"Harlan County Line" - Dave Alvin & the Guilty Ones
Calling it an end to a long, long week. March has been surreally beautiful around here with the last couple of days in the mid-80s -- of course it is going to rain all weekend. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom yesterday when I drove by the Tidal Basin. My only fear is that if it's 85 in March is it going to 105 in July?
- Go to jail, go directly to jail - Wow, it appears that Jon Corzine ordered that customer accounts be raided in order to cover an overdraft of an MF Global corporate account. This is what we call stealing or, if you want to be all fancy, "conversion." Methinks Mr. Corzine has upcoming reservations at the gray bar hotel. I am baffled by this sort of thing -- Corzine is an extraordinarily wealthy individual. Why would you risk imprisonment in this kind of situation -- why not just let the company go bankrupt? (Of course the question might also be asked why are you still trying to make money -- why not do something decent with the rest of your life?)
- As someone who still wears a hoodie frequently, I have this overwhelming urge to kick Geraldo Rivera in the balls. Jesus, what incredibly racist claptrap. I mean I know its Fox, but really.
- The latest polls from Virginia would suggest that vaginal wanding is not a winning position for the Republicans and Obama is the beneficiary of the crazy. Obama has a 17 point lead over Romney in the latest NBC/Marist poll. Two predictions - if Obama once agains carries Loudon and Prince William County, he wins Virginia. And if he wins Virginia, he wins the election.
It's primary day in Louisiana -- a probable Santorum win, although it looks like his lead in Wisconsin has been evaporated once again under an onslaight of Romney advertising. The Human Etch a Sketch is blasting his way to one ugly win.
Time to begin the weekend chores. Be back later.
Update: The polls just closed in Louisiana and CNN has already called it for Santorum, who leads Romney 40% to 29% thus far in very early voting. I don't know if it's just me, but I get the sense that Santorum is getting very little mileage for his win. Maybe because it's a Saturday night, maybe because it's in the middle of the NCAA tournament, or maybe people have just gotten bored and (rightly) don't see this vote as a game changer, but this seems to be generating no buzz at all. Too bad. I am in favor of any additional discomfort that can be thrown the way of the Romney campaign.
Santorum has stretched his lead now to 49% to 26% with about 70% of the vote in. I believe that if Romney falls under 25%, he does not take any of the delegates allocated by the primary vote unless he wins in an individual congressional district, which seems unlikely at this time. You would think that this might be a bit of an embarrassment and may generate comment in the press tomorrow.
And speaking of embarrassments, Gingrich is getting only 16% of the vote in a deep southern state. This really would be the last gasp for any normal candidate -- but for the grifter supreme, I assume that some preposterous reason to soldier on -- no doubt for the good of the republic and civilization -- will be asserted.
Ron Paul garners another paltry 6% of the vote. Would someone remind me again why we were supposed to take this guy seriously?
Well it looks like Santorum will take 49% of the vote and Romney will just limp over 25%, finishing with about 26.5% -- not a stellar performance. Turnout was light, but superior to 2008, when Mike Huckabee just slipped by John McCain. Interestingly, once again in a southern state, Santorum performed significantly better than he polled.
