Empire of the Iguanadons

So once more the political hacks were wrong. Once more the race took another unexpected turn. Clinton won big tonight in the Ohio primaries, beating Obama there by quite a wide margin. Most media pundits figured she had to but said if she did it would be the narrowest of narrow victories. It was anything but that. She also added Rhode Island to her list of victories. Texas remains too close to call, and Obama took Vermont. It's giving every indication that the Democrats will be at this until August and I couldn't be happier to hear it.

On the Republican side of things, John McCain has sealed the deal by winning all four contests tonight which finally drew the expected concession from Mike Huckabee. McCain now has enough delegates to claim victory and the second phase of his campaign begins - uniting the Republicans and focusing all of our energy on defeating the Democrats in November. With a relatively early win in the bag there will be plenty of time to mend fences and formulate a strategy. It's a huge advantage.

And now, on with the results:

Results by State
Republicans	Democrats
Vermont Primaries - 86% reporting
John McCain: 72% +17 delegates [Winner takes all]	Barack Obama: 60% +9 delegates
Mike Huckabee: 14%	Hillary Clinton: 38% +6 delegates
Ron Paul: 7%
Rhode Island Primaries - 98% reporting
John McCain: 65% +10 delegates [Winner takes all]	Hillary Clinton: 58% +12 delegates
Mike Huckabee: 22%	Barack Obama: 40% +8 delegates
Ron Paul: 7%
Ohio Primaries - 89% reporting
John McCain: 60% +79 delegates [Winner takes all]	Hillary Clinton: 55% +54 delegates
Mike Huckabee: 31%	Barack Obama: 43% +29 delegates
Ron Paul: 5%
Texas Primaries - 89% reporting
John McCain: 51% +70 delegates [Winner takes all]	Hillary Clinton: 51% +16 delegates
Mike Huckabee: 38%	Barack Obama: 47% +10 delegates
Ron Paul: 5%

Delegate Totals to Date
John McCain: 1,289 - Republican Nominee ( 1191 required )
Mitt Romney: 255 [Dropped out]
Mike Huckabee: 267 [Dropped out]
Ron Paul: 21

Barack Obama: 1,520
Hillary Clinton: 1,424
John Edwards: 26 [Dropped out]

The remainder of the Republican race is just a formality at this stage, but McCain will almost certainly get piles and piles more delegates in the 16 remaining contests left. Ron Paul can take his 21 delegates and go get drunk or something. Clinton stays alive to make things more interesting for awhile.

Next up on the agenda, the Wyoming Democratic caucuses on Saturday. Oh, the excitement!
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

While I really hope that the Democrats don't win regardless, it'd be nice if they would send the message to Mrs. Clinton that she's not the "man for the job" even in their eyes. *shrug*

No no, you don't get it. We *WANT* them to fight it out to the end. The more time and money they're forced to expend against each other is less time and money they have to focus on McCain. Who knows, maybe they'll go to the convention, end up in a deadlock, have to resort to a brokered deal and Al Gore would end up the nominee. As crazy as that sounds it's been floated as a possibility if things go that far. Brokered conventions basically throw the entire voting process out the window. It would be all the proof people need to realize just who it is that's been responsible for disenfranchising so many people in so many past elections. They've already done it to their own in Florida and Michigan.

That'd work for me too, I just don't want to see Hillary in the White House ten months from now. Otherwise, at this point I don't have a candidate of choice presently, just candidates that I don't want. *sigh*

Let's face it, I'm not a democrat (even if I were I'd be far too ashamed of the current candidates to consider admiting that I was one, but I'm not anyway...) and there'd be no point in outright wasting my vote by casting my ballot for Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, or any of the other Green Party candidates.. let alone Gloria LaRiva, Gene Amondson, Brian P. Moore, or Róger Calero... I can't imagine that one of the independant or write-in nominees is likely to get enough votes to be a serious competitor and I have no idea what sort of stance the candidates from the Libertarian or Constitution parties might have, but again I don't really see them being one of the majority leaders in the election this year. That leaves me with John McCain, whether I like it or not, no?

(Btw, some of your readers might find this site helpful in tracking down who's who this year: Ron Gunzburger's Politics1. In fact, you might consider asking if he'd do a link exchange with you for this site... just a thought.)