Romney's night of humiliation is capped as someone moves to glitter-bomb him following his Denver speech.
It's looking like Romney will not win a single county in Missouri.
Make that 2 out of 2 so far for Rick Santorum. Missouri and Minnesota, with Colorado still to be decided.
The word coming from the Mitt campaign is that Missouri doesn't really matter because there are no delegates there and they didn't commit time or money. The problem, though, is that Santorum doesn't really have any time or money to commit there either. And if you're the frontrunner, the presumed nominee, you get clobbered in a swing state just because you didn't aggressively campaign there? That's a very, very low standard. Santorum is clearly leaning hard on evangelicals. And really this isn't about Santorum. It's about Romney. Absent crushing spending and a week or so to focus on a single state, Romney seems to have a really rough time. That's bad, especially in the Midwest where a Republican candidate has to run strong. And especially when he's faltering in national polls versus President Obama.
I'm looking at the county by county breakdown of the Missouri numbers here. And there are no results in from either Kansas City or St. Louis. I'd figure those have to be better for Mitt than most of the rest of the state. But but at the moment, with 23% of precincts reporting, Santorum is up over Romney by over 27%. So they're going to have to be radically different or Mitt's toast.
As they say, we're still really, really early. But we have 12% reporting in Missouri and Santorum is up over Romney by over 24 points. That's a big spread even with so few results. It's a similar margin in Minnesota, albeit with a meager 3%. If Romney loses 2 of 3 of these contests, what's the headline tomorrow morning?
8:31 PM: We've got a tiny trickle of results in from both Missouri and Minnesota. And they show Rick Santorum ahead in both states. But at again, at or 1%. So just the first hints. Nothing more.
9:02 PM: So in case you're wondering why a bunch of votes just seemed to disappear in Missouri, the AP adjusted their numbers down. A bit weird. But it's something that happens. Not something to read anything into.
We're a few minutes away from the first results from the Missouri primary. We'll have live county by county results here.
This is, to put it mildly, a weird contest. First, it's non-binding. No delegates are actually at stake. Second, Newt Gingrich did not manage to get on the ballot. So it's Romney, Santorum and Paul.
There's been very little polling of this contest. But the latest poll out this morning shows Rick Santorum with a double digit lead over Romney. Add anecdotal reports of light turnout. And that makes it even more unpredictable.
Free advice for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: Don't use the password "12345."
At CPAC, the big annual conservative confab that kicks off in DC on Thursday, Accuracy in Media will be presenting the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News.
Map shows the status of Gay Marriage in states across the USA.
Click image to see full chart.
Michelle Obama in a tug of war with Jimmy Fallon in the Blue Room of the White House. Really.
Why the payroll tax extension is really in jeopardy.
Obama describes the looming $500 million Koch/Rove attacks that made them rethink Super PACs.
Dems get out the popcorn for Ryan Plan: Part II.
TPM Reader Anon asks for a rethink ...
I'm a long time reader. I gave several hundred dollars to the Obama campaign in 2008 (and am sure I was well over a thousand given to all Democrats I supported). I worry about conservative Catholic bishops. I worry about the GOP in this time of talk radio and Fox News. I fear greatly the possibility of the GOP winning in 2012. I am not a conservative, by any stretch of the imagination.Read More →
TPM Reader JW thinks he knows why Team Mitt went ballistic. (And I think he's right.)
Ultimately Mitt's primary campaign is based on electability. If Republican voters don't think he is more likely to beat Obama, what is actually left for Mitt?Read More →
Obama campaign announces dramatic reversal on Super Pacs, will greenlight rivals to the mega-Super Pacs currently raising for the GOP nominee.
TPM Reader JR wonders what the Romney camp was thinking going so all out to discredit today's ABC/WaPo poll ...
I've followed with curiosity today Team Mitt's complaint about the WaPo/ABC poll methodology on the horse race question.Read More →It's a very strange complaint that leaves me scratching my head as to what they hoped to gain from this, and how sincere their complaint really is.
What's the latest on the Pete Hoekstra "Chinese" ad that's been generating all the controversy? A follower on Twitter points out that in the html code on Hoekstra's site the woman in the ad is identified as "yellowgirl." I checked and sure enough he's right.
It seems from the context that they might be referring to the yellow shirt the "Chinese" woman is wearing. But probably just another level of the unfortunateness.
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Senior Associate Editor
Associate Editor
Assistant Editor
Reporters
News Writers
Video Editor
Research Interns
Christopher Hohmuth
Tom Kludt
Publishing Intern
Christopher O’Driscoll
General Manager & General Counsel
VP, Ad Sales
Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support
Deputy Publisher
Director of Technology
Designer/Developer
Matthew Wozniak