Newscoma

I woke up this morning and did some early morning blogging over at Music City Bloggers while drinking my morning joe watching CNN.

The audio started acting wonky and it sounded like John Roberts was the devil. Of course I don’t want my newscasters to sound like Beelzebub so I turned the channel to, and the irony it burns, Morning Joe.

As it is primary day, I thought watching the news would give me some insight into the election. Joe had Pat Buchanan on.

I have to tell you, Pat B. always looks mad. He looked mad when he was on Crossfire a kajillion years ago. He just has this look of perpetual pissdom.

Well, they played all of the negative ads running giving everyone a freebie on national television and I kinda zoned out because we won’t know until tonight.

Here’s what I think, and I could be wrong, will happen today. Obama has to close the deal if he wants the nomination. Clinton, well, I’m not happy with her at all right now but she’s probably going to do well.

More democrat fighting for six more weeks! Woot. *snark*

Who knows at this point. All I know is I’m still suffering Election Fatigue Syndrome.

So, back to my morning, Tiki Barber and Pat Buchanan are pontificating about Hillary Clinton as I write this.

Huh?

This is a combination of political punditry I would have never considered in my entire life.

Left Wing Cracker is the king of staying on top of things when it comes to the democratic party. He really is. He sent me this yesterday and I thought it was really well done so I thought I’d share it as a primer, if you will, on what is at stake this weekend for the presidential election.

From Open Left:

• Washington caucuses, February 9th. Starts at 4 p.m. eastern: Obama 53%–40% Clinton. Survey USA, 2.2-2/3. 78 pledged delegates are up for grabs, and both candidates are on the air and campaigning on the ground in Washington. With a caucus and a double-digit lead in the polls, Obama is heavily favored here.
• Louisiana primary, February 9th. Polls close at 9 p.m. eastern: No polls to report, ever. What polls there are wouldn’t be of any use anyway, as we saw in the primary challenge against William Jefferson in late 2006. I can report that there are 56 pledged delegates at stake, and that Jesse Jackson won here in 1988. Both candidates are campaigning on the ground and over the airwaves. Obama is once again favored. Polls close at 9 p.m. eastern.
• Nebraska caucuses, February 9th, ends at 9:30 p.m.: Once again, no polls to report, ever. We will probably see results trickling in from Nebraska all day tomorrow, since the caucuses start as early as 11:00 a.m. eastern in some places, and end as late as 9:30 p.m. in others. Obama has dominated caucuses in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota and North Dakota. He also won a little caucus that was held in Iowa five weeks ago. This is big time Obama territory, and Clinton is not even visiting the state. I expect another 2-1 Obama victory in pledged caucus delegates from here.
• Virgin Islands, convention, February 9th: Beats me how the three pledged delegates will break. Expect either 2-1 Obama or 2-1 Clinton. Then again, as telephasic points out in the comments, it will probably  go 2-1 Obama, given that the island is 76% African-American.
• Maine caucuses, February 10th, starts as early as 1 p.m. eastern: There hasn’t poll a from here since April, when Clinton led 39%-22%. Of course, Clinton led everywhere back then, so who knows. No clear favorite, with 24 pledged delegates at stake. This is probably Clinton’s best chance for a win this week.

Chris Bowers breaks it down quite nicely about what’s happening today and tomorrow. With that said, one thing I’m hearing on the streets in my village is the discussion of delegates vs. superdelegates. I’m actually pleased about this because I can’t remember this being discussed so fervently in the past as it has been this year.

And, a Nashville blogger is running for delegate status so if you are so inclined, head here.

Sharon Cobb has a schedule for the Democratic Primaries that are scheduled for the next month.

I’m stealing shamelessly, Sharon but I like the way you have it laid out.

THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY CALENDAR

 

Tuesday, January 15

Michigan (no DNC delegates at stake)

 

Wednesday, January 16

Tennessee early voting begins (85 delegates–the most so far)

 

Saturday, January 19

Nevada (33 delegates)

 

Saturday, January 26
South Carolina (54 delegates)
Tuesday, January 29
Florida (no DNC delegates at stake)

And then we have Super Tuesday on February 5 when my happy hiney will be at the polls staring vacantly at the computer screen, wishing deeply that I had a paper ballot, knowing I’m not going to get one although I will request it. We’ll see how that works out.

Wonkosphere is tracking the blog buzz on each candidate if you are so inclined which really is pretty neat.

My Super Tuesday dilemma is wanting to watch Keith Obermann give the results and not being able to stomach Chris Matthews. Matthews, who’s legendary shrillness and high-pitched punditry which usually misses the target, has been rightfully hammered this week for his asshattery.

From Media Matters on Matthews and he’s recent idiocy:

As Media Matters for America documented, the next morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Matthews said: “Let’s not forget — and I’ll be brutal — the reason she’s a U.S. senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That’s how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn’t win there on her merits. She won because everybody felt, ‘My God, this woman stood up under humiliation,’ right? That’s what happened.”

**sigh**

He really doesn’t get it, does he?

Now I think it goes without saying that I won’t be watching Chris Matthews on Super Tuesday.

I think one thing to remember is that network anchors are campaigning just as hard as they candidates for your “vote” to watch them during the election season and for ad dollars.

Matthews behavior this week has lost him my vote to be viewer of MSNBC during the campaign election.

Just saying.