill for him, and it made his insincerity even more clear.

I've read that Romney is staying in, but I don't know how accurate that is. If he does, he is still viable because of his talking heads and could continue to be the ABM vote getter in non southern areas. I do have to admit though that the McCain/Huckabee tag team has been affective. I'm always down the day after a big disappointment (there have been plenty for Romney this cycle) but then I hear the pro Romney spin and drink it up and feel good till the next downer. If there is anything to drink up I'll shallow happily, but this time I swallow knowing that it's a drug, the highs never get better and the lows always hurt more. Also, this drug is in short supply and probably all but out of stock. Sad. All in all, I see myself being completely burnt out after this election cycle and will need 4-8 years to recover.

Go ahead, make your jokes, Mr. Jokey... Joke-maker. But let me hit you with some knowledge. Quit now.

-White Goodman

about Oklahoma is that it has some old-timers (such as my mom) who are still registered as Democrats but have been voting Republican for years. We have a closed primary so my mom ended up voting for Obama, even though she would never vote for a Democrat in the general election. I wonder how prevalent this is.

1) If this is low R turnout, will they be back in Nov?

2) If this is some people switching parties or Is voting in the D race not the R race, is this a more structural problem where the country has moved 3-5 points to the left (i.e. 2006).

3) If this is high D turnout, what does an R do?

I think it is more 2 and 3 which is a lot more worrisome. I think some Rs are focused on 1 because it's the most optimistic scenario because it allows weak candidates to be the problem instead of the Party, its brand, and the overall environment.

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... as a polarizing factor. We'd be doing very well to have her as the opponent (although I also think Obama has weaknesses we haven't explored yet). However, I don't think the Dem turnout in the primaries is going to be such a big problem for us in the generals. In the first case, there are some Republicans who, having figured out that McCain has locked down the nomination, are voting for the Democrat they think is weakest in the general election (take your pick). Second, the Democrat race is, to be blunt, just a whole lot more interesting than ours. You have the Clinton dynasty squaring off with the scrappy challenger, you have the implicit race baiting on both sides (but mainly the Clintons), and you have fact that this election will feature either the first woman or the first black candidate in the history of the party. That's a recipe for high Democratic turnout, but it won't necessarily translate to the general election where the race won't have the same dynamic. Besides, look at the returns from Florida, which was the last contest in which the GOP race was competitive. We beat the Democrats by nearly 200,000 votes in that race.

Hang all traitors and secessionists! Hang them high!
- Me

Has anyone considered that Romney despises McCain so much that he might elegantly bow out of the race (at some point), but then throw his delegates to Huckabee.

Wouldn't that stir the pot a little?!?

I am sure it wouldn't happen, it would be a bit of sweet justice.

It would be interesting, but I think Romney's dislike toward Huckabee is greater then his dislike for McCain. Plus I think he's concerned about the state of the GOP, over revenge. He'll prob throw support behind McCain, and make a bid for 2012 or 2016.
Whereas Huckabee, well who knows. He stands to make a lot of money from this. Remember when Clinton ran in 92' he had no money, now look where he is. The only thing Huckabee has to gain out of this is a fatter wallet.

He won everywhere. As of an hour ago Romney led in exactly two of 53 CDs. No one group gave him the win, because the whole freaking state gave him the win.

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Or are you just emotional?

Saying McCain is more liberal then Nixon, Ford, Dole or even H.W. Bush is hilariously wrong by any even remotely objective standard.

John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"

and therefore not being authentically conservative. A watered down version of MDS.

"I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place." - The last recorded words of Adam Smith.

It's broken down that way because democrats are, for the most part, united on the issues. Therefore it's often an even split on the top issues. Plus Obama never really said what he was going to do.
Congressman Dick was on CNBC this morning and made an interesting point. Obama is the most dangerous because the longer he stays around, he's eventually going to be able to come up with an idea...and it will be a bad one.
The GOP used to be united on issues, but with such a split after Bush's 2 terms it's hard to have a united party. You've got Sen. McCain saying that he's responsible for the surge, Romney saying he can fix the economy and end illegal immigration, and Huckabee well just saying he'll close the IRS (haha try getting that to pass). Essentially because there was no strong dominate candidate out there on the GOP side, the issues were a dividing factor. The candidates made it that way by having the conservative arguments and by just plain old bad policies. They made it about the issues, whereas the Dems, stated they agreed on the problem, but had different ideas of how to fix it. Although, only Clinton executed on this.

If McCain wins enough pledged delegates, as you imply by saying "as the nominee," the convention cannot be contested. He'll win on the first ballot and that'll be the end of it.

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