Tonight could be rather exciting. We may see a long drawn-out battle between Mitt Romney in the Michigan primary. The Arizona primary, also tonight, will almost certainly be a win for Mitt.
As I write this, results are coming in for Michigan. Mitt takes an early, but slight, lead.
5:36: I’m at the Montlake Alehouse watching MSNBC with the sound down, but listening to the Politico live stream. Can’t say that I’ve ever listened to the Politico live stream before. It’s an experiment.
5:41: Ron Paul is going into crazy-speech mode on the Politico feed.
5:45: I hate it when politicians (like Ron Paul) say, “we’re broke!” Sorry, nutburgers, you aren’t “broke” unless your debt outweighs your assets and income. As far as I know, no state in this union has such debt. The U.S. certainly does not have that degree of debt.
5:51: Paul’s speech was even too crazy for Politico. They cut it off and replaced it with a boring panel discussing Romney’s “foot in mouth” problem.
5:56: Ohhh…with 10.5% reporting, Santorum leads Romney by an anal hair.
6:00: Now 16% in and Santorum is up by 200+. Oops, now 17% and Mitt puts Santorum behind him.
6:02: MSNBC calls it for Romney in Arizona. How ’bout that totally genuine Romney endorsement by Gov. Jan Brewer? She and Romney are so, totally, similar.
6:09: Romney spreads it out over Santorum.
6:13: MSNBC: “Romney wins Arizona” (where 0% have reported); “Too close to call in Michigan” (where we actually have results).
6:20: Santorum tightens it up.
6:26: How fucking pathetic is Newt Gingrich? Ron Paul has twice as many votes as Newt [in MI]. Oh, how the gigantic-headed mighty have fallen.
6:38: I think the Republicans should bring Rachael Maddow in as the “White Horse” candidate.
7:07: How fucking pathetic is Ron Paul? Newt Gingrich has twice as many votes as Paul in Arizona. Oh…how the diminutive, crazy-ass have fallen.
7:12: Santorum is doing a speech….something about a “professional mom” and about why he married his wife, Karen (who used to shack up with the physician who delivered her). Santorum mentions that he has seven children. I guess he can do that without Bachmann in the race….
7:18: Damn…Politico has interrupted Santorum’s speech. I really wanted to learn about what, exactly, is the issue with the parts of the U.S. that have experienced population lost. I’m guessing that it has something to do with the evils of birth control.
7:32: Future Almost First Lady Ann Romney is speaking. She openly acknowledged Donald Trump and Kid Rock. I sense a “Dancing With the Stars” appearance for Ms. Romney.
7:34: Mitt is the projected winner of Michigan. “What a win”, says Romney. It’s his state for fucks sake. The real story is that with 80% of the vote in, Romney is only up by 3%. The word “pathetic” comes to mind.
9:39: Two hours later and Mitt still only has a 3% lead in Michigan.
The Snowe news out of Maine has to be much more important than the results of a primary, no?
How does the GOP hold this seat?
Bob,
It is in the long run, but I’m liveblogging the primaries, not the Snowe announcement.
You, on the other hand, can feel free to go at about Snowe it in the comment thread….
While it wouldn’t be that hard for us to up the income side of things, I don’t see us doing that any time soon, so while we’re not technically broke on a more practical level we’re pretty broke.
Not yet, but Michigan, Nevada, and Florida (RI???) might be contenders in a couple of years. Hopefully the good news coming from the car industry will boost up MI. We’ve had a few cities and counties go broke and I’m sure more will go under before we’re done with this thing.
I’m just not that optimistic about things.
Coulda fooled me.
Michael,
“Not yet, but Michigan, Nevada, and Florida (RI???) might be contenders in a couple of years.”
Not even close. By law these states cannot even go in debt (the notion of a state having a deficit is total fiction…at worst they have projected deficits…very different).
Seriously, no State is even close to “being broke”. That notion is political bullshit that gets invoked during tough budget negotiations.
Ricky Sanitarium backpedaled today on remarks he made about President Kennedy. That’s, what, the third or fourth time this week he’s had to retract inflammatory remarks he made to stir up rightwing red-meat crowds? Ricky S. is a loose cannon. He’s too intemperate to be president. Poor judgment, immature, all of those things. The job of president is making decisions. He lacks that ability.
CNN has Michigan for Romney by 42%-37% with 51% reporting.
@1 When someone like Snowe bails out because it’s gotten too polarized, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the GOP’s ideologues, is it?
I would say its not a ringing endorsement of anybody in DC, democrat or republican.
they are all a bunch of clowns.
A few things:
1. Most states have a lot of room to raise taxes and eliminate tax breaks, even if the legislators lack the political will to do so.
2. The same applies to the US government. Remember we still have the world’s largest economy.
3. Even if we keep doing what we are doing, we’re in decent shape as long as the people loaning us money will take repayment in dollars.
@5
States can pass bonds, which are a form of debt. States can have maintenance backlogs on their roads, bridges, and buildings, which is another form of debt. State’s can have under funded retirement plans, which is another form of debt. States can rack up all sorts of debt.
The arguments that the Republicans are putting forward based on debt are complete crap.
But, states can go broke. They might not be filing official paperwork and be in court, but when you’re like Michigan and you’re turning paved roads back to gravel, you’re losing population, and your unemployment rate is over 10% for 3 years straight you’re pretty fucked.
Nevada’s foreclosing on something like 6K worth of homes every month and their unemployment rate is 12.6%. There’s a chance that they wont be able to keep their roads paved, bridges up, teachers paid, and communities policed in the future.
@10
I agree with everything you’ve posted.
I’m not saying states will go bankrupt, (formally or informally) but I do think there’s a chance of it. We’ve had a few cities and counties go under and I think we’ll see more going under before we’re though with this mess.
Pathetic might not be strong enough, how about superfuckinglame?
@9 “they are all a bunch of clowns”
Some much more than others. Sorry, but the “Democrats are just as bad” meme doesn’t sell here. Democrats aren’t all that great, but don’t even come close to Republicans for sheer vileness.
Sanitarium needs to ditch the sweater vest and go with the periwig.
You can’t expect too much from a racist freak who can’t see past the walls of his colon.
you need to hit the oxygen tank a wee bit more…ahh, dont worry about it – nobody listens to an angry old man glued to his chair all day long…
please, continue to be irrelevant.
So will Darryl be caucusing for Sanitarium on Saturday? Keep dragging out the GOP contest by supporting the weakest general election candidate?
In a move that shocked and surprised everyone the King County Democrats have endorsed Jay Inslee for governor…
…and who is more irrelevant than”x”?
The dipshit who gives dipshits a bad name.
I couldn’t watch Santorum’s speech. I surfed around waiting for it to end.
Everytime I checked back, Santorum was saying something about America being bottom up.
Really. Santorum, America bottom up.
Ricky: (another) closeted gay republican.
I have to say that the most entertaining part of this clown car race has been the yucky santorum puns!
Apparantly Romney won more delegates in Arizona than he did in Michigan, because Arizona is a “winner take all” primary, but Michigan delegates are assigned depending upon who won the congressional district. He barely squeeked out a win (3%) in his home state, and that’s among Republicans – he has no chance at all of winning his home state in a general election. He also had to devote much more time and money there than planned.
If Gingrich would drop out and endorse Santorum, then perhaps Santorum would still have some life as the anti-Romney candidate. If Santorum had just kept his mouth shut over the past couple of weeks, he might have earned that title even without Gingrich’s endorsement.
Of course, Gingrich is too much an egomaniac to drop out as long as his banker in Los Vegas is willing to write checks to keep his campaign going. Gingrich may be angling for a VP spot on a Romney ticket – in which case Romney better watch his back. If history predicts the future, Gingrich would start engineering some scandel or another hoping Romney would resign and give the Presidency to Gingrich (yes, he IS that ambitious and completely without moral scruples).
In the meantime, can you imagine Gingrich as the leader of the Senate? That should bring an involuntary shudder or two.
I expect Santorum is going to throw every dime of what money he has left into selected Super Tuesday states in the S.E. and Ohio. If he can win at least four states, he can use it for fundraising to get him through the rest of the month. But Romney is going to be easily able to exceed any moneys Santorum spends over the next week.
If Santorum doesn’t win significantly on Super Tuesday, then I don’t see how he can stay in the race. Like a martial art’s film, Romney has always been outnumbered, but his opponants still insist on attacking him one at a time, allowing Romney to defeat them in a like manner. With Santorum out, there is nobody left who has a shot at the nomination other than Romney.
So much for the hopes of some Republicans for a brokered convention and calls to draft Chris Christy or Jeb Bush.
Republicans in Washington State were hoping to have some attention directed towards them with respect to Saturday’s primaries. But the primary rules are rigged in such a way that the Washington “straw vote” is pretty meaningless – the actual delegates won’t be selected for months, and they are not bound by Saturday’s results.
Yucky indeed. While I credit them for drawing attention to little Rickie’s utterly ignorant and backward views on sexuality I don’t care much for them myself and find them tiresome.
Just wish the joke of a candidate gets the hook and they’d go away with him.
I second you on that YLB. Those yucky puns may give more emphasis that Santorum has far out wacky views, but once that goal is accomplished, they backfire and tend to generate sympathy for the fellow.
“Joke of a candidate” is a very correct term — and Santorum would clearly fit that bill, even if he didn’t have such controversial views on sexually related issues. His economic ideas and foreign policy ideas are equally wacky.
Wall Street brokerage firms are reporting that their average bonus is down about 13%, to $125,000 per person.
Now, you need to know a little something about how brokerage firms deal with commissions. You have two basic forms of compensation: salary and bonuses. The staff gets mostly salary, plus a bonus (more on that, later). The executives, managers, and brokers get a bonus at the end of the year, but during the preceeding year they “draw” against that bonus for their normal expenses. Whatever’s left in their account is what they get to take home minus staff bonuses (I promised we’d get back to that subject, remember?)
A broker typically allocates some of his bonus to the researchers, administrative assistants, etc. who help him in his job. That’s how the staff gets a relatively small bonus on top of their salary. A clerk might get an extra $3,000 or so. An administrative assistant who is licensed by the SEC to perform some functions actually earns money for the broker and gets a bigger bonus – or he/she will go to work for some other broker in the firm who appreciates their work better.
So, it’s really hard to deal with an “average” bonus, once you include the relatively small bonus paid to staff, with the HUGE bonuses received by executives and managers.
Also, interesting new book coming out, from a former Wall Street Banker who’s converting to being a fee-based financial adviser:
Confessions of a reformed Wall Street Broker
“Wall Street brokerage firms are reporting that their average bonus is down about 13%, to $125,000 per person.”
My goodness! How will they ever be able to make the beamer payments?
“…This has nothing to do with taking care of clients and everything to do with generating gross commissions….”
I should think that would be obvious even to the most casual observer.
Darryl,
Fuck you! Ron Paul’s the only guy worth voting for, and that includes all the Republican cadidates, Hillary Clinton and your precious Milk Chocolate Messiah!
One thing which Romney’s people like to avoid in their “victory dance” over the Michigan primary:
59% of Republicans in Romney’s home state want someone other than Romney to be their presidental candidate.
Seriously, in what state other than Arizona has Romney gotten more than 50% of the vote? It might be different if he had credible opposition, but really – Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul?????
Paul is a fucking racist, just like this asshole.
It looks like Romney didn’t really “win” Michigan, except in the minds of the news media who love to report an election like it was a horse race, and pundents who like to use the phrase “momentum”.
In Michagan the delegates are apportioned according to which districts they won. The result of Tuesdays’ election: Romney and Santurm get 15 delegate each. It’s effectively a tie, in terms of delegate count.
Arizona, which Romney won rather easily, was a winner-take-all state, so Romney gets all the delegates. Except that this goes against the Republican Party rules, which say that any state voting before April 1st must apportion it’s delegates. If it’s still close in August, Santorum can launch a credentials fight at the convention.
@27: If you think about this contest seriously, you shudder when you imagine how far Republican ideas have devolved, how the same old ideas we’ve heard for generations have arrived at such absurd extremes. You wonder what they will come up with next time.
I have not really heard a substantive or constructive foreign policy idea from the party that was once known as the “strong on foreign policy” party, just vague threats or shallow opposition to whatever Obama’s policies are. At best, Ron Paul opposes war (though not exactly mainstream) and the others oppose immigration reform and things like speaking other languages. Great.
Kids, Guns, and Republicans
“Ohio has no laws governing child access to guns on its books and as recently as this month state lawmakers debated a bill that would allow concealed guns in schools. The proposed bill would extend a provision to the state’s conceal-carry law, signed last year by Gov. John Kasich (R), that allows concealed firearms into bars, restaurants, shopping malls, nightclubs, and sports arenas.
“The number of Ohioans carrying concealed weapons almost tripled in the state over the past three years, from 56,691 in 2009 to 153,853 in 2011, according to the Ohio Attorney General. …
“There are not yet signs the shooting in Chardon will force a reassessment of the state’s gun laws. US House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio told reporters Tuesday at a Washington press conference that he felt sympathy for the victims of Monday’s shooting ….”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46.....e_monitor/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Yup, that’s right, if the school calls and says your 9th grader has been shot by a disgruntled classmate, Republicans will give you sympathy — along with “tort reform” prevents you from suing the gun owner. Why would anyone vote Republican unless they hate their kids?
Awwww.. Lookie here. A Nazi wants to jump into mainstream electoral politics..
Which party does he choose?
What else?
The Republican Party of course!
You know it’s time we in the blue states stop getting played for chumps..
It’s time to Go Galt!
U.S. beats Italy in soccer, 1-0