A recount shows that Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses by 34 votes. Rather than take the “win” away from Romney, the state GOP is calling the decision a “tie.” Apparently the results from 8 precincts are “lost” and can’t be certified, anyway.
Elsewhere: Support for PIPA and SOPA is collapsing in Congress. Jonathan Weisman writes in the New York Times:
When the powerful world of old media mobilized to win passage of an online antipiracy bill, it marshaled the reliable giants of K Street — the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Recording Industry Association of America and, of course, the motion picture lobby, with its new chairman, former Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and an insider’s insider.
Yet on Wednesday this formidable old guard was forced to make way for the new as Web powerhouses backed by Internet activists rallied opposition to the legislation through Internet blackouts and cascading criticism, sending an unmistakable message to lawmakers grappling with new media issues: Don’t mess with the Internet.
The uprising was genuinely bipartisan and joined by bloggers from across the political spectrum. Now if we could just get the righties to join us in the net neutrality fight …
I was posting earlier today on Santorum’s come-from-behind win (irrestible) and put this BBC quote from today on the previous Mahablog post, but will repeat it here:
“Iowa Republican Party officials found inaccuracies in 131 precincts, although not all the discrepancies affected Mr Romney or Mr Santorum, the Des Moines Register reported.
“It’s a split decision,” the newspaper said, citing a party official in Iowa.
Doubt was first cast on the result soon after Mr Romney was declared the winner, after a vote-counter in one precinct said the published figures differed from what he observed.
At the time, state Republican officials played down any suggestion of inaccuracies.”
And these people are worried that voting is inaccurate? Their own people did this badly, but of course, IOKIYAAR.
Well, in all fairness, these were mostly white Conservative people trying to exercise their right to votes, so mistakes and fraud are ok.
But if the dusky and dark hordes try to do the same thing, since a good chunk of them will likely vote for Democrats, they must be stopped or jailed.
As for the righties on the intertubes, anything that hurts Liberal’s websites, like Media Matters, and others, that’s a-ok.
The don’t care about any ramifications for themselves.
It’s the technological version of “What’s the matter with Kansas?”
I have yet to understand the purpose of caucuses since they don’t ‘count’ for anything . Polling a state would reveal the same info, wouldn’t it? In the case of Iowa, a pretty little state, granted, but it’s not exactly a tourist mecca so perhaps its caucuses are merely a way to draw attention along with some cash into the coffers of its various businesses?
Perhaps the GOP is so afraid of voter fraud because they have no actual idea of how to effectively run a voting operation? It would explain a lot.
The latest I heard is that the Santorum people whined about the ‘split decision’ dodge, and pointed out that the ‘missing’ precincts reported totals on the night, and if you accept those numbers, Santorum clearly won.
I don’t think anyone outside of the campaign or Iowa GOP cares, at this point, but it does help build the case that the 2012 GOP is full of bumbling, squabbling jerks who shouldn’t be trusted to run anything right.
For some specifics on “the coffers of its various businesses,” Hillary’s campaign for the Demo nomination spent $43,000 on doughnuts alone during the last Iowa caucus confab. If that extraordinary amount was spent on doughnuts, can other Iowa businesses be far behind?
Felicity,
Think “Little House on the Prairie,” meets “Leave it to Beaver,” meets “Point/Counterpoint” meets FOX News.
Somewhere, Al Gore is playing the world’s tiniest violin