Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 06 March 2012 06:46:33 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Our regular featured content-On This Day In History March 6 by TheMomCatPunting the Pundits by TheMomCatThese featured articles-Call me Snake by: ek hornbeckHolder: We Can Kill You Because We Can by: TheMomCatThis is an Open ThreadThe Stars Hollow[...]

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Any Predictions for Tonights Super Tuesday GOP
Primaries

post from Firedoglake on 06 March 2012 06:45:35 PM. © Firedoglake

What?s your offhand prediction for tonight?s Clown Car mashup?[...]

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Obamas Super Tuesday Coup

post from Taylor Marsh on 06 March 2012 06:34:55 PM. © Taylor Marsh

As we wait for today’s results, one thing we know. Pres. Obama won the day. And the reason I called Ms. Fluke is because I thought about Malia and Sasha, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care[...]

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Super Tuesday predictions thread

post from Daily Kos on 06 March 2012 06:30:03 PM. © Daily Kos

Mitt Romney Rick Santorum Mitt "I'm the only choice you have" Romney rumbles on
Ultimately, Super Tuesday is like any other primary night: each campaign's goal is to amass delegates. By that metric, Mitt Romney appears on track to have a fairly good night. According to Nate Silver's latest projection, the most likely outcome tonight is that Mitt Romney ends up with 224 delegates on the night?51 percent of those available, followed by Newt Gingrich with 20 percent and Rick Santorum with 17 percent, and the rest going to Ron Paul and uncommitted.

That would be a good result for Mitt Romney's primary campaign, but mostly because the rest of the field is divided. In 2008, as Nate Silver points out, John McCain actually did much better than Romney's projected 51 percent, taking just shy of 63 percent of the delegates in play.

That suggests that while Romney is likely to be the clear winner tonight, he's going to need something closer to John McCain-type numbers to be able to claim he's effectively ended the campaign. It might be obvious to uninvolved observers that things are over if he's at 51 percent, but his rivals are unlikely to think things are over until he gets himself on track to start taking a super majority of delegates at stake.

But even though Romney is going to have a good night delegate wise, he's not likely to do as well at the polls. If the tweet I posted at the top of this thread is any indication, Romney will probably win Ohio, but not by much. (Oops, I forgot to post the tweet?it's now in an update below.) And while the Romney much prefers the narrative in which he gets 38 percent is to Rick Santorum's 35 percent than the reverse (I'm just making this numbers up for illustrative purposes), the bottom line is that 38 percent is hardly evidence that he's won over a majority of Republicans. Nonetheless, if he strings together enough 38 percent finishes, he'll probably emerge as the GOP's only choice, albeit a lackluster one.

Anyway, enough word salad from me. After all, this is a prediction thread. Since there's a mix of states, how about a three part prediction: delegates, states won and lost, narrative.

I'm going to play it somewhat safe in my prediction and go with Nate's numbers for what to expect if Gingrich has a strong night (this is not his most likely scenario, referenced above):

Delegates: Romney 197, Gingrich 117, Santorum 64, Paul 35, Uncommitted 24.
State winners: Romney (OH, VA, MA, ID, ND, AK, VT), Gingrich (GA, TN), Santorum (OK).
Narrative: Among Republicans, Romney wins the night, but Gingrich shows signs of a third life. Santorum is headed out of the race and Paul remains a non factor. And overall, President Obama is once again the big winner.

The only thing that I'm sure about, however, is that I'm probably wrong. Except the part about President Obama.

3:33 PM PT: Here's the tweet about Ohio that I forgot to post:

CNN exit of Ohio: 64% of voters say they're "conservative." Romney and Santorum TIED among those.
— @GOP12 via web

3:41 PM PT: Something to keep an eye on:

Only in Georgia and Oklahoma did a majority say Tuesday that they voted for their candidate because they strongly supported him. In the other five states, most voters said they had reservations about their contender or voted for him because they disliked the other choices.

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ions-thread

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Super Tuesday Open Thread

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 06 March 2012 06:30:00 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

I have even less interest in this edition of the Insane Clown Posse than most (if that were possible). I'll have neither the time nor inclination to join you. If you insist on playing along with Mitt there's a place to scribble[...]

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This Station is Non-Operational

post from The American Prospect on 06 March 2012 06:28:21 PM. © The American Prospect

I never understood why it?s so hard to believe that Iranian leaders are rational actors. They might be awful people, but they care about maintaining their power.

John Cole defends the (large majority of) women who have sex for pleasure. More of this please.

As far as wealth and presidents goes, the trend probably looks like a U-shaped curve, with extraordinarily wealthy presidents at the founding, progressively less wealthy presidents through the 19th century, and an uptick again in the 20th century.

Fraser Speirs talks about the problems with Android. I find it hard to disagree.

I spoke about Super Tuesday for a few minutes on the radio this afternoon. Check it out. (I?m at the 5 minute mark.)

There?s nothing about this that I don?t like:

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Senate GOP leadership, conservative groups fight
over health law repeal

post from Daily Kos on 06 March 2012 06:27:22 PM. © Daily Kos

Mitch McConnell (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided that there's not much percentage in attempting to continue a futile effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He might not have much going for him in the way of principles, but he is smart enough politically to understand that voters in 2012 are much more concerned about the economy.

Unfortunately for McConnell, some big spenders on the Right don't want to let that happen.

One group, the Restore America?s Voice Foundation, plans to spend $50,000 to $100,000 per week on television ads pressing Senate Republicans to force a vote on repeal. [...]
?For Republicans to be too timid to force repeated votes on repealing ObamaCare is political malpractice,? said Brian Darling, senior fellow for government studies at the Heritage Foundation. [...]
Other groups that want Senate votes on full repeal include the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform.
?We should have a vote on repealing ObamaCare every week,? said Andrew Roth, vice president of government affairs at the Club for Growth.

Back on planet earth, the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll [pdf] actually found that repeal really isn't so popular after all. Fifty-four percent of respondents either want to keep the law as is (19 percent) or expand it (35 percent), while 18 percent say replace it with the as-of-yet nonexistent Republican replacement and 19 percent say repeal it. Republican math doesn't really work like everyone else's, but 19 percent does not make a majority.

McConnell is smart enough to read the polls, though his caucus might not be. He's going to continue to get a lot of pressure from these outside extremist groups, and from the fringe in his own caucus. He'll likely bow to the pressure and keep on having disastrous votes like the Blunt amendment, already giving "moderate" Republicans heartburn. Good.

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-conservative-groups-fight-over-health-law-repeal

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Will Florida Bar Jewish Divorce

Starting Wednesday, the Florida Senate can vote on a measure to ban Sharia law in the state. But in an unintended consequence, the measure would also ban traditional Orthodox Jewish divorces from being recognized.

The bill, which has already been passed in the state House, bans "foreign law" in Florida family courts. According to The Florida Independent, the state representative pushing the measure has argued it's necessary to "stop the spread of Sharia law." There's no evidence of a spread. But among those who shmear, the bill also has some serious implications. Orthodox Jews rely on rabbinic "Beit Dins" to grant divorces, and under this measure, such divorce decrees would not be recognized. Ironically, while insulting Muslim Floridians, the bill would have a policy impact on the state's Jewish community. Both the regional Anti-Defamation League and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have condemned the measure.

The Senate panel considering the bill dealt the concerns of both Muslim and Jewish communities in a rather innovative way?the panel didn't let them speak and instead just passed the measure. A damning story from The Sun Sentinel detailed the scene last week:

Ignoring about 50 people who wanted to testify?and with a total of three minutes of deliberation?a Senate panel Tuesday slammed through a measure that both Muslims and Jews say is discriminatory and would prohibit them from freely practicing their religion.
[N]either representatives from the ADL nor about 50 Muslims who were visiting Tallahassee as part of Muslim Day at the capital were allowed to speak at the meeting, which had more than 20 bills on the agenda and started late.

Yesterday, I wrote about Florida's parent trigger bill, where parents were similarly refused a chance to speak at three different hearings.

Louisiana, Arizona, and Tennessee have already passed similar measures. Of course, I'm guessing the Jewish grandparent vote isn't quite as high there.

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http://prospect.org/article/will-florida-bar-jewish-divorce

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Judge Temporarily Blocks Wisconsin Voter ID Law

A judge in Wisconsin's Dane County granted a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the state's controversial voter ID law on Tuesday, ruling that enforcing the law on April 3 elections would likely cause irreparable harm.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Circuit Judge David Flanagan ruled that a suit by the NAACP's Milwaukee branch and Voces de la Frontera against Gov. Scott Walker (R) had demonstrated that the law would probably succeed on its merits. He ordered Walker and the state to immediately cease their efforts to enforce or implement the law, pending a trial on April 16.

"If no injunction is issued, a clearly improper impairment of a most vital element of our society will occur," Flanagan wrote in his decision, according to the newspaper. "The duty of the court is clear. The case has been made. Irreparable harm is likely to occur in the absence of an injunction."

Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a federal suit pending against the state on behalf of Wisconsin voters. Some of them are students in Wisconsin but have out-of-state drivers licenses, meaning they would have to either surrender their licence in exchange for a free identification card or pay a fee to obtain a Wisconsin drivers license.