Outside the Beltway

BIG TUESDAY SIMUL-BLOGGING (ONGOING)

James Joyner · Tuesday, February 3, 2004 · 3 comments

In what has become a recent OTB tradition, I did one long post of the unfolding coverage of the evening’s primary results. I’ve moved the results to the Extended Entry section for posterity.

(1927): Washington Post Elections 2004, along with everyone else, projects Edwards the winner based on exit polling. The early count:

Sen. John Edwards 381 42%
Sen. John F. Kerry 271 30%
Gen. Wesley K. Clark 105 12%
Howard Dean 67 7%
Al Sharpton 52 6%
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman 16 2%
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich 5 1%
Rep. Richard A. Gephardt 2 0%
Carol Moseley Braun 0 0%

I presume the page will be updated throughout the evening.

(1942): I’ve decided to turn this into another continual post rather than posting numerous things to link to. I’ll be updating and pinging periodically.

(1943): Robert Prather is well underway with his simul-blog.

(1945): Jeff Quinton is taking the traditional multi-post route.

(1948): Drudge is still displaying early exit data from 1710–that’s really from 1500 or so. What’s up with that? He used to be the place to turn for super-fast updates; now, he’s the online National Enquirer.

(1942): Oliver Willis is posting like crazy, including a fairly amusing Baghdad Bob-Joe Lieberman parody.

(2000) Polls have closed in Missouri, Delaware, and Oklahoma.

(2001) Fox projects Kerry as the winner in Missouri and Delaware. Oklahoma is within the margin of error for Kerry, Edwards, and Clark. That will be the only dramatic contest of the night, most likely, with drop-out speculation as the other ongoing story.

(2008) YahooNews is providing AP numbers periodically on the actual vote totals for all the races.

(2012) The Fox commenters are making a big deal of the fact that Al Sharpton only got 9% of the vote in South Carolina–and only 25% of the black vote–which is far less than Jesse Jackson got in 1984 or 1988. As I’ve been saying for weeks, Sharpton is no Jesse Jackson.

(2016) Howard Dean is–calmly–talking to his supporters and assuring them he’s in for the long haul. He says that one can’t run against special interests while leading the Senate in special interest donations. Of course, one can’t win a nomination winning 0 of the first 9 states and being unable to pay one’s staff, either.

(2020) Brit Hume notes that Dean didn’t congratulate–or even name–any of those who came in ahead of him.

(2021) Steven Taylor has joined the fray, opting for multiple posts. Scroll down, etc.

(2025) Susan Estrich is on Fox News Channel dispensing more of the expertise that got Michael Dukakis elected in 1988.

(2027) CNN has joined in proclaiming Kerry the winner in Missouri and Delaware. Their graphics are quite good and they appear to be updating their numbers.

(2031) The Missouri exit polls show that Kerry pretty much ran away with it. He won an outright majority–remarkable for a non-native son in an 8-way race–and won most of the significant demographic categories. Most impressive indeed.

(2035) Mort Kondracke has just proclaimed that Clark is “toast” if he doesn’t win Oklahoma, given that he’s not winning anywhere else. It’s keen insights like that that separate the professionals from we lowly amateurs.

(2042) Stephen Green is multi-posting as well. And he may or may not have compared those of us simulblogging this thing to Howard Dean.

(2047) Michael Barone thinks John Edward’s “the rich are keeping you down” rhetoric won’t wear well “throughout the long primary season or in the general election.” Aside from the fact that he wouldn’t make it to the general election if it doesn’t wear well in the primaries, I tend to agree.

(2051) Juan Williams thinks it’s wearing just fine, thank you.

(2109) Joe Lieberman has dropped out. He’s going to speak to his supporters, such as they are, momentarily.

(2113) Taking a break. Will return in an hour or so.

(2209) It doesn’t look like I missed all that much. The CNN totals show that, with 88% of the votes counted, Edwards and Clark are tied at 30% with Kerry right there at 26%.

(2226) Kevin Drum has the halftime score with some observations.

Robert Garcia recaps Edwards on Hardball.

Chris Lawrence recaps the race to the tune of a Nickelback song.

John Cole just watched Seabiscuit. Which candidate is that? Probably Kerry, since he was in the Navy.

Cam Edwards assesses his predictions. He’s batting .500.

Dean Esmay bids farewell to Joe Lieberman.

Donnie Hall is rooting for the demise of Wesley Clark.

(2231) Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds think the closeness of the Oklahoma race will keep the pundits happy for a while. I smell a recount!

Laurence Simon coins the term “Joenertia.” Ouch. Piling on the poor, downtrodden Jews again.

(2241) Closing out the simulblogging and going to “substantive” posts.

(2256) Quick update: With 97% of the precincts in, Clark and Edwards are still knotted up, with Kerry a respectable but unwinnable third:

Clark 89,173 30%
Edwards 87,342 30%
Kerry 78,765 27%

(2302) MSNBC has 99% totals:

Wesley Clark 89,861 30% 0
John Edwards 88,577 30% 0
John Kerry 80,288 27% 0

Clark needs to keep that 300 vote lead to have any rationale at all for remaining in the race. From a delegate standpoint, it’s virtually irrelevant since it’s a proportional representation system–but it’s “winner take all” in the press. MSNBC’s chart is the best I’ve seen, since it links to state-by-state exit polls as well.

(2331) I posted this separately above, but I’ll repeat here for those following a permalink: CBS News has called the tight Oklahoma race for Wesley Clark:

Wesley CLARK 90423 30%

John EDWARDS 89169 30%

This could be enough to keep him in the race–which would certainly hurt Edwards as the “moderate alternative”–even though he’s got virtually no shot at winning the nomination.

CNN and MSNBC still have only the 99% figure up.