"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."
"The questions and concerns that all of you have about the country you so dearly love are the same wherever you go: How do we save freedom and spread liberty? How do we protect American prestige? How do we defend American exceptionalism? How do we stop the country we love so much from becoming just another moribund European socialist state?"
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning. . . . "I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election." He added: "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."
Exit lying. One less member of the Senate Republican "Jellyfish Caucus." Specter reminds me of the high-school slut trying to sleep her way to popularity -- a weak reed, blown by the shifting winds. The fact that the national GOP apparatus lined up behind this venomous crapweasel in 2004 is all you need to know about what a worthless waste of time the national GOP apparatus was during the Bush/Mehlman era. Even if Specter wins the Democratic primary (which is certainly not a given) and wins the general election (also not a given), no one will ever respect him because he is dishonorable and untrustworthy. A pox upon him and his ilk. (Via Memeorandum.) UPDATE: Via Jules Crittenden and Gateway Pundit, a statement from RNC Chairman Michael Steele:
Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.
At least Steele won't have to spend more time pandering to the politically irrelevant "Specter wing" of the GOP. UPDATE II:Philip Klein of The American Spectator:
If Specter had made this party switch right after his vote in favor of the stimulus package, and before he decided to oppose card check, he would have been in a far better position to claim the Democratic nomination.
Interestingly, he remains a foe of EFCA, which means that labor is free to fund and help a real Democrat in the Democratic primary. Bizarre choice. Had he decided to back EFCA, as he has always done so in the past, he'd have labor's full support. Now, he gives the opposition an opening to take him out in the Democratic primary.
When you see Kos using the phrase "real Democrat," it means that the Nutroots will back a Ned Lamont-style challenge to Specter in the Democratic primary, a challenge that every conservative should encourage. The more bitter the Democratic primary, the more obscure and extreme Specter's primary opposition, the better for conservatives.
BTW, I disagree with Klein when he says this:
This is a huge blow for Republicans hoping to stop Obama's agenda in the Senate.
Specter is a "huge blow," in one sense of that term, but he was never a reliable vote for anything. He is one of those vain, unprincipled creatures -- like Robert Byrd or John McCain -- who revel in their self-created image of being a "public servant," an image that is merely an excuse for selfishness and dishonesty. UPDATE III: Notice how the treacherous crapweasel, after describing himself proudly as a member of the "Reagan Big Tent," then pisses all over the Reagan legacy:
When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.
If there is one thing that Reagan firmly stood for as firmly than his hatred of Communist tyrrany, it was his opposition to the Keynesian economic hokum that led to Carter-era "stagflation." If you don't understand why the bailout-and-stimulus idiocy of Obamanomics is bad policy -- It Won't Work -- you need to be reading Hayek and Mises.
By choosing to die on the hill of the stimulus package of all things, Specter reinforces whatever notion there is that stimuli and bailouts are Democratic, not Republican, pet toys. Since professional Republicans are currently scattered in the wind, trying desperately to latch onto the anti-stimulus/bailout Tea Party movement, cementing that divide may come back to haunt Democrats when those policies (inevitably, I think) become so derided that even Barack Obama's impressive popularity can't rescue them.
Senator Specter has confirmed what we already knew – he's a liberal devoted to more spending, more bailouts, and less economic freedom.
The Club For Growth is "heroic," I say, because their support for Republican conservative Pat Toomey was what finally forced Specter to admit that he is a Democrat. As I said at The American Spectator:
Specter will be less useful to the Democrats now than he ever was when he had an "R" beside his name.
UPDATE VI: Some commenter just suggested that, in celebrating the RINO's departure, conservatives like myself were "purging" Sphincter. Nonsense. He purged himself. After years of zealously advancing the Democratic agenda with an "R" beside his name, he's now joined Jumpin' Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee in the Formerly Useful Idiot Coalition.
If Specter were a loyal Republican, he would retire, rather than (a) requiring the National Republican Senatorial Committee to spend money on his primary campaign and (b) forcing Toomey to spend millions on his own campaign.
But loyalty's only ever gone one way with Arlen. Even if he could win the primary, Specter would lose the general election. Yet, like all RINOs, the man is vain and selfish. Expect Snarlin' Arlen to wage a bitter fight, smearing Toomey with negative add, paid for with NRSC contributions.
No conservative should give a penny to the NRSC until Specter announces his retirement.
Matthews is a bridge too far. I could never vote for, raise funds for or in any other way help Chris Matthews become a member of the Senate and if it came down to it, if I lived in Pa, I'd probably support Specter. If we thought Lieberman was perfidious and unreliable, we haven't seen anything yet. Matthews is very nearly nuts as far as I can tell.
He's no more nuts than Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi, but that is damning him with faint praise.
So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Thomas Lifson reports that a McCain volunteer found this note left by a Democrat in a hotel business center:
Bad News from the Keystone State . . . PA is an overwhelmingly white, fundamentally racist state. And I am talking openly, flagrantly racist. Especially in the south west, folks have no problem throwing around the N-word in casual conversation. But unlike the southern states, these white rural folks haven't been solidly converted to the Republican Party. Maybe it's the history of unionism, maybe it was the lack of civil rights issues. But until this election, these rural Democrats haven't had their party allegiance tested by race. These are the "Clinton Democrats", the Murtha Democrats, the Bob Casey Democrats, etc. In August, I sat in a diner in the middle of Fayette County and listened to an older white man at the next table talk about how he'd always been a Democrat, he supported Clinton but couldn't bring himself to vote for a N-word.
Does this mean McCain will win Pennsylvania? I still doubt it. The reason you're seeing reports like this is because Democrat volunteers are working out in Central Pennsylvania, which is tough sledding for any Democrat. If you're an Obama volunteer campaigning in Wilkes-Barre or Chambersburg, it must seem like a daunting uphill battle. However, the Central PA vote will be completely swamped by the massive Obama vote from Philly and its affluent suburbs full of rich white liberals. The polls now indicate the state could be close, but an outright McCain win is the longest of long shots.
UPDATE: As noted here previously, some people are trying to make Palin the scapegoat for an expected GOP defeat Nov. 4. Some of those people are backstabbing assholes professional Republicans working for the McCain campaign:
John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday. And it has decided on Sarah Palin. In recent days, a McCain "adviser" told Dana Bash of CNN: "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone." Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking? Also, a "top McCain adviser" told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is "a whack job." Maybe she is. But who chose to put this "whack job" on the ticket? Wasn't it John McCain? And wasn't it his first presidential-level decision?
The thing to remember about professional political operatives is that when someone is peddling loyalty as a commodity, caveat emptor.
A few more photos from yesterday's Sarah Palin rally at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. The guy in the biege overcoatwith the "Latinos for McPalin" sign is Carl Rodriguez, youth ministry director for the Seventh-Day Adventist church and a buddy of mine. This guy said his baby is voting Republican. A neglected political fact -- babies tend to be hard-core pro-lifers.
Country singer Sarah Marince, who performed before the rally, poses for a picture with some ugly old dude.
"First dude" Todd Palin shakes hands at the "overflow" event after the main rally. At the "overflow" event, Sarah Palin wore a T-shirt with the slogan "Ship Happens" -- an unofficial Shippensburg University motto of sorts.
Steve Corbett, a radio talk show host in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, accidentally received a copy of an internal email sent by Grant Olin who heads the Wilkes-Barre headquarters of the Obama campaign. The email went to 627 Obama campaign volunteers in the Wilkes-Barre Scranton region, saying that Obama Headquarters reported an internal poll which shows that Obama is only 2 points up in Pennsylvania. Sean Smith, who is heading Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, was interviewed by Steve Corbett via phone at 5:35 today to discuss this. He said that Grant "went rogue", and aknowledged that Grant was "reprimanded" for this.
(Via Ace.) I'm finding it hard to believe Grant Olan (the correct spelling) "went rogue." He's a young lawyer from Chicago, about 29, intense, dark haired, a total True Believer in Obama.
I met Grant on the night of the North Carolina primary, which I liveblogged from the Obama campaign's Martinsburg, W.Va., headquarters. Late that night, the Obama crew went to a grocery store coffee shop to use their free Wi-Fi and file their nightly report on their canvassing effort. I spent a little time talking to Grant, who told me that he left his job at a law firm and took a substantial pay cut to work for the Obama campaign.
I next saw Grant in July in Wilkes-Barre, when I went to cover a McCain campaign event for Pajamas Media. Because I had difficulty logging onto the campaign's Wi-Fi system, I went to file my story at a coffee shop around the corner, where I ran into Grant. He was there doing a voter-registration event with his local Obama volunteers (I think they were trying to recruit more volunteers from the protesters who showed up at the McCain event). Again, we talked a while, and Grant told me a few stories about his canvassing experiences in the heart of Hillaryland (Luzerne County voted 3-to-1 for Clinton over Obama in the primary).
If Grant Olan released that internal polling data without authorization, I will bet it was because he was worried that Team Obama was taking Pennsylvania for granted. But if it's really a two-point race in Pennsylvania, the public polls have completely missed it -- six of the seven most recent polls show Obama leading by double digits.
However, Ed Rendell is reportedly worried, so maybe there's some kind of ginormous Bradley effect that the Obama campaign's internal polls caught, but the others didn't. Or maybe Grant Olan's just such a True Believer that a fit of Hope fever drove him into a state of paranoia. (Get well soon, man.)
Former state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Newman said Friday she has no confidence in the integrity of the electoral process in Pennsylvania as a result of the extensive voter registration effort by a community group with ties to Barack Obama. She and other Republicans allege the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, known as ACORN, might be involved in widespread fraud. Pennsylvania and eight other states are investigating suspicious or incomplete registration forms submitted by ACORN canvassers. . . . Newman appeared at a news conference with Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleason and Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico. Gleason, citing "the potential of massive voter fraud" nationwide, said ACORN and other groups had submitted 252,595 voter registrations in Philadelphia. There were 57,435 registrations rejected -- most of them submitted by ACORN, Gleason said. They had faulty Social Security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, "clearly fraudulent" signatures, addresses that did not exist and duplicate registrations, Gleason said. A man was registered to vote 15 times since the primary, according to Gleason, and some people listed vacant lots as their addresses.
Zogby says McCain 49.1%, Obama 44.3% in Pennsylvania:
"This is a classic case of polling as a snapshot in time. We're turning Pennsylvania purple today, as McCain takes a small edge. But as in Ohio, we are watching this closely and things could change in this classically blue state."
Which suggests that Zogby doesn't really believe McCain will win Pennsylvania on Nov. 4. But Ed Morrissey understates the impact:
[I]f McCain takes Pennsylvania and holds Ohio and Florida, it will be difficult for Obama to prevail in a national election.
No, actually, if McCain takes either Pennsylvania or Michigan, it's lights out for Obama. (Zogby has Obama +5.7 in Michigan.) If the Republican wins Pennsylvania, it will be due to an overall strength that puts states like Virginia off-limits for Obama.
Zogby's Electoral College map closely resembles the 2004 Kerry-Bush map, which isn't good news for Obama. Zogby is correct to caution that these latest results reflect McCain at or near a post-convention peak, and the polls are likely to zigzag back and forth a few times yet. But for the Republican candidate to be in this position seven weeks before Election Day is surprising.
YORK, Pa. -- Grand Funk Railroad's "American Band" blared from the speakers as Sen. John McCain shook hands with supporters following his town hall meeting here yesterday. The song's lyrics -- celebrating a rock band's hedonistic depredations with groupies like "Sweet Connie" -- don't quite match the staid image of the GOP, but like the '70s rockers, the presidential candidate was here to help Pennsylvania Republicans "party down." "I think we're going to be up late on election night, and I'm the underdog," McCain told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the Toyota Arena, and made a prediction: "I think you're going to hear the commentators say, 'Well, we're waiting for Pennsylvania.'" That the result on Nov. 4 could hinge on Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes is an optimistic forecast for a candidate who continues to trail his Democratic rival inrecent national polls. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Pennsylvania since 1988, and recent statewide polls show Sen. Barack Obama leading by more than 7 points. . . .
John McCain will hold a town hall Tuesday morning in York, Pa., and I'll be there to cover it. It's about an hour-and-a-half drive time, and I'll leave early. I'll try to live blog as much of the event as possible, here and at AmSpecBlog, but other than that, blogging activity will be light Tuesday.
John McCain’s campaign had a little fun at Barack Obama’s expense tonight, issuing a fake press pass to the McCain traveling press on the bus as we landed at the airport here. The front of the pass identifies the McCain press corps as the “JV Squad” and has the caption “Left Behind to Report in America.” The reverse side features a Frenchman pouring a glass of wine with the same caption en francaise (“Laisse en arriere pour faire un rapport en Amerique”). The fake press pass satirizes the preferential treatment that the McCain campaign suggests the media has given Barack Obama.
This comes at a very bad time for Democrats. They need to hold Pennsylvania in November if they want to win the Presidency, but a massive corruption scandal makes that a lot less likely. . . . [T]his could tip the Keystone State into the red column for 2008 — and possibly several more cycles beyond that.
Sorry, Ed, you're wrong. Having co-authored an entire book on the Democratic Party's history of corruption, I can tell you that people who vote Democrat don't care how crooked the Democrats are. You don't vote for the party of Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton if you care about honesty in government.
The Democratic Party's something-for-nothing ethic -- the thievish and corrupting notion that people are entitled to government benefits paid for by other people's taxes -- renders the party scandal-proof. Oh, sure, Democrats pretend to be upset when Republicans are caught in scandalous behavior. But their phony outrage merely hides their glee at the prospect of ousting a Republican, so they can elect more Democrats, so they can vote themselves more "free" government benefits.
If the people of Pennsylvania cared about corruption, they would never have elected as their governor Ed Rendell, boss of the notorious Philadelphia machine. Republicans therefore cannot benefit politically from a Democratic scandal in Pennsylvania, because it is the voters themselves who are the source of the corruption.
It is foolish to expect public officials to uphold standards of morality that their constituents routinely disregard. How is the politician who lines his pockets from embezzled funds any worse than the man who joins a corrupt labor union? (Of course, all labor unions are corrupt.) How is a crooked government employee worse than someone who votes for Democrats in hopes of getting more taxpayer-funded benefits? It's theft either way, and calling it "progressive social policy" doesn't make it moral.
Ah, time for conservatives to lay back, relax, light up a cigarette, and enjoy the bliss. "Operation Chaos" has scored, bigtime. That's right, Democrats. You've just been screwed.
Forget all the spin from the talking heads on TV. As I explain over at The American Spectator blog, there is only one man in America powerful enough to have made this happen:
It can scarcely be denied that Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos helped build Hillary's 10-point margin in Pennsylvania. More than 160,000 Republican voters switched their registration to Democrat in advance of Tuesday's primary, and undoubtedly many of those were hard-core Dittoheads who did just what Limbaugh has been suggesting for weeks: Vote for Hillary, in order to produce a deadlock in the Democratic presidential nomination fight.
Be sure to read the whole thing, since I have a hunch what Rush is going to do next. He's bitter, you know.
After a grueling six-week campaign in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton just beat Barack Obama by double digits -- as of 12:30 a.m., it was 55% to 45% with 98% of precincts reporting, according to CNN.
Now, my dear progressive friends, the MSM will spend the next week amplifying and echoing Hillary's claim that her big win in Pennsylvania means "the tide is turning" in her favor. You're going to hear this claim parroted, in one form or another, all the way to Sunday, when Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, and Wolf Blitzer do their hourlong shows, which will then be digested and regurgitated for Monday's newspapers.
So we're looking at a solid week, at least, of talk about Hillary's big comeback to help sway those undecided primary voters in North Carolina and Indiana.
Can you say "bandwagon effect"? Better yet, can you say ... quagmire?
UPDATE: She sent me a thank-you e-mail:
Dear Robert, Thanks to you, we won a critically important victory tonight in Pennsylvania. It's a giant step forward that will transform the landscape of the presidential race. And it couldn't have happened without you. There will be much more to do beginning tomorrow. But tonight, let's just celebrate the fact that you and I are part of a remarkable community of people tough enough, passionate enough, and determined enough to win big when everything is on the line. Thanks so much for all you do.
Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
"Tonight, let's ... celebrate ... you and I are ... passionate." Such a minx, and so subtle ...
If anyone doubts that "Operation Chaos" was a real factor in Tuesday's result, check out Rush's interview with one of the troops, "doing the Lord's work" in Exton, Pa. Republican operatives, afraid that publicity could doom Limbaugh's plan, deny it is having an impact:
RUSH: We'll start with Fox & Friends on the Fox News Channel this morning. The cohost Gretchen Carlson had this exchange with McCain campaign New York state chairman Ed Cox about Operation Chaos. (AUDIO:) CARLSON: We want to talk to you about Operation Chaos, because Rush Limbaugh has been advocating his listeners to go out and register Democrat and vote for Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary, just to keep the whole chaos going on the Democratic side. Ed, your thoughts on that. COX: Well, I -- I don't think that's going to have that much of an impact in the end, uhhh, but -- especially with this kind of a large turnout.
Ah, the old "plausible deniability," you see?
UPDATE III: I'm amused by how many pundits -- Marc Armbinder, for one -- still seem to be stuck in the Conventional Wisdom mode of thinking Obama's got the nomination locked up and that Hillary is toast. This is clearly a situation in which Conventional Wisdom is worse than useless, but is indeed a hindrance to comprehending the genuine weirdness of the political reality.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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:
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?
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.
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.
Nothing annoys me quite as much as Election Day guesswork like this item at the Weekly Standard's blog:
Pennsylvania voters might produce a surprisingly close outcome in today’s Democratic primary. The buzz in Washington from several Democratic operatives I talked to yesterday suggests Team Obama is fired up and ready to over perform. "They’re putting out the word they won’t win, but it will be close," a veteran Democratic operative told me. And in this expectations game, "close" is a win, especially since Clinton needs a 8-10 point win to keep her narrative alive. They must see something in their tracking numbers that suggests the race has tightened. . . .
(Via Memeorandum.) Look, people, we'll have actual election results in just a few hours. Why not just wait a little while until they start counting votes in Pennsylvania, instead of bothering the readers with what can only be called pre-spin?
And what the hell is this secondhand blind-source reporting crap? A "veteran Democratic operative" says Team Obama is "putting out the word," and on the basis of that, you boldly declare that the Obama campaign "must" -- must! -- "must see something in their tracking numbers." That's not news, that's gossip.
This is the trouble with anonymous sources and secondhand reporting, see? I have no idea who Drudge's sources were, so I ended up with poll numbers in my story that I cannot verify, Team Hillary can deny the whole thing, and I've got no way to resolve this factual dispute.
At least I cited Drudge as my source, whereas the Weekly Standard has an anonymous "veteran Democratic operative" feeding them info about what "must"(!) be in Obama's internal polling. While I can blame Drudge for my gaffe, who will the Weekly Standard blame if the "veteran Democratic operative" has it all wrong?
Playing the expectations game on Election Day is a waste of time, anyway, since nothing published on Election Day can have any effect on the outcome. No Democratic primary voter in Pennsylvania is going to log onto the 'Net, surf over to the Weekly Standard site and say, "A-ha! That clinches it! I'm voting for Obama!"
And despite what a "veteran Democratic operative" tells Gary Andres, neither the source nor the reporter has any firm idea what the outcome will be when the votes are finally tallied. If you want to make an actual prediction -- for example, if you'd like to put $20 on the proposition that the margin of victory in Pennsylvania will be less than 6 points -- then, by all means, make that prediction. But knock it off with all this pseudo-predictive "sources say" crap.
People have gotten into this habit of talking in a pseudo-predictive way on Election Day because they've watched TV news people do it for so long. There's the TV news anchor at "Decision '08 Headquarters," waiting for the actual vote counts to start coming in. The anchor's got to fill the time with something, so he brings on pollsters and analysts and commentator types to chatter away about "key demographics," and how Candidate X needs to score big with middle-aged suburban white women in order to have a chance to win.
Some of this "Decicion '08 HQ" blather may actually be true, but that doesn't mean it's not still blather, since whatever actual facts they report -- e.g., the vote counts, the demographics, past voting trends, poll numbers, etc. -- are readily available to the public from other sources.
It ill behooves writers to imitate this kind of idiotic TV news blather.
UPDATE:Jim Antle reacts to the Gary Andres report:
"Remember, closeness counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and unexpectedly close Pennsylvania primaries!"
For what it's worth, I think the Obama people are blowing smoke. I expect Hillary to win Pennsylvania by double digits, perhaps by as much as 14 points. But I may be biased, because Hillary and I are so close.
Hillary Clinton today issued three statements (one, two, three) on the housing crisis. Something tells me that somebody spent the weekend huddled with her pollsters.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere is feasting on the Hillary crisis, especially the suggestion by Clinton-backer Evan Bayh that Electoral College votes -- not actual delegates -- should determine the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. TNR's Christopher Orr comments:
Apart from that convenient fact there's pretty much nothing to recommend this method--either Democrat is all but certain to win states such as New York and California (and, yes, Connecticut) and to lose states such as Texas (and Utah). But then, describing reality really isn't what these exercises are about, is it?
Mapquest says my house is "155 mi – about 2 hours 43 mins" from Greensburg, Pa. Because of my profound interest in Mrs. Clinton's campaign, I've decided it's worth the drive, especially since The American Spectator has generously agreed to help me meet the challenge of rising fuel prices. Talk about "Solutions for America"!
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The guy in the biege overcoatwith the "Latinos for McPalin" sign is Carl Rodriguez, youth ministry director for the Seventh-Day Adventist church and a buddy of mine. 
This guy said his baby is voting Republican. A neglected political fact -- babies tend to be hard-core pro-lifers. 
"First dude" Todd Palin shakes hands at the "overflow" event after the main rally. 
At the "overflow" event, Sarah Palin wore a T-shirt with the slogan "Ship Happens" -- an unofficial Shippensburg University motto of sorts.
