Live Blog: South Carolina Republican Primary
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: Exit Polls, live blog, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, South Carolina primary 70 Comments
Here we go folks! It looks like Mitt Romney is about to get an a$$ whipping. Newt Gingrich’s ego is going to fill the whole room tonight. I don’t think I can face listening to his speech. I still say Romney is going to be the nominee, but I’m glad things are getting a little more interesting.
The South Carolina polls close at 7PM, so in just a short time, we’ll start getting exit poll results. Judging by the talking heads on MSNBC, I’d say Newt is going to win pretty big. But we’ll know soon.
Here are a few recent headlines to hold you till we start getting results.
Buzzfeed: BYU Students Bus In To South Carolina To Rally For Romney
Politico: South Carolina Republican primary: 5 things to watch
CBS News: South Carolina primary exit polls: 2/3rds say debates mattered
Fox News: Gingrich, Romney close South Carolina fight with taunts
Washington Post: How Newt Gingrich’s past marriages may be helping him in SC
Sima
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
fiscalliberal
grayslady
Minkoff Minx
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Exit polls are showing that about 2/3 of the voters are white, evangelical born agains that identify with the Tea Party.
CNN is reporting exit polls
Gingrich 38%
Romney 29%
I’ve been reading all the comments about Newt Leroy more than likely winning tonight and found it hard to sit here and restrain my judgement of South Carolinians if he does win – Dr. Ablow’s comments about what a positive his actions were is just beyond reality – where have all the adults disappear to? (roll)
I know. We live in a new dark age.
There are days I just want to go off the grid myself.
Dr. Ablow is a bona fide creep, imho.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Exit poll shows SC voters made up their minds late
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/exit-poll-shows-sc-1311619.html
On CNN they are saying there is no way Gingrich will be the nominee. If Romney does really badly, calls will be going out to Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal to see if they are interested. If Romney doesn’t win Florida, there will be calls for him to get out.
I don’t know if I buy that.
I just might buy that. Hard to see any way for Gingrich to win a general.
Bobby Jindal?!
No, maybe Bob McConnell or Bush though.
I said they’d be calling Jindal.
Do they have early voting in SC?
I doubt it. They’re doing everything they can to keep people from voting down there.
MSNBC calls it for Gingrich.
Wow, he must have won big!
MSNBC – losers! They forgot to tell Sirius/XM to leave them on the air tonight. I’m stuck listing to either CNN or Fox News.
Sorry about that. Tweetie actually made a little bit of sense when he said that Gingrich winning SC, even if Romney is the ultimate nominee, moved the whole Republican race to the right. That leaves Obama a lot more room to run.
CNN still hasn’t made the call. They say they want to wait for some real results first.
It looks like newt has a good size margin. Santorum is in 3rd place ahead of Ron Paul.
Ron Paul should come in dead last in any race!
Gingrich won among married women. LOL
That’s just unbelievable!
They’re saying women, not just married women, went for Gingrich over Romney. Incredible.
These are women that are used to being abused. It is stockhom syndrome
Well, bless their hearts!
Women went for Newtered over Mittens? WTF?
Kinda like the woman whose husband punched in the nose, and the wife believes he was justified in doing so.
These aren’t christian women, they love their womanizers.
Although I expected Newter to win – I am truly sick to my stomach. I thought W was my worst nightmare.
Steve Schmidt on MSNBC brought up the favorability polls and Lawrence O’Donnell is stating NO ONE has ever overcome unfavorable ratings like Newt’s. There is no way he could win a general election. NEVER, NO ONE, IMPOSSIBLE, frankly those words scare me. I don’t consider myself superstitious, but why, why tempt fate? Especially if the result is The should be Newtered One? Deep breath, deep breath………………………
He can’t win the general if he doesn’t get the nomination, and believe me, the bosses are going to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Steve Schmidt just said that if Romney doesn’t get control and stop making stupid errors, he’s not nearly as inevitable as he used to think. Interesting exit poll number out of SC, people there think Gingrich is the most electable (48%). That’s completely bizarre!
I think obama would love it if the newter got it.
Ha and I used to think Texas was a whole other country, but not compared to SC,
I can’t see newt getting votes in the northeast or west. He is a southern pol.
I don’t think Mass. Repubs would go for Newt.
BTW Scott Brown announced he’s voting against PIPA.
Obama polls ahead of Newt in Texas. He was dead last in the last poll done.
Too many people that aren’t hyperreligous won’t buy the conversion thing. Swaggert is still in business. It plays into their fantasy.
Romney sounded pretty fired up. How did he look?
Like one of newts jilted chronically ill wives who just got left in the dust.
LOL
I had to shut Ron Paul up. I just can’t listen to his whiny voice any longer.
Really ought to stick a sock in that old fool.
Santorum claims he’s going to provide opportunties for everyone?
Uh-oh… back on “values.” Get married before you have children. The importance of families (if they’re his kind of families that is)
Western viewpoint here.
Let me tell ya all — I get really pissed off when a whole primary is determined by an idiot caucus Iowa, upstate dufusville, the south etc.
So once the idiots have chosen — then the rest of the country gets to pick the left overs???
I’m so not going to vote for any damned legacy BS party whores.
Newtie — should be neutered — dough boy for sure.
South Carolina — you are bunch of drooling fools.
Yeah, we never have anything to say here in MA either.
No damned way to run a democracy.
And the GOP has already announced that some state’s primary votes will either not count or be considered 1/2 vote.
Jokers on the left and Jokers on the right. . . . .
Cain sings and quotes Pokemon at Colbert rally.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/cain-sings-quotes-pok-mon-rally-colbert-supp
The Lockheed-Martin Luther Burger King of corporate civil rights. That was funny.
Looks like Rachel was right about the Cain campaign as performance art.
I want numbers for Stephen Colbert/Cain. I think Perry dropped out because he was afraid he would lose to a comedian.
I’ve been waiting for MSNBC to post Colbert/Cain numbers, but they haven’t. Listened to part of Romney’s speech – looked & sounded like he’s got his mojo back. Watched portions of Paul’s & Santorum’s. I changed the channel to watch My Cat From Hell – the best show on TV during the concession speeches. MSNBC pundits are saying Santorum is setting himself up for VP for the nominee – whoever he may be.
On to Florida, my crazy a$$ state. Who knows, we did elect a man who formed & ran a health care company that defrauded the government on Medicare. And, of course, the Gov Jeb Bush helped insure his bro won the 2000 prez election. Green person suffering in a very Red State.
Florida is a nice place. I’ve got an ex daughter-in-law and two grandchildren who live in Stuart. I know what you mean about the red state. I live in Austin which is the only blue dot in the heart of red Texas. That’s gonna change in the future though because we are a majority minority state now. If the Republicans don’t get the support of the Latino population, we’ll be blue again soon.
I think most of those pundits are just full of it. Hard to imagine anyone picking Santorum for VP. If you can’t bring his constituents yourself, you can’t win a republican primary anyway. I couldn’t listen to Paul or Santorum either, yuck!
Gingrich lies with almost every breath. Literally everything he says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’ but the idiots cheer. It’s totally amazing.
I thought his speech was pretty mean-spirited.
Classic Newt, mean as Hell with no redeeming value at all! Quite an inspiration for haters everywhere.
Exit polls look like being Mormon really hurt Romney with the evangelicals. Gingrich won them big but Romney won among the 40% which said religion didn’t count. Bigotry strikes again.
Yup. That all plays in SC.
Newt won by 14 points. It’s time for Karl to get on the phone to Jeb.
Erik Erikson says today’s vote is about the base giving the finger to the Washington elites.
That’s the tea partiers line but I don’t know if I believe it or not?
Just found this: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/01/21/145583425/herman-cain-gets-a-colbert-bump-in-south-carolina?sc=fb&cc=fp
Cain got 6000 votes in SC.
He beat Perry!
Thanks for the live-blog! I’m catching up on the thread late, though I did watch Mittens get Newtered yesterday… 😉
So ironic….
Evangelicals like to cavil about supposed polygamous history of Mormons, yet —
Romney has been married to one woman only, for 42 years, while Gingrich is the one who yells all over the place about “Christian values”, who has changed his churches and his values three times each, with a mistress thrown in here and there, all flavoured with pious-sounding “repentance.” And the evangelicals throw themselves in holy hysteria at his feet. Oh God, spare me.
…changed his churches and his wives three times each….
EXACTLY. I’m no Romney fan, and there’s a lot not to like about Romney in his own right…however, I do think when it comes down to Romney vs. Gingrich and Republicans claiming to be for family values and sanctity of marriage and all that other nonsense, choosing Gingrich over Romney is abundantly revealing.
revealing….oh, yes….revealing of a strong strain of hypocrisy in that religiosity-steeped right-wing party which once had some modicum of honour
Frankly it’s also revealing of a lot of Anti Mormon bigotry amongst the Christofascists.
There’s another debate in Florida on Monday. They’ve boo’d at the Golden Rule. What do you suppose they’ll boo at next?
Maybe they’ll boo the flag when the honor guard brings it in or something because Obama has stood in front of flags? They’re getting there.