The Louisiana caucus may be so meaningless to the GOP nomination that the Associated Press apparently skipped it. At the moment, it does not appear on the map at CNN’s Election Center, either.  But AFP covered it — and got the results wrong:
Senator John McCain has won the Republican party’s caucuses in Louisiana while longshot candidate Ron Paul took second place, the state party said Wednesday, citing preliminary results.
In reality:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared victory last night in Tuesday’s Louisiana Caucus. But the real winner was “uncommitted,” a stand-in for an anti-abortion slate. Yes, after making strong showing in Michigan, it appears Uncommitted has finally won a gold medal in the presidential race.
The WaPo’s Juliet Halperin then explains just how murky the results were, before reporting how the McCain campaign is trying to spin this as a win.
Indeed, it is a big victory, not unlike Jimmy Carter’s second-place showing to “uncommitted” in Iowa in 1976, which put that caucus on the political map! (Another fine Jimmuh legacy.)ÂÂ
Today, the French press seems alone in buying the McCain spin.
In Louisiana, the pro-life uncommitted slate appears to have been mostly Fred Thompson supporters who organized before his entry into the race, which makes the result — occurring just after his departure from the campaign — nicely symmetrical.
At least, that’s the establishment’s story. Some believe the uncommitted slate was a conspiracy to deny Ron Paul his rightful victory.
The weirdest part is that we have a primary election on Feb 9 here in Louisiana. Yesterday was the first time I’d heard of any caucus down here.
Nobody won yet. There is no First, Second, Third. There are 500 provisional ballots that still need to be counted after voter verification and that will take a few days. “Pro-life/uncommitted” is not a candidate. McCain (Liberal Pig Extradoinaire) is an utter jackass for trying to spin this win for himself.
You know why Uncommitted won in Louisiana, don’t you? I mean, voters saw that and decided it must be the perfect alternative to Madman McCain.
So as far as Louisiana is concerned, the ideal NotMcCain is an empty podium and a silent microphone.
…
I honestly can’t argue with that.
Wow, Louisiana sucks. We vote in the primaries on Feb 9, and if more than half of us vote for a single candidate (>50%), then half the delegates must vote for him. The other half can vote for whoever they please. If no candidate gets 50% of the primary, then ALL delegates can vote however they please.
I’m not feelin’ the democracy in this.
I was born and raised in La. and always knew it had crazy politics but this is ridiculous. Would the good people of Louisiana please stand up.
The French press is the one where you’re supposed to wait two minutes before doing the pressing part but I’ve tried it both ways and I can’t ever tell the difference really. I think the time between when they put it together and when they put it on the table does the trick really. People like their rituals I guess.