Keef was promoted as coming back for more on a 10:00 shot, to learn us all about the elections.

For some reason, they just repeated his more optimistic 8:00 broadcast. (Is it a "broad"cast if thirty people are watching?

I just caught Chris Matthews late Hardball edition. You know the big race tonight that's super-important? Bob Owens' win. That's all Matthews seemed interested in talking about. How Owens won, and how Hoffman's candidacy spells doom for the Republicans.

Shameless.

Posted by: Ace at 09:12 PM | Comments (89)
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Mike Long of the Conservative Party is up thanking people.

Talking about how much the race meant and that the candidate was honest and a real person.

No one would have thought it would get this far.

Hoffman is up talking about continuing the fight against Pelosi and the themes at the heart of his campaign.

"The government works for us, not the other way around".

Thanks Republicans who stood up for him before it was cool.

Thanks his family for their support. His mom was here all night, it was tough to see her sitting there especially once it became clear it wasn't going to work out.

"They called us radicals but I call it common sense"

All in all, a dignified and heartfelt speech, which is pretty much what you'd expect from him.

And so it ends.
Hopefully this is the opening speech of his 2010 campaign.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:08 PM | Comments (140)
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49-46%. It's over.

Owens killed Hoffman in Scozzer's home area. She threw the race to the Democrat.

Yeah, great call on her, New York County Republican chairs. She conducts herself with so much "forthrightness." Great pick. Great, great pick.

A final update from Drew, which I was going to post before I saw the race had been called:

Rob Ryan is on now and is saying it's still close and may not be called tonight.

He's starting to spin it as a "big win for the Conservative Party and Doug Hoffman" considering where the race was 3 weeks ago.

Moral victory talk is never good.

A Positive Take-Away from... Allah? He's actually upbeat.

Points to take away from the loss: (1) PPPÂ’s last poll was way, waaaay off; (2) ScozzafavaÂ’s endorsement must have had some impact on her supporters, as it erased the five-point lead Hoffman held in the last Siena poll after she dropped out; (3) third-party challenges, while sometimes warranted, are a very risky proposition (attention Glenn Beck!); (4) the win in New Jersey, where The One staked his own political capital in campaigning for Corzine, was huge compared to the loss here; and (5) as I said over the weekend, the actual result of this race is unimportant. The point in torpedoing Scozzafava and swinging the GOP behind Hoffman was to send a message to the Republican leadership that only fiscal conservatives will be tolerated henceforth, and that message has been sent even if Owens wins a squeaker. The loss is disappointing, but itÂ’s a detail on otherwise great night.

Although we lost, I repeat my previous statement that this was cost-free and therefore helpful move. It's "teaching the GOP a lesson" in a smart way, in a single election (for a term that will last only one year), that will send a short sharp shock that while we may accept RINOs where we absolutely have to, we damnsure won't be accepting them where we can win with a conservative candidate.

We're not just going to support liberals just to win; what is the point of "winning" then?

Obviously a conservative candidate -- one of the in-district conservative candidates actually favored by many of the GOP county committees -- would have carried this district easily.

Instead, people decided to play it cute with games about having a woman candidate, having someone "the money" was happy with, and doing favors for some stupid GOP chairwoman's BFF Dede Scozzofava.

And the GOP can see there will be bloody revolts if this happens again. And that there will, in fact, be money for a more conservative candidate, too.

Posted by: Ace at 07:56 PM | Comments (98)
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Taking advantage of the slowdown in election night action to post this week's pick results. Ben was timely but I was not, pardon.

buzzion 72
Monkey Sleeping 71
Peoples Republic of Baltimore 70
Jay in Ames 69
Svenster61 69
Dave R 69
Francis the Geek 68
Paranoid Polly 68
Aewl 68
Wunderkraut 67
Sock Puppet Steve 67

In case anyone was wondering how badly you could suck picking 13 games, I got 2 right.

Fargin 2. Including the Cowboys.

Fear me. If I'm helping you with your taxes.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:02 PM | Comments (13)
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Close, but see below: Drew says the upbeat mood from earlier is now replaced by a bad feeling, and Hoffman is merely splitting a county he'd thought he'd be winning 2:1.

Absentees? I don't know when absentees went out. I'm assuming most were mailed in before Hoffman's surge, so I have to think most of those will go to Owens and Scozzer. No help for Hoffman there, I fear. Ten thousand of them.

Update: But exit polls say our man wins. Clarification: Not really exit polls; something a DNC staffer reported. Who knows, perhaps to create a "surprise" end of night win for one of their guys.

Leaked exits (via Ben Smith's twitter account) had Hoffman leading Owens 50-47, with Scozzafava at 2.5%. At this rate, it'll be tomorrow before we know who won.

On the other hand, InTrade is now saying Hoffman. I said "So what?" when AHFF Geoff told me that InTrade had turned heavily for Christie; well, we see that was predictive there, so what do I know.

Drew reports that people are getting nervous at camp Hoffman, and there is a "bad feeling" in the room, but that is, kind of, to be expected: The numbers so far show a 8 point Owens lead.

Update: Allah was right-- Scozzafava was drawing more votes from Owens than from Hoffman, and her exit from the race benefited, as I'm sure she guessed, Owens.

His last update notes that Hoffman is merely splitting a county where a previous poll had shown him with a 2:1 edge. Obviously, he'd be counting on those votes.

Still not sure why those exit polls say 50-47 Hoffman. Plus, exit polls skew liberal, usually.

Perhaps that was a bad tip. Comes from Ben Smith; he could be wrong. Clarification: Smith clarifies it wasn't his tip; he was retweeting a number posted by a DNC staffer. Not media exits.

UPDATE [DrewM. Reporting Live!]

Just talking to a gentlemen who has national and local polling experience.

He says given what he understands of where the votes are left, Hoffman is an a tough but doable spot.

Owens seems to be running better in areas where he was expected to do well but he's out performing that.

His sense of Hoffman's challenge is that this was a national race for many around the country but the locals wanted to talk about local issues, things like the 'roof top highway' and year round navigation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Hoffman and his surrogates really didn't address that. It may rankle the independent streak in this area.

Please keep in mind the above is based on a conversation with a knowledgeable local who has experience in polling and this district but not based on hard facts. In other words...typical election night stuff. Add salt to taste.

Odd note, there's no organized activities from the podium here. No announcements about NJ, I've been spreading that word.

Also, just hearing from the Syracuse TV station, there are some problems with the new voting machines. There are paper backups but they won't be counted tonight.

Posted by: Ace at 06:40 PM | Comments (442)
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Sure to be lost in the election hubbub (which makes me question the wisdom of choosing this evening for the big announcement), more food for Ace's maximalists: this evening Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) endorsed Chuck DeVore as he seeks the GOP nomination to challenge Senator Ma'am Barbara Boxer.

Assemblyman DeVore has been campaigning to be the GOP challenger to Boxer since November last year. Carly Fiorina tip-toed into the race this summer with some support from the NRSC, which expects her to help foot the bill. They also expect that her somewhat unknown positions on conservative issues will be a benefit in this nominally Blue state.

Senator DeMint rejected that line of thinking and endorsed DeVore:

"Chuck DeVore is a proven, tested conservative who is gaining momentum," said Senator DeMint, "HeÂ’s the kind of leader we can count on to stand up for common sense conservative principles in the United States Senate. California is the home of Ronald Reagan, my personal hero. The state has fallen on hard times recently, but I believe Chuck DeVore can begin to change that. If grassroots conservatives get behind him, he can win the primary in June and go on to defeat Barbara Boxer in November."

DeVore's got to be optimistic about his chances of wining the primary given tonight's election results which appear to reject not only anti-prosperity Democratic governance, but also so-called "moderate" behavior from GOP politicos. Not to mention, Fiorina's campaign is barely generating interest out here.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:55 PM | Comments (20)
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Just tipped by AHFF Geoff. Here's a CBSNews link.

...

Snippets from the RCP election blog:

9:29 -- There's six counties in New Jersey with over half the precincts in. Corzine is running 7 points behind his 2005 totals in Gloucester, 6 behind in Cape May, 14 behind in Ocean, 13 in Monmouth, 10 in Hunterdon, and 7 in Hudson. --SEAN TRENDE

9:19 -- From the NJN/Gannett exit poll: Obama has 57% job approval in NJ. Among those who approve, Corzine wins 75-17. Christie wins 88-7 among those who disapprove -- MIKE MEMOLI

9:17 -- Corzine would have to carry the rest of the state with about 53% of the two party vote in order to sweep the state. With most of the heavily Dem areas half in, this seems unlikely. --SEAN TRENDE

Really? Neat.

But chickens are not to be counted:

NJ Gov tightening. With 44% counted, Christie leads 49-44-6. Margin is 54,000 right now -- MIKE MEMOLI

Posted by: Ace at 06:15 PM | Comments (286)
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As John Edwards said, There are two Americas.

There are also two "civil wars," one the concern-troll media is forever nattering on about, and the other they paper over and attempt to obscure to avoid problems for their precious Darling Leader.

Via Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 05:35 PM | Comments (32)
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You can follow the returns here. Thanks to Slu for that.

The Saranac Hotel is the sight of what Hoffman supporters across the country are hoping will be the culmination of a very unlikely 6 week campaign that has turned the Republican party upside down.

As you aw from one of the videos earlier, Hoffman isn't exactly a product of the Tea-Party movement but the timing was certainly fortuitous for both.

I just spoke with a gentleman named Richard Cerminara, a local financial adviser, who has known and worked with Doug Hoffman for 20 years or so. He said this was the first time he's ever been motivated to take part in a campaign and while his friendship with Hoffman certainly helped, he's definitely frustrated by what's going on in DC.

Hoffman isn't exactly out of central casting for someone who is setting off a political tsunami (though I guess in a way he is) so I asked Cerminara to tell me something we don't know about Hoffman, something fun. He laughed and said what you see is pretty much what there is. He did say that Hoffman introduced him to his wife over 10 years ago, so he's a decent matchmaker if nothing else.

I also spoke to a gentleman named Elon Baker (full disclosure, we were friends years ago and just ran into each other here after over, I don't know, 10 years). He's never worked on a campaign before but left his home at 3:30 this morning to be here by 7 to phone bank all day.

Like Cerminara, he's never worked on a campaign before but was motivated by a desire to see the crazy spending that we've all seen out of DC.

I know you can't extrapolate too much out of two volunteers (though I spoke to others earlier and got the same feeling) who are obviously partial to Hoffman but sometimes these things look one way from a distance but when you get up close they appear to be something entirely different.

I don't get that sense with the Hoffman campaign. Yes, there are some big time state operatives who are board but for the most part, this is the campaign it looked like from a distance.

UPDATE:

I spoke briefly with NYS Conservative Party Chair Mike Long. He's optimistic about the results from what he's heard thus far. He also made it clear that this wasn't a Conservative/RINO issue. Dede was way beyond RINO.

I asked him what the party's position was moving forward, is 3rd party the way to go or working with the GOP a better option. His position is cooperation where possible but they will run their own candidates when they have to.

According to Long, If he's elected, Hoffman will be the second candidate to win on the Conservative party line, James Buckley was the first (he may have been talking about at the federal level).

Below, scenes from the scene. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:15 PM | Comments (100)
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Gentle Ben just emailed me to say, "My name is ironic."

A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.

Two other militants escaped, one of them badly wounded, after the attack in Kulgam district, south of Srinagar.

The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise - police found the remains of pudding they had made to eat when the bear attacked.

It is thought to be the first such incident since Muslim separatists took up arms against Indian rule in 1989.

The militants had made their hideout in a cave which was actually the bear's den, said police officer Farooq Ahmed.

If only they'd had weapons, perhaps they'd've had a chance.

The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise

Ah, right. Oh well. Let the suicide bombing of Jellystone Park begin.

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (199)
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