Hillary won the Florida beauty contest (and don't fool yourself, the Democrats WILL seat the Florida electors in August. Trust me...) and gave a nifty victory speech to boot. The final tally was:
Hillary - 662,982 - 50.1%
Barack - 430,641 - 32.5
Edwards - 192,073 - 14.5
All others - 102,211 - 2.9%
Total votes cast on the Democrat side 1,387,907 ... for a race that supposedly doesn't count? No dear, they WILL seat those electors. Every ... last ... one of them. By the way, 1,574,934 Republican votes have been counted on the GOP side. Huge turnout for a contest where half the delegates supposedly don't count.
With considerable help from Florida's popular guvnah, (and from his late blooming friend Sideshow Mel, plus a gaggle of South Florida's Cuban-American pols,) John McCain edged out Mitt Romney tonight. I'm not sure if that's a concession speech Rudy Giuliani is giving, but it should be. He didn't win a single county -- McCain beat him in Miami-Dade and he also lost Broward, which is nicknamed "the sixth borough" because there are so many New Yorkers living here. In fact, in Broward, this was the breakdown:
McCain - 41.1%
Romney - 24.2
Rudy - 19.6
This, my friends, is called non-viability.
In Dade, the breakdown was as follows:
McCain - 48.5%
Rudy - 27.7
Romney - 14.9
Those two counties, along with Palm Beach, should have been Rudy's stronghold, and he was leading in Dade when just the absentee ballots were counted (older, retired voters and early adopters who voted ahead of his Judy-gate troubles...)
If you can't win those, you can't win Florida if you're a moderate Republican on social issues, even if you're a neoconservative on Iraq (oh, wait, most Republicans are sick of that, too.)
Update: No, that wasn't a concession speech ... at least I don't think. But Rudy sure did sound like he was trying to do his best Obama, talking about how Republicans need to reach out to all ethnic groups and races, classes and walks of life. He said "races" or "ethnic groups" at least three times ... and this from a guy who refused to cross the Brooklyn bridge when he was mayor because he'd encounter too many Black people there ... and he was BORN in Brooklyn!
Anyhoo, Romney is giving his rousing "don't call it a concession" speech now. He's also doing his best Obama, saying that "we can't change America by sending the same people back to Washington to rearrange the chairs." Very Titanic-esque.
Update 2: Mike Huckabee gave another great concession speech, which ended with, "we're going on from here! If you have friends that are voting for me, tell them to come along with me, if they're not voting for me, don't let 'em out of the driveway!"Labels: Florida, Florida primary, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani |
