It is with deep regret that we note the passing of the famous schizo-soprano, Fat Lady. Our heartfelt condolences to family and friend.
Well I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the results. Michiganders are suckers for people who compliment our trees and all the little inland lakes that dot the parts of Michigan. And Mitt did that like no other candidate.
That quote made me feel more sympathy for him than for any other candidate so far. Because if I were to run for office, I’d say much the same about Upstate New York. Since I’m not a people person, I can only explain my love for the place by saying that the air smells right up there, and the hills are the right height.
You really didn’t think this phrasing through, did you?
Did you have the FAT LADY in the Celebrity Death Pool?
On the contrary. I don’t think there will ever be a presidential candidate with as much double meaning to his name, and such a filthy one at that, and so I make use of the filthiness every chance I get.
Call me a middle schooler, but to me, it never gets old.
Looks like the delegate count is going to be close - as I post this, Santorum leads in eight districts, and Romney in six. If this holds, and they decide to split the two statewide delegates equally (it’s not winner-take-all statewide like it is in the districts), this gives Santorum 17 delegates to 13 for Romney. (Still, Romney is the winner of the night, as he gets all of the Arizona delegates.)
The other strange thing is, apparently Michigan is assigning its full delegate count (3 per district plus however many statewide it gets), but only some of them will be allowed to vote. I assume that, if Romney doesn’t have the nomination wrapped up by the convention, the “non-voting” delegates either will not be allowed to attend or they will be seated as alternates (but if Romney does have it locked up, the RNC will allow all of the penalized states to send their full delegations).
I don’t understand how Romney, his team, his supporters, and the media can think that Romney’s victory in Michigan is actually a win for him.
He was born and raised here. His father was a popular governor. Now I understand that most people under 60 don’t remember this, but for all intents and purposes, Romney was shaped by his childhood here, and went to school here through high school. Both he and his wife have roots here. He stressed this over and over in the past month.
He and his supporters reportedlyoutspent Santorum 2-1 in Michigan.
In the past three weeks, Santorum blew his debate performance, attacked JFK, alienated women with his fringe view of birth control, and attacked the idea of going to college. Basically, went off the rails.
As of 8:30 this morning, district-by-district results have come slowly, but more than half of the state’s delegates have been awarded thus far, and they’re in a dead heat. Tied.
He only got about 60,000 votes more this time than he did in '08, and he has a lot less active competition this time around.
All that being said, after all of the factors that should have allowed him to blow Rick Santorum out of the water here, he only won by 3%! Slightly more than 32,000 votes! He out-spent the craziest, fringiest candidate that has no real campaign infrustructure, by 2-to-1, but yet won by a smaller margin than he beat McCain four years ago. When there were almost twice as many active candidates on the ballot. And he may not even win Michigan’s delegate battle at the end of the day.
People of the world: Romney failed. The GOP should be shitting themselves today.
Take comfort in knowing that she did not die unbuggered. 
Why is that?! How did Santorum have such appeal in Michigan?!
It only works because Santorum has an unusual-in-America name that sounds like it could be the technical name of a substance. Nobody would have thought of trying to name assjuice “clinton” or “reagan” or “bush” (the latter being burdened already with its own middle-school-humorous connotations, of course).
I’d say it’s two things: 1) People don’t like Mitt Romney, and 2) Much of the state (west and rural) is made up of social conservatives, to which Rick Santorum appeals.
I heard this morning that Santorum got a 3% bump from democrat voters. They apparently felt he was the weaker candidate for the general.
I don’t know what they think, but in terms of how they are discussing this with the public and press, it’s simple: they will take whatever positivity they can get. They did not initially expect this campaign to be this difficult and they came very close to losing the state, which would have been a big embarrassment and started an even bigger round of questions about why Romney continued to give away leads and lose primaries he looked like he should win. So if they lost the delegate count in Michigan and won the popular vote, they will take it. Some of his other wins have arguably been even less impressive, but it’s better than losing.
Romney’s gaffes and personal/conservative flaws, plus “let Detroit go bankrupt” and some crossover voting.
Nobody made much of it until 1998, but guys named William and the middle initial J - like William Jefferson Clinton - sometimes go by B.J.
I’m sure they are, discreetly behind the scenes. They’re stuck with a candidate who almost lost his home state to somebody who’s spent the past week shooting himself in the foot with a Gatling gun.
Your good points about how big his win should have been aside, it’s not even really a win in the actual numbers that are coming out. It looks Romney and Santorum are splitting the delegates (link). It’s nice for Mitt if he can get a moral boost out of narrowly taking the popular vote, but since Michigan is not winner-take-all, ‘winning the state’ is essentially meaningless.
And that doesn’t matter because it gives Romney his momentum back, which is much more important than a “moral boost.”
I think The Onion puts it best. As usual.
Because the media cover politics as a horse race, the same rules apply as in boxing: if you don’t knock out the champ, you’ve lost. That’s a mixed metaphor, but so is all of life, son.
And they’d be in better shape if Santorum had won?
Once the primaries are over, the media will drop all mention of who did what when and start the race over. Romney will be a winner, anointed at a four-day infomercial of a Republican convention, which will give him a several point bump in the polls, just as it did John McCain in 2008. He’s still a poor candidate but obviously superior to any of the alternatives. Public perception will be of him as the Republican nominee, freshly minted, handsome, well groomed, and low cholesterol. Who are these people? The same ones as in every race - the ones who don’t start paying attention until Labor Day. They aren’t hanging out in Elections forums on message boards. They are the swing voters, not because they are independent but because they are inattentive.
Eh, I’ve said this before. And people will still be surprised in September when this all comes to pass. That happens every four years as well. I don’t have any deep insights, I just have a better memory.
The boost Romney gets from winning Arizona and the Michigan popular vote is probably much more important than getting a couple of extra delegates in Michigan. As his campaign goes on, he’ll get delegates. The perception that he just lost a state he had so many advantages in would hurt a lot more. This race isn’t going to end any time soon.