"This is historic for the children of this state."

Did they erupt in joy for the children who now have a real opportunity to choose success over failure?  Er, not exactly: Republicans dropped a legislative bombshell tonight as they slammed through a dramatically revamped education bill that will give tax credits for families at “failing schools” to send their children to private school or [...]

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Disparate treatment of states in the balance?

A little over a year ago, I wrote that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice may have gambled away Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act by blocking a South Carolina voter-ID law on its basis.  Holder blocked a law that matches another in Indiana, which had already passed constitutional muster, but [...]

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"Katrina was a major devastation. We're on a friggin' cruise ship."

Skip to 3:35 for your media moment du jour and for the pitch-perfect reply from a guy who’s somehow managed to retain his sense of perspective better than CNN despite having spent the past three days floating around on a giant toilet. If you think conditions onboard weren’t that bad, read Lileks’s thoughtful piece this [...]

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"I don’t think that I needed an apology."

Alternate headline: “Beauty queen accepts compliment.” I feel obliged to follow up on yesterday’s post, partly due to public demand (she’s now over two million Google searches since Monday) and partly because there’s nothing more fun than when a would-be victim kindly declines to serve as the Media-Offense Complex‘s latest hobbyhorse. Her graciousness at old [...]

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"We apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that."

How attractive is she? Here are the top two results on Google Trends for Monday, January 7: No other Google search term has cracked 1,000,000 per day in the U.S. since New Year’s eve. Granted, some of the results here are due to interest in McCarron himself — he just won his second straight national [...]

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Tradition.

8 p.m. ET on ESPN. When trekking across a news desert, we drink at any oasis we find. Besides, it’s either this or another Hagel thread. At WaPo, author Michael Leahy wonders: Do Catholics have a duty to root for the Irish? [T]o this day, Notre Dame remains a political and social battleground for American [...]

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"I'm someone who classifies myself as being on the center-right."

He’s not just any Democrat. This is a guy who gave a seconding speech for O’s nomination four years ago at the convention and was the southern regional co-chair for the DCCC. With those credentials, the PR value to the GOP of having him dump his old party to become a Republican would be huge [...]

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Diehard.

“Gingrich no longer says he can capture the 1,144 delegates required to wrap up the Republican nomination. Instead, he now speaks frankly about a new plan: Keep Romney from getting to 1,144 by the end of the GOP primary season in June, and then start what Gingrich calls a ‘conversation’ about who should be the [...]

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Winning.

When Allah mentioned this briefly yesterday, he pegged it exactly: “Right message, wrong target.” If Mitt Romney had said last night that Newt Gingrich is at the “desperate end of his campaign,” that would have made sense. But if Romney thinks a guy who just beat him in two major primaries is gasping for breath [...]

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Big night.

That’s the question coming from the media today after Rick Santorum unexpectedly won both Southern primaries last night.  Santorum won Alabama by six points over Gingrich, who barely edged past Romney for second place by 1,318 votes, and surprised everyone by winning Mississippi by two points over Gingrich.  Romney’s third-place finish in both gave a [...]

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Cliffhanger.

The polls close at 8 p.m. ET. Am I right in thinking that after two months and 26 elections, these are the first primaries that are legit toss-ups between all three candidates? Until now, it’s always been Romney vs. either Santorum or Gingrich as the regionally designated Not Romney, but tonight either state could break [...]

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The end of the beginning.

Tonight, four states hold contests to determine delegate allocations for the Republican presidential nomination, but the two that will be most closely watched tonight will be the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.  Hawaii and American Samoa hold caucuses that won’t carry the strategic significance of the two Deep South contests.  Or perhaps even these won’t [...]

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Jindal staying out of it?

With most eyes focused on Alabama and Mississippi in tonight’s contests, some may forget that another Deep South state goes to the polls next week.  Louisiana will hold a binding primary on March 24th, which will be the last contest for ten days.  Thus far, Rick Santorum has the edge in Louisiana, but the poll [...]

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Plus, CBS national poll puts Santorum up by 4.

We will have a long evening tomorrow as the returns come in from Alabama, a second pollster has reported today.  After PPP predicted a dead heat in Alabama with Mitt Romney edging Newt Gingrich by a single point, American Research Group shows Gingrich with a three-point lead — still within the margin of error: Newt [...]

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Y'all come back now, y'hear?

As always, some early results will post here. If you’d like to see a question on a future survey, please post those suggestions in the comments. Thanks! This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com. To see the comments on the original post, look here.

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Floating a Gingrich-Perry ticket for Southern voters?

The critical primaries this week take place in Alabama and Mississippi tomorrow, and we can expect one last flurry of polling in both states as the pollsters make their last bets.  PPP has decided not to bet at all.  In its final surveys in the two contests, they predict a dead heat in both states: [...]

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Southern strategy.

Perhaps the fact that the question had to be asked at all speaks for Newt Gingrich’s precarious status in the race: Spurning calls for him to get out, Newt Gingrich insisted Friday that he’ll stay in the race for the Republican presidential nomination even if he loses two Southern primaries next week. “I think there’s [...]

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Effective? Y'all be the judge.

Mitt Romney doesn’t have to master the South — he could lose both Alabama and Mississippi and still secure the nomination — but he’s made an effort to connect in Dixie anyway. Entering the region as an underdog against Rick Santorum, Romney first deployed his Southern version during a Wednesday afternoon visit to Pascagoula, Miss., [...]

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Gingrich with one-point lead over Santorum.

Rasmussen has conducted the first post-Super Tuesday poll in the key primary state of Alabama, where voters will decide on Tuesday which Republican to back for the nomination.  They found a three-way virtual tie for the lead, with Newt Gingrich up one point over Rick Santorum and two points over Mitt Romney: Alabama Republicans are [...]

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With a commercial about healthcare.

To further complicate Newt Gingrich’s “southern strategy,” the same pro-Santorum Super PAC that yesterday released a memo to call for Gingrich to exit the race has today announced that it purchased  $500,000 worth of advertising time in Alabama and Mississippi, two states Gingrich desperately needs to win to remain in the game. The Red, White, [...]

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Southern strategy?

Rick Santorum gets some much-needed good news from a newly-released Alabama State University poll, conducted one week ago.  The results show that the race remains close in the state as its primary approaches on Tuesday, but Santorum maintains a narrow lead over Mitt Romney — and a big lead over Newt Gingrich: The statewide poll [...]

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Worst home-state performance since Pat Robertson?

How can Newt Gingrich make up ground on Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, both of whom have won more state contests in the race, and both of whom lead Gingrich in national polling?  The Hill reports that Gingrich will focus on a “Southern strategy,” winning primaries and delegates in the southeast and hope to build [...]

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But no word on its constitutionality.

So far, every state law aimed to crack down on illegal immigration has been stymied in court — and a judge’s ruling today ensured a law passed in Alabama earlier this year is no exception to that. The Washington Times reports: A federal district judge halted Alabama’s new immigration law Monday just days before it [...]

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States just keep showing up the feds.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court yesterday upheld a law that makes it illegal to knowingly transport undocumented immigrants, creates state barriers to hiring workers who are in the country illegally and requires proof of citizenship before a person can receive government benefits. The decision comes as states across the country confront illegal immigration with similar laws, [...]

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Winning.

It’s all our fault, of course. Obama would never do something as foully hypocritical as betray a core promise on campaign finance unless his hand was forced. So remind me again: Who was it who forced him to opt out of public financing for his campaign three years ago after blowing all sorts of smoke [...]

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