Crisis '08: Election HQ

UPDATED & BUMPED:
OFFICIAL RESULTS
Hillary 55%
Obama 45%
98% of precincts reporting

The Democrats just got screwed. Enjoy the afterglow!

11:58 p.m. About time to wrap it up, but not before noting that Hot Air has video of Hillary talking to Larry King and saying, among other things, "I'm going until we get Florida and Michigan resolved" (about the 2-minute mark). That's my girl!

The big winners tonight? Rush Limbaugh and his "Operation Chaos" crew, who dealt Obama a bitter defeat. Now, it's time for Rush & Co. to put your money where your mouth is. C'mon, Rush -- how about a "Dittoheads for Hillary" radiothon? I'm sure that with your huge national audience, you could easily raise $1 million to help turn the Democratic convention into a complete deadlock.

Video of the latest Hillary ad for Indiana:

Got that? When Hillary is president, she's going to create jobs! jobs! jobs! Jobs for special prosecutors! Jobs for criminal defense attorneys! Jobs for investigative reporters! Jobs for sarcastic bloggers! Jobs for Rush Limbaugh! Jobs for Jay Leno joke writers! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

11:20 p.m.: Yes, in case you're wondering, that last post with the county-by-county vote totals was a good excuse to get the words "Hillary" and "beaver" into the same post, in a shameless effort to get random Google hits. So I guess this would also be a good place to link the story about Chelsea and Gov. Ed Rendell doing a campaign tour of Philly gay bars, during which a lesbian posed for a photo with her arm around Chelsea, then told a reporter, "I grabbed her ass!"

Building traffic the old-fashioned way!

11:06 p.m.: The official results Web site was temporarily down, so I flipped over to CNN's listing of the county-by-county results in Pennsylvania. What's amazing is the number of counties in which Hillary won with 70% or more:

• Armstrong 72%


• Beaver 70%


• Cambria 72%


• Carbon 75%


• Greene 75%


• Lackawanna 74%


• Lawrence 74%


• Lehigh 76%


• Luzerne 75%


• Mifflin 70%


• Northumberland 72%


• Schuykill 74%


• Somerset 72%

Some of those are counties where all the precincts haven't reported yet, but I count 13 counties with 70% or more.

10:48 p.m.: Plugging her Web site and begging for cash was the most telling thing in Hillary's victory speech. She just scored a big win, but unless she can get some money rolling in -- and do it pretty damn quick -- there's just no way she can keep going like this.

So if you're part of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Crew," and you want the Democrats to tear each other apart all the way to Denver, then you've got to give Hillary some money.

10:40 p.m.: Hillary's victory speech -- Man, she looks saucy in green, doesn't she?

From the notebook: Bill and Chelsea in the audience. Teal green ensemble. Notice the matching jade earrings and necklace.

"It's a long road to 1600 Penn. Ave. and it runs right thru the heart of Pa."

She looks fresh and rested, but I notice a lot of that light-colored concealer under her eyes.

"Ready to lead on Day One" -- line she used when I heard her yesterday in Harrisburg. She's reading a prepared text, but most of her applause lines are standard -- she's actually better when she's doing it without a script.

"I'm in this race to fight for you" -- somebody should count how many times she said "fight" in this speech.

"This is your campaign and this is your victory tonight." Plugs her Web site, begs for cash.

"Some people counted me out and said to drop out ... The American people don't quit and they deserve a president who doesn't quit." Right, so why does she keep promising to pull us out of Iraq in 60 days?

"The tide is turning." They'll use this turning-tide metaphor a lot in the next week or so, just watch.

"America is worth fighting for." Again with the "fight."

Thanks Bill, Chelsea, her brothers, her mother, etc., "for their incredible love and support." When Hillary says "love" and "Bill" in the same sentence, doesn't your mind immediately flash on Monica? Or is it just me?

"If you're ready, I'm ready." Sounds kind of like a Cialis ad. The end of the speech is kind of lame. She needs some speechwriters with more testosterone and a better sense of phrasing. Despite lame ending, crowd cheers hysterically as she exits.

10:06 p.m.Waiting for Hillary's victory speech. Dem pollster Pat Caddell on Fox: Hillary "clobbering" Obama. Winning 75% in SW Pa. and in Scranton area.

Hillary just walked onstage. Back to update after her speech.

9:55 p.m.: Official results are coming in kind of slow, but that's to be expected in any Pennsylvania Democratic primary. It takes a long time for election officials in Philadelphia to make sure that all the dead people in the cemeteries vote in alphabetical order. Wouldn't want any irregularities, now would we?

9:44 p.m.: OK, folks, gut-check time for the "Operation Chaos" crew: How serious are you about causing anarchy in the Democratic primary race? I mean, if you really want to sow havoc, you ought to be willing to pay for the fun. To encourage you, here's Hillary's latest ad:



That is not -- repeat, not -- a parody. It's an honest-to-God official Hillary Clinton ad.

9:25 p.m.: Fox News calls it for Hillary. We pretty much knew that before the polls closed. It's the margin of victory that really counts.

9:15 p.m.: CNN now has the complete exit-poll results online. (Via Hot Air.)

8:40 p.m.: From our Let The MSM Tell You What To Think Department comes this ABC News headline:

Negative Campaign Tarnishes Clinton, Obama

"Tarnished?" Tainted? Besmirched and befouled? Despicably begrimed by their loathesome smear tactics? Horrified citizens of a shocked nation turn their heads in revulsion!

8:35 p.m.: The polls have been closed for more than half an hour in Pennsylvania, and the state's official results site is still showing 0% of precincts reporting. Could be a long night.

8:22 p.m.: Welcome Ace of Spades readers. I'm sorry I fell behind on my liveblogging, but I was working on John McCain's political obituary. Just a hobby of mine.

Just saw Michael Barone on the air with Brit Hume. Barone once bummed a cigarette from me at the Kennedy Center. Or maybe I bummed one from Barone. I can't remember. Anyway, we were outside smoking when up walked Ben Wattenberg. Famous DC people are usually encountered in clumps like that.

7:32 pm.: If Hillary wins in Pennsylvania, the one headline you will not read in tomorrow's papers:

Racist Democrats
Reject Obama in PA

The exit-poll data may indicate that racism played a role in the decision of Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters, but the MSM will never attribute such a sentiment to Democrats, generically. On the other hand, if Democrats eventually nominate Obama, every vote for the Republicans in November will be attributed to racism. To the MSM, "racist" and "Democrat" are mutually exclusive terms.

7:12 p.m.: Michelle Malkin has a live thread going and notes that Hillary won't quit, no matter what -- which is exactly the point I made in The American Spectator on March 26.

7:08 p.m.: A pollster, blogging about exit polls. Like a painter watching paint dry, I suppose.

6:58 p.m.: Crisis '08 exit-poll analysis from Ace:

How do you tell an exit pollster you're voting against the Mocha Messiah?
You can't. It's almost blasphemy.

Or bitterness.

6:31 p.m. Polls don't close until 8 p.m. EDT, but in the meantime, this urgent election bulletin: Crisis '08 HQ has just learned that, according to exit polls, gun owners went for Hillary 58-42. That 16-point spread, however, may actually be bad news for Hillary, since observers had expected her to carry the crucial gun-clinging "bitter" vote by a 2-to-1 margin.

6:18 p.m. The's an open thread at Hot Air, where Allah and the gang are wading through the early exit-poll numbers as if there were actual results. Meanwhile, I'm eating a sandwich while I continue to await ... actual results.

6:09 p.m. Philip Klein says early exit polls show a closer-than-expected result. But early exit poll results are always crap. The official vote count will start coming in soon enough. I'll wait for that. In the meantime, expect further updates on exit-poll panic . . .

5:58 P.M: Via Memeorandum, I bring you two blindingly obvious New York Times headlines:

Turnout High at End of Long Battle in Pennsylvania
. . . and . . .
Heavy Turnout in Pa.

Well, no freaking duh, sporto. A six-week campaign in a primary election that may prove pivotal to the Democratic presidential nomination, and you were thinking maybe turnout would be light?

Is there some kind of instant-stupidity drug that the New York Times administers regularly to its staff? Are they dosing the water-cooler, or what?

UPDATE 5:25 p.m.:

OFFICIAL RETURNS HERE

Now, you may be asking yourself, "If I can just click that link and get official results from the State of Pennsylvania, why should I bother to read what some stupid blogger says about it?"

Good question. But did you ever ask yourself the same question about watching election-night coverage on TV? Let's face it, millions of morons are going to spend tonight watching some guy on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC or Fox News telling them the same kind of stuff you're going to read here tonight. Why?

After all, by the time the TV talking head can say, "Hillary now leads 54 to 44," the official election site will have already updated the results so that it's 53-45 or whatever. The cold, hard, up-to-date facts of the election are not on TV. What people are watching when they watch news on TV is ... a TV show.

TV is about entertainment. It's a carnival, a circus, a spectacle. In other words, TV is show business. TV news is show business, too, and in some senses, TV news is even worse than sitcoms or soap operas, because people in TV news have the annoying habit of telling you what to think.

If you don't understand the difference between show business and news, allow me to suggest that you read a book by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.

My wife and I have six kids, and we have sort of a slogan around our house, "TV rots your brain." The more TV you watch, the dumber you become. The power of television-viewing to destroy the intellect is why we have always limited our children's television viewing.

So tonight, instead of watching the usual carnival freaks on TV (e.g., the oleaginous Dick Morris on Fox) telling you what to think, why not spend the night with me, here in the blogosphere?

I'll update regularly with the latest tidbits of news, throw in a few jokes and stuff and, best of all, I won't tell you what to think.

Oh, I'll tell you what I think -- in the most emphatic manner possible -- but you're always free to think whatever you want. In fact, you can click on the "comments" and tell me what you think. Not that I actually care what you think, but you don't really care what I think, either. So it's equal. Fair and balanced, you might say.

* * * * *

Welcome to the continually updated, entirely subjective Pennsylvania primary election thread. Since we all know that the fate of the Free World -- indeed, the destiny of life in the universe as we know it -- hangs upon the outcome, I'll be passing along news, vote counts, and random gossip from cable TV chatter as soon as it comes in.