super tuesday results
Obama, Romney Dominate in Mountain West
By Courtney Lowery and Jonathan Weber, 2-05-08
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| Above: Obama in Texas last year. Photo by Matthew C. Wright. Below: Austin Evans celebrates after Gov. Mitt Romney won the Gallatin County caucus in Montana. "I love his economic policy," Evans exclaimed. "He's not a weak guy. He stands strong on his values." | |
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While John McCain got the most momentum nationally and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were pretty much split, voters in the Mountain West showed big support for just two candidates: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Obama was the big story in the region, taking remarkable wins in Idaho and Colorado and winning Utah to boot.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney, though struggling around the country, won in Montana and in Colorado. He also grabbed Utah with a predictable, but still incredible 88 percent win with a majority of precincts reporting.
In Idaho, frenzied Democrats packed the 6,500 hundred seat Qwest Arena in Boise and, for the first time in recent memory, there were enough interested Democrats to hold caucuses in all 44 Idaho counties. Obama, who made a dramatic visit to Boise on Saturday, finished with a huge lead with 80 percent of the vote to 17 percent for Clinton with 89 percent of the votes in. For details on what long-in-the-wilderness Idaho Democrats are calling an historic day, check in with Jill Kuraitis and the group blog she is coordinating here.
In Colorado, the biggest prize in the Mountain West and a possible bellweather for whether Obama can make inroads with Latino votes, Obama was declared the winner with 67 percent to 32 percent for Clinton, with 99 percent of the caucus votes reported. On the Republican side in Colorado, Romney is the predicted winner with 59 percent of the vote to 19 percent for McCain, with 95 percent of the vote counted.
In Montana’s Republican caucus, a closed, winner takes all contest, all 25 delegates went to Romney, who won in somewhat of a surprise race with 38 percent. Romney’s attention to Montana (he’s really been the only candidate giving any real effort, with a visit to the Big Sky state this summer and his sons’ and wife’s recent appearences) seems to have paid off. But, Ron Paul was a big story in Montana as well. Grassroots organizing certainly gave him an edge across Montana, pushing him to a second-place finish in Montana with 25 percent of the vote—beating McCain’s 22 percent.
The caucuses were crowded in Missoula (normally a Democratic stronghold), but strangely quiet in more Republican Gallatin county, despite a visit from Sen. Sam Brownback. Check with NewWest.Net’s Dillon Tabish here for more about what happened in Montana.
Obama also won handily in the North Dakota caucuses, continuing his show of strength in states of the interior West where Clinton (and her husband) have long had little support.
In Utah, meanwhile, showed a veritable walkover for Romney (90 percent), which is no a surprise given his Mormon background and hero status from the 2002 Olympics. On the Democratic side Obama led with 57 percent to 39 percent for Clinton, with 99 percent of the vote in.
In his home state of Arizona, McCain was declared the winner with 47 percent to Romney’s 34 percent and 93 percent of the vote in. McCain said after thanking his staff, volunteers and family, “… and finally, thank you Arizona. It’s wonderful to be home tonight.” Arizona Democrats were 51 percent for Clinton, 42 percent for Obama with 93 percent of the vote reported. News organizations called it early for Clinton and shortly after, she was also declared the winner in California, creating a Clinton-supported southwest.
Results out of New Mexico were slow to come in and by Wednesday morning the race was still too close to call and provisional ballots are yet to be counted. Obama leads by one percentage point with 49 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent and 92 percent of the vote has been counted. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports this morning that record turnout slowed the tallying.
The Associated Press reported exit polls showing strong support among Hispanics for Clinton while whites were going for Obama. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported Obama had a big lead in Santa Fe County.
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Comments
And to look at America with a straight face and say you are going to be a CEO President? That is exactly, verbatim, what Mr. Bush said. American citizens are not employees, and they can't be fired for insubordination. Security guards cannot remove us from the property or command us to clean out our desks. We've just lived through a perverted version of this idea. It did not work out well.
The USA is not a corporation, or a money-making venture run by some captain of industry. It is the greatest experiment in egalitarianism, liberty, and human rights the world has ever seen. Not one of those things has anything to do with a corporation, or with business acumen. In fact, a good strong business model has none of those goals. The two things are, if not mutually exclusive, at least two totally different creatures, like a sea anemone and a gorilla.
What is Romney trying to say? I know what I can say. If the Republicans choose him as their man, we can all get ready for President Obama.
Hal
>>>>>>>>>>>
WASHINGTON (CAP) - The campaign of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today that the candidate has joined a Borg collective. The announcement confirms rumors that have been circulating since pictures showing Clinton as a Borg began appearing two weeks ago.
"A vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton is a vote for the collective," said Clinton spokeswoman Marcia St. John from Clinton's new big square campaign headquarters in New York City. "You're not just getting one mind with Hillary, you're getting a whole bunch of them, able to embrace all aspects of an issue simultaneously. Eat that, Barack."
Political analysts see the move as a sign that the Clinton campaign is seeking to address her recent slide in the polls.
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The nice thing about hearkening back to the past is that you can cherry pick all the wonderful things about how it used to be, and ignore all the stuff you don't want to talk about. Iran-Contra, yeah those were the days. Don Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand, endorsing the gassing of the Kurds, all that great stuff.
But Mitt's an outsider, a savvy businessman, who's ready to shake things up in Washington. Shake 'em up to the way they used to be. Or something.
Since the irony in my early remark escaped you, let me explain more clearly. The valuable part of Conservative ideology is not hero worship, nor is it hearkening back to halcyon days, nor, I pray, is it about having a Mighty Leader who can protect us against the evils of the world. It's about conserving the principles and systems that have made this country great, a beacon of liberty to the rest of the world.
Pick which ever set of historical events you like from whatever decade, but when you get back to 2008, you have no choice but to acknowledge that we have lost our way.
I did miss the ironic parallel you intended to draw, because you chose to dismiss the distinctions I think are essential.
Hearkening back to the idealism of JFK, for example, doesn't require endorsing or ignoring the Bay of Pigs, even though it won't be mentioned in the process. The good news, and the reason we're sharing the intertubes, is that JFK's administration learned something from the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is in textbooks rather than on a tombstone for the peoples of the earth.
It's good to honor the past, and to learn from it. It's pointless to try to recreate it.
At this point, who knows what the hell McCain will campaign on beyond the homage routines of the primaries to excite the base.
I see Obama, being unleashed to the past while Clinton appears trapped in promises to bring back Bill's years or the ghosts who have come before.