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Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a “firewall” to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Rudy Giuliani's supposed Florida firewall, Hillary's will crumble as Obama's momentum carries him forward to the nomination. Before Hillary lost her first primary or caucus, she lost the dialogue with the Obama campaign vis-a-vis the totally misguided decision to focus her message...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally won the popular vote in New Mexico's Democratic caucus and picked up one extra delegate Thursday, nine days after Super Tuesday voting ended. State Democratic Chairman Brian Colon made the announcement after a marathon hand count of 17,000 provisional ballots that had to be given to voters on Feb. 5 because of long lines and a shortage of ballots. The final statewide count gave her a 1,709-vote edge over rival Sen. Barack Obama, 73,105 or 48.8 percent of the total vote to 71,396 or 47.6 percent. The former first lady's victory in...

**EXCERPT** WHITE MARSH, Maryland (CNN) — Hillary Clinton on Monday explained away Barack Obama's clean sweep of the weekend's caucuses and primaries as a product of a caucus system that favors "activists" and, in the case of the Louisiana primary, an energized African-American community.She told reporters who had gathered to watch her tour a General Motors plant here that "everybody knew, you all knew, what the likely outcome of these recent contests were.""These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and...

After picking up heavy support in the southeast but struggling in other regions on Super Tuesday, many critics wrote Mike Huckabee's campaign off as dead. With Mitt Romney now out of the race for the Republican nomination, Huckabee appears to have picked up the conservative votes that the Massachussets governor once controlled, allowing him to move in on John McCain's considerable lead. On Saturday Feb. 9, Huckabee picked up two of the three states that were up for grabs and also drew strong support in Washington state, though he appears to have lost to rival McCain. More important than the...

**EXCERPT** Left without a full slate of candidates to choose from - or assurances their votes will count in the presidential race - many Michigan Democrats felt disappointed after participating in the state's early presidential primary last month. Now, with the race between U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama still undecided, party officials in Ann Arbor are among the several groups asking for a do-over. Members of the Ann Arbor City Democratic Party were to consider a resolution supporting a 2008 presidential caucus at their regular meeting Saturday. The measure was added to their agenda Thursday amid a swell...

**EXCERPT** Super Tuesday's over and there were no absolute winners - until Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. Nonetheless, even before Romney withdrew and McCain, in effect, became his party's nominee, we might as well have canceled the rest of the primaries and caucuses, since the media had already decided that this year's standard bearers would be John McCain and Barack Obama. Yes, somewhere along the line, the role of the media has changed from reporting on the primaries to deciding the primaries. They pick their favorites, they give them preferential treatment, they tear down their opponents, and they...

Some would say that the 2008 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses solved nothing. Others would argue that this week’s votes essentially determined who the presidential nominees will be this fall. I think the ramifications and results of Super Tuesday are somewhat inconclusive and difficult to translate, but the lessons we learned are clear. First, we now know for sure that Sen. Barack Obama can over take Sen. Hillary Clinton and win it all. In the states that favored Clinton (with the exception of Arkansas) the results were extremely close and competitive. Obama’s victories however were for the most part, decisive...

Well, Super Tuesday is over, and now we have two major party presidential nominees. That's the lead sentence I thought five weeks ago I'd be writing for this column. But the 33-day round of caucuses and primaries that seemed likely to produce decisions after 23 states voted on Super Tuesday have failed to deliver. True, John McCain appears to have a relatively clear flight path to the Republican nomination. The invaluable realclearpolitics.com Website, as I write, credits him with 697 delegates to 244 for Mitt Romney and 187 for Mike Huckabee. But the McCain aircraft can expect some turbulence before...

I'm guessing they were Mexican nationals because it was the Border Patrol that nabbed them, but I guess it's within the realm of possibilities that they were Americans making a run for the border. The ballot box was stolen from a precinct in Coachella. Coachella is heavily Republican, that's Bono country. Some Democratic true believers messing with the election? Maybe some illegals who weren't happy with Romney's opposition to McCain amnesty. Very odd. Customs & Border Patrol February 06, 2008 press release: Indio, Calif. – Last night Border Patrol agents detained four individuals in Mecca, Calif. suspected of being involved...

Hillary Clinton says more than 75,000 people have contributed to her presidential campaign since the polls closed on Super Tuesday. In a letter to supporters, Hillary wrote: “I wish I could find the words to express how grateful I am for the support you have given me. I'm sure you know by now that your support could not have come at a better moment -- I needed your help, and you responded with more enthusiasm and generosity than I could possibly have imagined. “Over the past 48 hours, you exceeded every goal we set. Since the polls closed on Super...

~EXCERPT~ Mitt Romney wanted to know how bad things really were. After six weeks of losses, culminating in Tuesday's embarrassing finish in all of the big-state contests, he gathered his inner circle Wednesday morning at the campaign's North End headquarters in Boston. Still very much the corporate fix-it man, whose methodical approach to business had made him the multimillion-dollar personal fortune he was now spending at an alarming rate, Romney had ordered up formal presentations on whether to keep fighting against a surging Sen. John McCain. One adviser assessed the communications and messaging challenges of staying in the race. Another...

~EXCERPT~ SACRAMENTO—Pressure intensified on Los Angeles County elections officials Thursday to quickly address the "double bubble" controversy over ballots given to independent voters in this week's presidential primary. Potentially at stake is the county's final delegate allocation for Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who are locked in a tight race for the party's nomination. Independent voters in California were allowed to vote in the Democratic Party or American Independent Party primaries. In Los Angeles County, independents who requested one of those ballots had to fill in an extra bubble stating which party's primary they were voting...

~EXCERPT~ Get ready for a tsunami of Hispanic votes in November's general election: If Super Tuesday primary results were any indication, angry Latino voters will flood the polls, energized by what many see as a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the country. Latino voters turned out in record numbers on Tuesday, especially to back Democratic candidates. In California, Latino turnout nearly doubled, while in some states such as Connecticut and Missouri, it increased even more significantly. "It was huge, and it will be huge in November," says pollster John Zogby, referring to the Hispanic voter turnout. "The issue of illegal immigration...

Super Tuesday arrived this week with many voters unable to take part due to deadly tornados in the south, snow in Illinois, a lack of ballots in California and "Invisible Ink" confusion in Chicago. Also in Chicago, at least one woman who arrived early to vote was told by her precinct that she wouldn't be able to because only one of five election judges was present. Rachel Waymire was about to head home when she was stopped by Oprah Winfrey, who happened to be at the precinct next door, reports ABC News. The talk show host and Barack Obama supporter...

New Mexico Democratic officials still don't know who won the Super Tuesday presidential caucuses -- and may not for days. New Mexico is the only state of the 22 in Tuesday's primaries and caucuses without a declared winner. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., led Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 1,123 votes statewide Thurday, the Albuquerque Journal said, with results hinging on nearly 17,000 provisional ballots. The Democrats may start counting those Thursday. Provisional ballots are issued to voters who show up at the wrong site or have problems confirming their registration and vote by affidavit. There were problems at the...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has raised $7.2 million for his presidential campaign since the first polls closed on Super Tuesday night, his campaign said Thursday, a remarkable figure that is causing concern among supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Meanwhile Thursday, the Clinton campaign asked Obama to debate once a week, but he demurred. Obama, riding a wave of fundraising from large donors and small Internet contributors, also raised $32 million in January. Clinton acknowledged Wednesday that she loaned her campaign $5 million late last month as Obama was outraising and outspending her heading into Feb....

It took until a day after Super Tuesday, as it happened, for the tsunami to strike: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is now the underdog in the Democratic presidential fight -- and that is very much not by design (Mark Penn's spin notwithstanding). Feb. 5 -- the day that was once expected to seal the nomination for the Candidate Formerly Known as "Inevitable" -- was at best a duel to a draw, at worst the beginning of an erosion of Clinton's carefully constructed delegate lead. Feb. 6 brought the stunning news that the Clinton campaign is essentially broke, running on a...

CASTALIAN SPRINGS, Tenn., Feb. 6 -- The searchers had already gone over the field once. It seemed unlikely that anything else would turn up. It was dark and rainy, and amid the awesome wreckage left by the tornado that had just passed here they had already found three dead. Some of the bodies had been flung hundreds of feet from their homes, landing in tangles of branches and across the roadway. Then they stumbled upon Kyson. The 11-month-old, dressed in a T-shirt and diaper, was lying as silently as any piece of debris in a field of tall grass about...

Our book, The Death of Talk Radio?, warned about the threat posed by liberals trying to pass into law the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Little did we know that its viability would be in jeopardy from conservatives upset over major figures in talk radio playing favorites in the Republican presidential race. The conservative talk-radio assault on John McCain and Mike Huckabee has backfired in a big way. Supporters of Huckabee are so angry that they have launched a "Send it Back" campaign, asking people who have copies of books by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to send them back to their...

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney plans to meet with his congressional supporters Thursday, it was reported. The former Massachusetts governor's meeting comes after his disappointing showing in the Super Tuesday nominating contests, in which he lost most pivotal states to Arizona Sen. John McCain, The Hill reported Wednesday. The Washington newspaper reported Romney will meet with the members of Congress who endorsed his candidacy. The meeting will take place at the Capitol Hill Club after Romney addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference's annual convention. Romney's campaign spokesman Kevin Madden neither confirmed nor denied Thursday's meeting, The Hill reported. He said...

If Limbaugh, Dobson and the rest are not going to vote Republican because they might not like Republican nominee does this mean they are going to move out of the country if and when Hillary/Obama are elected - like Alec Baldwin promised to do when Bush was elected? http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19268477&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=638428&rfi=6

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- About the only thing the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries made clear is that religious voters are as conflicted as the general electorate over who the next president should be. By the afternoon of Feb. 6, with results in from almost all of the states that held Republican and Democratic contests on the largest primary day in American history, neither party had a candidate with a prohibitive lead in delegates. Moreover, according to exit-poll data, no GOP candidate had a clear advantage among self-described evangelical voters, and no Democrat had a clear advantage among those who attend...

At nearly every diner and ballroom Mitt Romney stormed in a 60-hour campaign sprint before Super Tuesday, he declared that the fight for the Republican nomination was now a two person contest. After the results from all 22 states are in, it appears declaring it does not make it so. Romney's final campaigning failed to produce a first or second place finis in the bulk of the states he visited. In Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia and Oklahoma, Romney trailed Mike Huckabee, the man he tried to write out of the race. Romney also lost California, which he visited Monday, to McCain,...

Fox News projects Hillary Clinton and John McCain the winners in California primaries.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Kevin Madden (857) 288-6390Boston, MA – Today, Americans from across this country went to the polls and cast their vote for conservative change in Washington. Tonight, as we await the results from Western states, Governor Romney made the following remarks to supporters, volunteers and the American people: "Ann came to me and she said, 'You know, the one thing that's clear tonight is that nothing's clear.' But I think she's wrong. One thing that's clear is this campaign's going on. I think there are some people who thought it was all going to...

On the Republican side, the final Zogby poll showed former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney with a growing lead and 40 percent of the vote, followed by Sen. John McCain at 33 percent. But once the votes started being tabulated Romney was actually substantially behind McCain, who appears on his way to nearly sweeping the state's 170 election delegates. Current balloting results show McCain with 42.1 percent of the vote and Romney with 33.9 percent. That, along with other wildly inaccurate pre-election polls, caused GOP strategist and Romney adviser Rob Stutzman to tell The Bee's Amy Chance on Tuesday night, "Kill...

So, did the “Obama Girl” actually vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday? Actually, no. Last summer, the amateur music video “I Got a Crush on Obama” was a Web hit, splashing a seductive performance by a 26-year-old model named Amber Lee Ettinger across millions of screens and prompting deep thoughts about candidates and sex appeal, the YouTube generation of voters, viral marketing and so forth. On Tuesday night, City Room ran into Ms. Ettinger at an election-watching party in Greenwich Village and asked how things went at the polls. “I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not...

Mitt Romney is committed to barreling ahead in his bid for the Republican nomination, despite the odds being stacked against him, said his son, Tagg, a senior campaign adviser, in an interview today. **snip** In a measure of just how dire the situation is for the campaign, Mr. Romney’s advisers have been discussing the existence of three different categories of delegates: those that have been already been awarded and bound to a candidate; those that have been promised to someone but are not technically bound; and those that have not yet been allocated. They are mapping out a farfetched possibility...

California 21 (all of Tulare County and the eastern half of Fresno County) Mitt Romney, 18,477 (36.1) John McCain, 18,261 (35.7) California 49 (much of Northern San Diego County and southwestern Riverside County) Mitt Romney, 24,264 (38.8) John McCain, 23,608 (37.7) California 52 (parts of Imperial and San Diego counties) Mitt Romney, 30,034 (40.3) John McCain, 27,844 (37.4) District 25: Romney down 1.9% (91% reporting) District 26: Romney down 7.4% (83.8% reporting) District 41: Romney down 5.7% (76.5% reporting) District 42: Romney down 0.2% (97.6% reporting) District 43: Romney down 11.2% (68.4% reporting) If things stay this way, the tally...

ATKINS, Ark. — Residents in five Southern states rose Wednesday to widespread clusters of destruction caused by an unusually ferocious winter tornado system. At least 54 people were killed, and scores more were injured. Many had spent a harrowing Tuesday night punctuated by breaking glass and warning sirens as the tornadoes tossed trailer homes into the air, collapsed the roof of a Sears store in Memphis, whittled away half a Caterpillar plant near Oxford, Miss., and shredded dorms at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., where crews rescued nine students trapped in the rubble. Arkansas and Tennessee were the hardest hit,...

Spokesman Howard Wolfson emails: Late last month Senator Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million.The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the web stoday and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

After his disappointing showing in South Carolina, Mike Huckabee was supposed to be a spent force. The former Arkansas governor's triumph in the Iowa caucuses would be relegated to the history books and deemed no more significant than Christian evangelist Pat Robertson's defeat of George H.W. Bush in the Hawkeye State two decades before. But Huckabee stormed back into the race yesterday with wins not just in his home state of Arkansas but also in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia, complicating the race for the Republican nomination all over again. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who had expected to emerge...

FOR Republicans, the story from Super Tuesday seems to be that John McCain, while still the frontrunner, has a tremendous amount of work ahead of him uniting the Republican base before November. Last night's early results produced no serious threat to McCain's frontrunner status. But McCain did underperform, while Mike Huckabee did better than expected. Indeed, it may not be too much to ask whether - should both Romney and Huckabee stay in until the end - there is the chance of a Stop McCain ticket being formed by the candidates who have so far split the anti-McCain vote across...

Analysis: McCain New Face Of GOP Campaign '08 Complete Coverage Super Tuesday In-Depth WASHINGTON (CBS) ― This analysis was written by CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs. After amassing a huge delegate lead in 21 Super Tuesday contests, John McCain is the new face of the Republican Party. Despite loud and sometimes bitter opposition from some conservative corners, the Arizona senator has edged ever closer to winning his party's presidential nomination. Both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee pledged to fight on. But the sheer delegate deficit each must now erase to overtake McCain will make it harder by the day...

This morning either Rick or Bubba drew the analogy of this election and the Mainstream Media and Democrat's "fear of McCain" to Brer Rabbit. They said, if you are do some kind of "strategic voting" then you are falling for what the other side wants. Here is an excerpt from the Brer Rabbit story. Substitute McCain for the Brier patch, the Mainstream Media for the Rabbit and us Republican voters for the dumb Fox. -------------------------------- Brer Rabbit's eyes got very large. "Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don't throw me into the briar patch." "Maybe I should roast...

Mike Reagan on his show is soliciting opinions from the base: who should step aside: Romney? Huckabee? McCain? Call in and tell Mike--you deserve to be heard. 800-468-6453

CABLE NEWS RACE SUPER TUES. 6 PM-1 AM ET CNN 3,054,000 FOXNEWS 2,644,000 MSNBC 1,722,000

Just off the transom, State GOP Chairman Ron Nehring issued a hearty "congrats" to Senator McCain for his big win here in the Golden State: "Congratulations to Senator McCain for his victory across California today. Based on the results reported by the Secretary of State, Senator McCain has triumphed in every part of California, from the Oregon border to San Diego. California Republicans know how to win in our state, as Governor Schwarzenegger and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner demonstrated in 2006. While the contest for the Republican presidential nomination appears it may continue, we're confident the issues of this campaign...

With Tuesday's record-setting turnout, California Hispanics for the first time performed as well as any other racial group in a statewide election. The outpouring was especially strong on the Democratic side, with Hispanics accounting for 30 percent of Tuesday's presidential primary vote. Hispanic Democrats nearly doubled their percentage from the 2000 and 2004 primaries. And they matched their percentage among California adults, suggesting the state's fast-growing Hispanic population is finally being reflected at the polls. Analysts cited a variety of possible reasons for the uptick in Hispanic voting, from the voter registration drives that developed from the 2006 immigration protests...

After seven years of watching and fighting against Americans who wish to see the country suffer so that they can get at George Bush, the last thing I wanted or expected to see was conservatives saying they would rather see the country suffer than support John McCain over Clinton or Obama, so that they can "get the blame." A retreat before victory is assured in Iraq cannot be undone in 2012. And mandatory, single-payer, universal health care, once established, will not EVER go away either. I am not impugning anyone's motives. I believe I have a reasonable understanding of principled...

Hundreds of confused Virginians and some Marylanders jumped the gun yesterday, showing up at polls or calling election officials to find out where to cast ballots, even though the presidential primary is next week. Virginia and Maryland were not among the 24 Super Tuesday states that voted yesterday, but that word apparently did not make it to some voters. Virginia, Maryland and the District vote on the 12th. More than 700 people called the Virginia State Board of Elections to ask, "Why aren't my polls opened, and where do I go to vote?" said Susan S. Pollard, a spokeswoman for...

Problem involves nonpartisan crossovers for president Fearing a "Florida in Los Angeles County" fiasco over the confusing "double bubble" voter ballot, officials said Tuesday they are concerned a ballot design flaw could prevent hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan votes for president from counting. Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo called on Secretary of State Debra Bowen and acting Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan to review the county's unique and potentially confusing ballot. "It would be unfortunate if nonpartisan voters, confused by the county's unique `double bubble' ballot design, did not have their vote counted," Delgadillo said. Secretary of State's Office spokeswoman Nicole...

Reports are rolling into talk radio stations in San Diego about massive Republican vote suppression. Thousands of Republican voters in San Diego and as far north as Los Angeles showed up to vote on Tuesday only to be told that they were registered "Non-Partisan". This meant that they could not vote for the Republican Primary candidates. Non-Partisan (independent) voters in California can vote for Candidates in any other party, including the Democrat party, but are prohibited from voting in the Republican Primary unless they are registered as a Republican. Rick Roberts [http://www.760kfmb.com] is currently reporting on this and has had...

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 6, 2008 – More than 160 National Guard members turned out today to support recovery missions in three states hit by a violent string of tornadoes last night. The National Guard Bureau reported that Guard members were called out to perform search and rescue missions, provide security at traffic control points, and to support civilian authorities in other ways in Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of the Guard soldiers who responded were undergoing pre-deployment training at the Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center in Greenville, Ky., about five miles from one of the areas hit by a...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), coming off a disappointing Super Tuesday, will meet with his congressional supporters Thursday afternoon, sources told The Hill. Romney will meet with the members who endorsed his run at the Capitol Hill Club, shortly after addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) annual convention. As results were still being tabulated Tuesday night, speculation grew that Romney might be on his way out of the nomination battle after Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) built on his front-runner status and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee showed surprising strength in a number of Southern states. Romney told assembled...

2008 Republican Delegates McCain 697 - Romney 244 - Huck 187 1,191 Delegates Needed to Win (Delegate Counts Come From AP, Wash Post, ABC News & RCP) (As of 2/6/08)

Barack Obama hits the nail on the head when he says, "there is one United States of America". There are no "blue states", or "red states", rich, poor, conservative or liberal Americas. Super Tuesday showed that Americans are less divided than many thought. In fact, America showed on tuesday that it has become one big bucket of mindless crabs. Huckabee, McCain, Hillary, and Obama have brilliantly realized that America is engulfed in fear. Fear has stripped America of its human qualities leaving a husk of primal survival instinct. Like crabs in a bucket- Americans are in a mindless frenzy willing...

The Democratic primary race took an interesting twist last night. Hillary Clinton went into the massive Super Tuesday contest with twice as many wins as Barack Obama and a significant lead in pledged delegates, both normal and superdelegates. She came out of Super Tuesday in almost a dead heat among normal delegates, and losing more contests than she won -- but still technically leading the race. The Politico claims that the big-state wins gave Hillary an edge, but it ignores the structure of Democratic primaries: The clarity Democrats so desperately sought escaped them on Super Tuesday, as both candidates found...

Romney to Downsize Post-Super Tuesday? ABC News' Matt Stuart Reports: Mitt Romney suggested Saturday that he might reduce his staff after Super Tuesday, saying he has "a much larger staff" than may be required "as you go on to these subsequent primaries." (...) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/romney-to-downs.html

This post needs to be made regarding Super Tuesday. My observations include the fact the "underground" Trust Huckabee operation did its job well dividing conservative votes and enabling McCain to win Missouri. This group not officially associated with Huckabee is paving the way for McCain. It looks National Right To Life used its state affiliates endorsements of Huckabee to assist in the Establishment plan to divide conservatives and help McCain win. Romney can still fight back but he'll have to get into the Saturday events in Washington and Kansas where I think he can do well. And he'll have to...