New Hampshire election officials are predicting record turnout in today’s presidential primary; as of noon EST some districts were already concerned about running out of ballots.
“Turnout is absolutely huge and towns are starting to get concerned that they may not have enough ballots,” [Deputy Secretary of State Dave] Scanlan said. “We are working on those issues. Everything else seems to be going smoothly.”
[…] According to Scanlan, the ballot strain seems to be on Democratic ballots, which suggests that the undeclared voters are breaking for the Democratic primary.
It also suggests that energized Democrats are turning out in greater numbers than their Republican counterparts, following the same pattern we saw in Iowa. I know my righty trolls have long consoled themselves that the GOP’s fortunes bottomed out in 2006’s big blue wave, but if these trends continue through November, 2008 is gonna be an awfully bad year for Republicans up and down the ticket. Say what you want about Obama, but he clearly has the potential to unify his party while attracting independents nationwide. Which Republican candidate can do that?
FYI:
The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight as usual at the Montlake Ale House, and I expect a healthy contingent to show up early to watch the results come in.
According to Scanlan, the ballot strain seems to be on Democratic ballots, which suggests that the undeclared voters are breaking for the Democratic primary.
That’s good news for Obama and bad news for McCain.
McCain could really be hurt by this.
And, the Democratic race could be over by tomorrow. A big Obama will win crush the Clinton campaign, and it is very unlikely that Clinton supporters will turn to Edwards. Edwards only chance was to make this a two person race between Clinton and him. That isn’t happening. Clinton’s support will move to Obama, not Edwards, and the race will end before 1/15.
Not to disparage the evident enthusiasm in my former home state, the previous record was 396,000 in 1992. New Hampshire’s population has increased by over 18% since then (1,111,000 to 1,315,000).
Assuming that the voting-registration population increases at the same rate as overall population, it would require turnout of 469,000 just to “equal” 1992.
I disagree with Agreed, at least on the Democratic side. Clinton will surely push on to Super Tuesday, when the big states vote. It’s possible that some event or events could create a very large difference in the next month.
@4:
Sure, Obama might have the equivalent of the “Dean scream.” Like giving a black power salute or something.
Agreed @ 2
I disagree. I don’t see Hillary Clinton drying up and blowing away in the breeze just because she (most probably) loses to Barack Obama by 10 points or more in today’s primary. Realistically, this will probably result in Obama having unstoppable momentum. But I don’t see Hillary as being a quitter after being delivered two very hard punches by the voters in a couple of small states. We should see her stick out until at least Super Tuesday, and probably until a winner for the nomination (presumably Obama) becomes mathematically inevitable.
@5…Tlazolteotl,,,
That’s plain stupid! And akin to questioning whether Barack Obama is really electable (wink, wink, wink).
It’s HRC having Dean Scream moments, and she’s welcome to them since she’s been giving them to America for over 15-years!
The Piper
For once I agree with Richard, the Anti-Pope. Amazing.
Even when shrill Hillary speaks in a subdued monotone, it’s heard as a scream. That’s a rare attribute.
Progressives will almost surely be short changed by Obama but that would be true of any Dem candidate, even Edwards.
I say let’s make history and give Obama the White House.
We’ll continue to press our advantage with local offices and the Congress.
The Republicans are horribly divided, corrupt and will not give him a credible fight. Their best shot is McCain and all we have to do is show him hugging the chimp, pandering to the religious far right, etc.
The wingnuts will try to smear him with the Church he’s attended and the muslim crap but it won’t stick IF WE HAVE HIS BACK.
I for one am not going to be terribly impressed with Dem operatives trying to tear Obama down.
The marathon continues…
Goldy,
I will say that John McCain COULD do that for the Republicans. The big thing would be to UNIFY the Republicans, since McCain has a strong appeal to independents. Obama is also very strong among independents, so the election would be a real horse race between these two folks. Right now, of course, it is an open question who the Republican nominee might end up being.
Mitt Romney MIGHT do that. He seems pretty batttered by Iowa and may (or may not) lose in New Hampshire today, but we will see what happens. A lot depends on what the religious extremists do on account of Romney’s religion.
Rudy Giuliani WON’T do that. He will have luck even getting 10% of the people to vote for him in the primaries, given his abstention from Iowa and New Hampshire, and the emergence of several strong candidates (Huckabee, Romney, McCain and even Thompson) in the early primaries.
Mike Huckabee WON’T do that either. He MIGHT unify the Republican Party enough to keep a respectable showing, but I don’t see his appeal being very strong to independents.
Live Free AND Die?
10: The moronthon continues.
All the primary speculation has pushed aside some other news:
News Item # 1
Rev. Ken Hutcherson is calling on his supporters to buy Microsoft stock and donate it to his group so they can vote their shares to end Microsoft’s equal treatment of benefits for hetro and gay couples.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....sft08.html
Regardless of how you think about the main issue (i.e., benefits), this struck me, and everyone else who mentioned it to me, as an extraordinarily crazy idea. He needs to find a much smaller company to have any effect, the number of Microsoft shares held by institutional investors make him the equivilent of a grain of sand to the Microsoft Board of Directors. Besides, why would he need supporters to donate their shares to him? They could just give him a proxy to vote their shares, and keep the shares (and profits) for themselves! (Unless his real plan is to beef up his own foundation’s finances by donations of stock into his portfolio????)
In other news (News Item # 2), Bush admits that the economy isn’t doing so well, and is unlikely to recover in the near future.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....omy08.html
This doesn’t look to good for the Republicans, who trumpeted their tax windfall to the wealthy as the remedy for the economy in the early part of his administration. Of course, any perceived rise in the economy over the past few years have been based upon the spending of borrowed money (from budget deficits) and from (perhaps intentional?) relaxed oversight over the home loan markets. Now someone has to pay the piper.
As of yesterday’s DJIA closing, the stock market has lost a total of 2.65% of its value (-2.65%) over the seven years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Compare that with Reagan (+135.13%), Bush I (+45.57%), and Clinton (an impressive +304.94%). Even Carter did better in his four years in office, with only -0.87%.
Of course, what remedy do the Republicans propose for this situation? More of the same – tax cuts for the wealthy, of course!
“It also suggests that energized Democrats are turning out in greater numbers than their Republican counterparts”
I think the real story here is that ordinary Americans are so angry about the GOP’s 2004 voter suppression shenanigans and black box fraud that they’re determined to overwhelm the Republican election-stealing machinery with a human tidal wave.
Is Goldy willing to go on record as actually saying “Obama could be the 2nd black president”? …as we were informed by actual straight-faced democrats that Clinton was “the first black president”.
Voter suppression? Where? Big-city counties in Ohio where useless Democrat idiots run the election machinery? Where they failed to clean up their voter rolls and then failed to provide enough resources for eligible voters to vote? Where even John Kerry admits nothing was stolen from him?
Black Box Fraud: Where? When? Did you read the article in this week’s Jayson Blair Times Magazine about Diebold, Sequoia, et al? No proof of fraud, anywhere. Not even in Sarasota. Just conjecture, and evidence that computers can crash.
Election-stealing machinery: But enough about Dean Logan.
How does this nonsense persist? Democrats screw Democrats with Butterfly Ballots that Democrats are too stupid to read; then Roger and his reptiles somehow impute the Democrat screw-up to Republicans.
yes, energizer, when you lay it all out in its completeness like that it could be hard even for THESE people to deny that they are complaining about their own efforts messing them up (will they ever see it?)
Pipe boy:
Didn’t have the guts to say it out loud, eh?
In any/all cases, remember the Bush stink. It has already doomed thousands of otherwise good Republicans. Plus it will last for several election cycles.
Yep. Limbaugh begat Baby Bush, and Bush begat the beginning of the end of Republican-as-we-know-it.
The human race is full of fools, most of them Democrats. Voters are recruited from the human race. Therefore it’s likely that voters will be fools, voting Democrat, and that there will be no fool-proof elections.
Every election regime (paper, punched, optically scanned, touch-screen) can be and probably has been corrupt. Read about Landsclide Lyndon Johnson’s paper ballots of 1948, cast by the dead in alphabetical order. Read about JFK’s win in 1960, thanks to dead-man voting in Chicago. Read about Montana elections in 1920 when the Democrat machine in Butte bought ballots with good whiskey for Democrats and bad whiskey for bad Republicans.
Then, after you’re up to speed, we can talk about touch screens and “fraud.”
Ahhh… The silly name morphing troll.
I love the stench of desperation.
No stench from over here. You’re getting your own blowback.
This was a funny thread until CGF (YLB) appeared.
#14b – I bet you would find that a guy like PuddingBrain would fault the previous eight years to GWB’s term (Clinton’s Term) as the reason for the economic down turn of the past eight years, and not the fault of the person who has served the last seven years.
@17: Stupid wabbit
The GOP boss in NH was CONVICTED of voter fraud for trying to shut down the Democratic get out the vote with crank calls- and it should have gone all the way up to Mehlman (Republican Party Chair) in the White House at the time (he was calling the guy 10 times a day – but we know what happened with the Justice dept. and investigation of republicans – they stalled it out).
People in NH remember the illegal republican dirty tricks and corruption form the 04 election. don’t act stupid – these guys were convicted including bush’s NH republican chairman. Only the corrupt Justice dept. kept this from going all the way into the WH.
Republicans and elections – lie, steal and cheat is the modus operendi.