Tue, February 05, 2008 - 3:25 PM

Billy House explains a bit about this crazy Super Tuesday process.

But who are these mysterious Democratic superdelegates?

Do they run into phone booths and emerge wearing tight costumes with an “S” on their chests?

Only they can answer that. But here’s a site that lists who they are.

-- Amy Dominello

And we’re off.

The first results of the day are in, from West Virginia’s GOP caucuses, and Mike Huckabee emerges the big winner, winning the state’s 18 delegates, the AP reports.

It’s a tiny state in terms of delegates – California has more than 10 times as many on the Republican side – but it’s good news for Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor has been barraged with calls to leave the race by supporters of Mitt Romney.

--Sean Mussenden

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez has a remedy for conservatives who say they won’t back John McCain if he becomes the GOP’s presidential nominee – take a cold shower.

During an interview this afternoon on MSNBC, Martinez said he believes Arizona Sen. McCain will go a long way with today’s Super Tuesday voting toward wrapping up the party’s presidential nomination.

Martinez – who until last fall was the Republican National Committee chairman -- backed McCain in the final days of his own state’s primary last month, helping boost McCain to victory in Florida.

When asked about latest polling that shows former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney may be leading in delegate-rich California, Martinez said that might “complicate things.”

But at the end of the day, he predicted that Romney still would not be able to overcome McCain’s delegate lead.

And what about those conservatives who say they’ll never jump on the McCain bandwagon?

“I really hope that they would take a cold shower and think about it a couple of times before making that kind of pronouncement,” Martinez said.

-- Billy House

With much of the attention focused on the battles between Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama and Republican front-runners John McCain and Mitt Romney, it's easy to forget about the other candidates still on the campaign trail but outside the media spotlight.

Republican Ron Paul reminded his supporters yesterday that "it's not over in one day, not even on Super Tuesday." Paul spent this morning addressing the West Virginia Republican State Convention.

Democrat Mike Gravel, touting himself as the only progressive left in the race after John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich suspended their campaigns, is hosting "The World Can't Wait" open house tonight at Spud's Pizza in Berkeley, Calif. Tomorrow he'll be giving a speech on the UC-Berkeley campus.

And while many analysts think his impact on the GOP race has been reduced to siphoning enough conservative voters from Romney to give McCain a clear edge, Mike Huckabee is still campaigning, appearing at the state GOP convention in West Virginia before heading to Arkansas to vote in the primary there.

-- Mark Young

Looking for a sign that the absurd endorsement game has reached a new level of foolishness?

I wasn’t, until this note from the Hillary Clinton campaign showed up in my inbox this morning:

* BREAKING: The hugely-read PerezHilton endorses HRC, saying “We watched the debates and Clinton just won us over. Barack is great. But Hillary is the better leader, for us.”

For the uninitiated, Perez Hilton runs an extremely popular celebrity watcher blog. Warning: it's NSFW. It’s far trashier than your celebrity gossip rags. To wit: a lot of his posts feature nothing more than a photo of a young starlet on which he has crudely drawn male genitalia. It’s pretty highbrow stuff.

Here’s his self-written bio: “He is the Internet's most devilish gossip columnist. He currently resides in Manhattan with his pet poodle Mariel. His signature colors are blush and bashful. His favorite drink is a Viagra Martini, and his motto is "I'm gay, but I'm not as big a slut as Paris." He loves animals, enemas and animus.”

Here’s what he wrote in his endorsement: “We feel more confident with Hillary's abilities to lead and her proven track record of experience. But, more so than that, HER plans for universal healthcare, education reform and emphasis on equality for all are more aligned with what we want in the next President.”

That’s great that Hilton wanted to share his views on the election. Good for him. It provided a nice break from the usual fare, like this cheesecake shot of John Mayer (NSFW). But it did seem a bit strange for the Clinton camp to be touting that endorsement to reporters.

Will anyone base their vote on Perez Hilton’s recommendation? For that matter, have any of the thousands of endorsements this year influenced your vote?

--Sean Mussenden

Today’s Super Tuesday primaries are taking place across the country, but it wasn’t always that way. Political leaders in the South moved up their primaries in the 1980s, creating a regional Super Tuesday primary aimed at giving the South a bigger say in presidential elections.

Of the 24 states participating in today’s massive primary, between four and six are Southern states, depending on how one defines the South. They are Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas – and, perhaps, Oklahoma and Missouri, though I’ve always thought of those states as Midwestern.

Here’s a quick peek at the state of play in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. I couldn’t find polls for Arkansas, sorry Razorbacks.

Oh, one quick disclaimer. Given the fluid nature of this race and shaky track record of polls this year, I wouldn’t make any foolish bets with this information, like, say, agreeing to come to work naked on Wednesday should you lose.

ALABAMA

Democrats: This is shaping up to be the tightest race between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama in the South. The most recent polls – from this weekend – show the lead switching back and forth, well within the margin of error. This thing could go either way.

Republicans: Could former Gov. Mike Huckabee eek out a win here? Recent polls have shown both Huckabee and Sen. John McCain with a lead here, with former Gov. Mitt Romney running a distant third.

GEORGIA

Democrats: Obama enjoys a commanding lead in Georgia over Clinton – roughly 50 percent to 30 percent in the last four polls. That means Clinton would have to bring in essentially all of the 20 percent of undecided voters – a tough task.

Republicans: Unlike in next-door neighbor Alabama, Romney appears to have a decent shot at beating McCain here. The most recent polls show Huckabee, McCain and Romney essentially attracting an equal amount of support. Though McCain has a slight lead, it’s within the margin of error.

TENNESSEE

Democrats: Clinton has a commanding lead here, as much as 20 points in the most recent poll. An Obama victory would mark a major upset.

Republicans: Polls have been all over the map here, but the most recent one shows McCain slightly ahead of Huckabee, who appears to be surging late, with Romney running in a distant third.

--Sean Mussenden

Since we posted a Barrack Obama video earlier, in the interest of equal time here's Hillary Clinton's appearance on David Letterman last night.



The New York senator attributed her "froggy" throat to watching the Giants win the Super Bowl Sunday night at a sports bar while campaigning in Minnesota. As a former Minnesota resident though, I have to quibble with how she described the location of said sports bar - it wasn't in "Minneapolis/St. Paul," Senator. Either the bar was in Minneapolis or it was in St. Paul. Please, no fence-sitting. [via]

-- Mark Young

Today’s voting in presidential primaries or caucuses represents the biggest day so far in the battle for the White House.

Here’s a rundown of what’s at stake, representing a Rubik’s Cube of possibilities.

Democrats have primaries in 15 states. They also have caucuses in seven states and American Samoa. Altogether, there are 1,681 delegates at stake. To win the party’s presidential nomination, 2,025 delegates are needed.

Republicans have 15 primaries, five caucuses, and one state convention. Altogether they will choose 1,023 delegates. To win the nomination, 1,191 delegates are needed.

Adding to the complexity is that the rules for allocating delegates are different between the two parties.

Democrats require states to distribute their delegates among the candidate in proportion to their vote, statewide and in congressional districts, with at least 15 percent required to win a share.

Republicans allow a variety of delegate-allocation methods, including some states that award them proportionally according to vote, or in a winner-take-all basis.

Finally, for the Democrats, there are the “super-delegates” – officeholders and party officials who automatically have votes at the conventions.

Voters today won’t choose these more than 800 super delegates – who represent nearly 40 percent of the number needed to win the nomination.

But if either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama comes out of today’s voting with a big delegate advantage, many of these non-committed delegates are likely to be swayed into their corner.

Got all of that?

-- Billy House

As voters go the polls this morning, the video war between Mitt Romney and John McCain is continuing, both on TV and online.

Throughout the campaign, both McCain and Romney have attempted to present themselves as a clear successor to Ronald Reagan to woo conservative voters.

Over the last week, Romney has attempted to claim the Reagan label for himself, charging that McCain is not a “true conservative.”

McCain’s camp released this video this weekend, with an early 90s video showing Romney saying he did not want “to return to Reagan-Bush.” Now, of course, Romney has taken the directly opposite stance.



Speaking of flip-flopping, here’s an ad Romney has been running that blasts McCain for his position on Bush’s tax cuts.



--Sean Mussenden

If you’re looking for a way to amuse yourself as you wait for the results to come in tonight, head over to The Huffington Post and see how much your friends and neighbors gave to presidential candidates. Fundrace2008 let’s you search campaign finance records by name, address and occupation. And it conveniently plots the results on a map.

Here are some fun fast facts:

• In the not-surprising category, actors preferred Democratic candidates, giving a total of $352,091 to Democrats while Republican candidates took in less than 1/10th that amount from thespians. Among the actors who gave to GOP candidates, Adam Sandler, Kelsey Grammer and John O’Hurley, all of whom contributed to Rudy Giuliani.
  
  
• Probably even less shocking is the fact that gunsmiths gave exclusively to Republican candidates. The four gentlemen who listed that as their vocation favored Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
  
  
• Fred Thompson may be disappointed to learn that among donors named “Fred Thompson” he’s the only Fred Thompson who gave to Fred Thompson. In fact, the three other Fred Thompsons gave to Democratic candidates.
  
  
• Perhaps Thompson will take comfort in the knowledge that the 19 donations attributed to donors named “John Edwards” went mostly to Republicans.
  
  
• Reagan Republicans (at least, donors who gave to Republican candidates AND whose last name is “Reagan”) overwhelming favor John McCain, with nine Reagans donating to his campaign versus four giving to Thompson and one donating to Giuliani.
  
  
• Finally, unemployed donors seem to be betting that Republican candidates will be more likely to create jobs, as contributors who described themselves as unemployed gave $81,408 to Republicans versus $55,301 given to Democrats.

-- Mark Young

If you're a political junkie who rose early enough to today to read this blog entry in real time -- at 8:30 a.m. on the east coast -- I hope you're planning on an afternoon nap or have a trove of Red Bull at the ready.

It's going to be a long night. Roughly half of all states hold primaries and caucuses today. The first polls close in the east just after dinner time, but results from the most important electoral prize of the evening for both Democrats and Republicans -- California -- will not roll in until well after bed time on the Atlantic coast.

We'll be here all day and night, tracking turnout, voting problems and more before the polls close, then providing real time analysis once the votes start rolling in.

We want to hear from you. Do you have pictures of long lines at your polling places? Did you have trouble voting? What do you think the race will look like after all the votes are counted this evening? Leave comments below, or drop me a line at smussenden AT mediageneral DOT com.

To kill time until the polls close, take a second to watch this cool video that will.i.am. of the Black Eyed Peas produced using samples from a Barack Obama stump speech. It's called "Yes, We Can." And as political videos go, it's pretty catchy.



--Sean Mussenden

Did you know that Alabama’s black population is more than double the national average?

Or that about 57 percent of Georgia’s voting-age residents cast a ballot in the 2004 general election, below the national rate of 64 percent?

To get us started on Super Tuesday, you can take a look at the demographics that may affect the outcomes today. The U.S. Census Bureau has put out some handy stats to provide context.

That’s enough data for us to nibble on until the exit polls start rolling in.

-- Amy Dominello

Mon, February 04, 2008 - 6:09 PM

Here's what to expect from some of our Media General partners covering Super Tuesday in Alabama and Georgia.

In a Super Tuesday state and trying to figure out which candidate to go with?

Then try this site launched late last year. It's the subject of a story by one of Media General’s reporters at the Opelika-Auburn News in Alabama.

From the story:

“When you visit the site, you determine what issues - i.e. healthcare, education, gun control - are important by assigning each a point value. After answering a series of questions on the issues (users either agree, disagree or don’t know), the “quiz” informs the user of the candidate who most mirrors his/her views.”

If only everything in life were so easily tabulated.

-- Amy Dominello

Fri, February 01, 2008 - 1:04 PM

As Georgia’s Super Tuesday contest approaches, former Gov. Mitt Romney picked up a Thursday night endorsement from Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga.

In a statement, Westmoreland said "a Georgia GOP primary works as a filter – only a true conservative can get through one.

"… After a year of soul-searching following the 2006 election losses, we need to unite behind a candidate who will fight for low taxes, defend our borders, protect our nation's security, appoint strict-constructionist judges, manage the economy with the experience of a businessman and promote family values. That candidate is Mitt Romney.”

Westmoreland is the fourth Republican congressman from Georgia to support Romney. Reps. Phil Gingrey, Jack Kingston and Tom Price endorsed him earlier.

Republican frontrunner John McCain has not received the endorsement of any members of Georgia’s current congressional delegation.

-- Amy Dominello