And Ron Paul starts off with an early, slight lede. With only 15 percent reporting, he has 24 percent to Romney’s 23, with Santorum only a fraction under Romney. Gingrich trails far behind. That’s according to The New York Times at 9:09 p.m.
From now on, let’s go to comments. Let the live blog begin…
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If the pattern holds — and there’s no reason to think now either that it will or won’t; there’s just no telling — it will all be about who’s in second, third and fourth, since the Paul fluke will be widely ignored. Unless, of course, he does surprisingly well in New Hampshire. But don’t hold your breath, Paulistas…
Ever been to a caucus meeting? Some South Carolinians have — serious partisans, for the most part.
I covered a caucus — once. It was a congressional-district-level caucus in Arkansas. It was in 1980.
Talk about your game-playing. George Bush had won in Iowa. Howard Baker had figured out that he wasn’t going to be the nominee, so might as well ally himself with the one who would be. So his delegates conspired with the Reagan delegates to squeeze out Bush and make it come out Reagan first, Baker second (if I remember correctly; it’s been a lot of years).
Bush showed up at the motel where the meeting was being held. He was so mad he could hardly see straight. We, the press, all wanted to talk to him, but he tried to do an end-run and get out of the place first.
Some of us cut through the empty dining room to head him off, broken-field running through the vacant tables and chairs, and we got to the front door ahead of him. So he stopped, and made a petulant comment or two. Hostility rising off of him like smoke.
I interviewed the head of the Baker delegation periodically through the voting, and he just smirked like the cat who ate the canary and said HE couldn’t help who his delegates chose to vote for; if some of them wanted to go for Reagan, that was their business.
I had never met that guy before that day. He was Don Sundquist. He was later elected to Congress (he hired one of my best reporters — I was the news editor by then — away from me, blast him). Then, he became governor of Tennessee…
The numbers are roughly the same with 22 percent reporting, except that Santorum has pulled ahead of Romney…
You can see some video of vote-counting here. Lot’s of cooks in that broth, huh?
No chance of anything less than kosher coming out of THAT, huh?
And whoa, with 24 percent in, Romney and Santorum are virtually tied, with Paul a mere sliver behind them, 23.2 percent, 23.2, 23… Gingrich still way behind.
I’m going to take a break from the numbers until we get over 50 percent…
CNN reports that entrance polls show pretty much what we’re seeing: Paul, Romney and Santorum in a bunch, too close to call.
But that’s entrance polls… Not sure how that bears on what happens inside…
Larry Sabato, having pronounced this even a “muddle” on Twitter, goes on to warn, “Three-way ties are always over-interpreted. Get ready!”
I suspect the story coming out of this will be, “Where the heck did this Santorum guy come from?”
I know just what to do in a situation like this… I’m going to go toast me some banana bread…
Now I’m going to read some more of “Black Ocean.” Y’all go ahead and comment if you’d like…
I never know when to do this live-blogging shtick. Sometimes people are eager to weigh in, and I can hardly keep up with approving the comments. Other times, it’s like “Hello! Is anybody out there?” Tonight is the latter.
I hear there’s a football game on or something. Earlier, there was a sitcom about guys dressed in drag. Hasn’t that been done to death?
Back to my book…
Earlier, there was a sitcom about guys dressed in drag. Hasn’t that been done to death?
That dadblambed commercial about that show has driven me crazy…..and you are right. No wonder why outside of sports, I enjoy Me-TV and Encore Westerns.
It is hard to focus on Iowa with the circus that it is.
Hey, a comment! There goes my theory about a neutron bomb having wiped out the rest of the blogosphere….
A guy on live video on the Des Moines Register site just attributed Santorum’s success tonight to the sweater vests…
If this trend continues, Romney wins New Hampshire, and then likely wins South Carolina.
That’s the way this is starting to feel…
Tonight, with talk out there about Ron Paul using this strength to run on his own outside the party, Democrats are like, “Run, Ron, Run!”
I keep clicking on the NYT site: 49 percent reporting, 49 percent, 49 percent, on and on…
Over at WashPost, 49 percent…
52 percent!
With 52 percent reporting, it’s:
Santorum: 24.3 percent
Romney: 23.7
Paul: 21.6
Gingrich: 13.3
Perry: 10.2
Bachmann: 5.6
Now you figure out what that means…
What I think it means is that unless Santorum can build on this and prove it’s not a fluke, Romney has the big Mo as the candidate everyone has to settle for. If you can stand that irony.
But if Santorum does really well in New Hampshire, well… E.J. Dionne’s speculation this morning about Santorum and SC could turn out to be prophetic…
59 percent, and it looks like that pattern is holding.
I’m going to stop now. I’ll keep watching for a few more minutes, though. If anything different happens, or if any of y’all wake up and say something, I might weigh in, too.
Yawwwnnn….
Pattern holding true at 88 percent reporting…
Romney wins by 8 votes. Eight! Too bad this wasn’t the general election with one state on the line deciding the result. Now that would be exciting.
Going forward it’s really hard to see what can stop Romney at this point. Some consolidation will emerge around Santorum after Perry and Bachmann bow out. That could give Santorum a shot in SC. But it just doesn’t seem like enough for the long haul. With Paul hanging around for a while longer I suspect he’ll take away more from Santorum than Romney. Gingrich seems like a much longer shot this morning but could do well in SC. The odds look something like this:
Romney 1-3
Santorum 5-1
Paul 6-1
Gingrich 6-1
Huntsman 10-1
Bachmann 20-1
Perry (appears to have suspended his campaign)
So did you spend all last night talking to yourself? They have medication for that you know.
Sometimes I talk to myself. It’s refreshing to have a conversation with the smartest person in the room.
At my house right this minute, the clock says 9:34AM.
buds entry says 9:37AM and that sweet thing Steven Davis’ says 9:56AM.
What’s up with your clock?
The sitcom was Bosom Buddies, and was Tom Hanks’ first success.
Oh, I was thinking way earlier than that…
Milton Berle. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Plenty of others.
Martin – it’s called Daylight Standard Time. The server the blog is housed on didn’t change, it’ll be fixed in about 4-5 months.