Daily Kos

I tried three headlines trying to avoid the obvious Santorum jokes and failed. They're impossible to avoid.

But who cares! Republican voters in the West and Midwest just told their party to shove their presumptive nominee up their ... goddam it. I swear, I'm not TRYING to make Santorum jokes! But yeah, I'm giddy.

With victories in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, Santorum can now boast four states to Romney's three, as well as strength in that romanticized "heartland". Romney's victories suddenly look less impressive -- New Hampshire (home field-ish advantage), Nevada (Mormons), and Florida (that one was legit).

Now in a twist of bizarreness, no delegates were awarded tonight, so Santorum doesn't get to boast any. But, he has decisively laid claim to Not-Mitt-Romney status. Gingrich was a joke, getting zero percent of the vote in Missouri, 11 percent in Minnesota, and 13 percent in Colorado. He's finished.

Ron Paul was also a joke. His big strategy of focusing on the caucus states netted him nothing -- a pathetic showing in Nevada, 12 percent in Colorado, and just 27 percent in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Santorum's 55 percent in Missouri was bigger than any victory claimed by Romney thus far.

So what comes next? Expect the GOP establishment to rake Santorum over the coals with an 8-figure negative ad campaign in Arizona (2/28), Michigan (2/28), and the Super Tuesday states (a week later). The attack will have something to do with earmarks, which quite frankly, doesn't seem like the kind of thing these GOP voters care about right now. They want a culture war, not a budget one, and only one candidate is left that can wage it.

Michigan is, yet again, home field advantage for Romney. But Arizona ... remember, that's the state of Barry Goldwater, the last state to recognize the MLK holiday, the state of SB 1070. They're frakin' nuts, and they're going to love Santorum. He wins that state, he has a serious boost heading into Super Tuesday.

Now he still suffers the problems of cash (or lack thereof) and organization. A week ago Santorum was bragging about having raised $200,000, which was hilariously quaint and charming -- not enough for a House race, much less a White House bid. But the GOP base doesn't seem to care anymore. They want blood, and now united behind a single candidate, they're ready to deliver some serious pain to their party establishment.

Or maybe not. Who the hell knows anymore in this crazy GOP clownshow. But one thing is for sure -- Romney's woes just got a lot bigger.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:48 PM PT (David Nir): Ha ha!

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:51 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Fox just threw in the towel on their live coverage. Brett Bair's final words before signing off: "Good night for Rick Santorum." Left unsaid, for Mitt Romney: Complete. Fucking. Disaster.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:52 PM PT (Steve Singiser): The Colorado GOP is now reporting 45 percent of precincts reporting. The margin is negligible between the two leaders, but various Twitterers through the night have stated that Santorum racked up a big edge in El Paso County (Colorado Springs). If true, the math for Romney gets a lot tougher, unless he cleaned house in Weld County.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:53 PM PT (David Nir): JeffCo numbers: in '08, Romney got 4,999 votes (65%). This year, 2,896 votes (39% to 36% for Santorum).

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:54 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:54 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Romney gets a sizeable edge in suburban Denver's Arapahoe County, giving him a boost of about 700 votes. He leads by about 200 votes, but El Paso County still looms on the horizon.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:55 PM PT (David Nir): Minnesota 2008 GOP caucus turnout: 63K. Tonight, unless there are some very big precincts left, looking like roughly 53K.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:57 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 10:03 PM PT: And it's official, Santorum wins Colorado, according to the state GOP chair. This is going to be AWESOME!

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 10:16 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:26 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Two big counties just reported, and made a big shift in the tally. Boulder County went modestly for Mitt Romney (38-31), and exurban Douglas County went big for Mitt Romney (47-33). The net result is that Romney and Santorum are now essentially tied, with Romney ahead by 16 votes out of 16,453 cast.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:29 PM PT (Steve Singiser): The Colorado GOP reports counties as they complete their counts. Therefore, some county numbers are flying around Twitter, but aren't on the site yet. Expectations are that Romney will pick up quite a bit in Jefferson County (suburban Denver) and Denver County, but Santorum should push back in Larimer County (Fort Collins) and El Paso County (Colorado Springs).

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:32 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:37 PM PT (Laura Clawson): One of the big counties to come in strong for Romney so far is Douglas County, where he has 46.7 percent to Santorum's 32.8 percent. The problem for Romney is that in 2008, he got 72 percent in Douglas County.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:39 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Big jump in precincts reporting on the Colorado GOP site, probably because they now have Denver reporting. Not a lot of votes added, though, because Denver is (of course) Dem-heavy. Romney won Denver County, but more than offset with Pueblo County and Mesa County (Grand Junction). The net result? A very narrow Santorum lead.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:40 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:41 PM PT: Remember when Sarah Palin endorsed Newt Gingrich? Yeah, chalk her up as another loser tonight.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:43 PM PT (Steve Singiser): A quick note about Mesa County. The county, which borders Utah, should be prime territory for Mitt Romney. He won 67 percent there in 2008. Tonight, he lost it by eleven points. A microcosm of a horrible night for Mittens.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:44 PM PT: So let's see ... so far, the GOP base has given hearty "fuck you's" to Nikki Haley, Tim Pawlenty, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:45 PM PT (David Nir): With the new CO GOP results, turnout looking more like 66K.

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:46 PM PT:

Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 9:48 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

9:01 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray):

9:02 PM PT (Steve Singiser): To alleviate some confusion, it appears likely that CNN is getting their counts separately from the "official tally" at the state GOP. That is how CNN is claiming that Rick Santorum has 3295 votes with 46 percent of the votes in, while the Colorado GOP has Santorum at 3073 with 17 percent of the precincts reporting. By either tally, however, Santorum continues to enjoy a double digit advantage.

9:04 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Here is a stunning coda to the vote in Missouri--only small Putnam County (less than 5000 residents) has not reported their tally yet. If Santorum carries Putnam, he will have won every county in the Show Me State tonight.

9:08 PM PT (Laura Clawson): Earlier, Steve highlighted Romney's drop-off from 2008 in Adams County, Colorado. We can see something similar in Elbert County, where Romney got 51 percent in 2008 and 27.8 percent tonight.

9:14 PM PT:

9:22 PM PT: 62,000 turned out to caucus for the GOP, led by the uninspiring John McCain, in Minnesota in 2008. Tonight, they're getting maybe 40,000.

9:23 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Nir

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

8:42 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney: "This campaign is more about changing the soul of America, or protecting the soul of America, or saving the soul of America." He tries to turn this into an attack on Washington ... because Rick Santorum served in Washington. I guess that's how his machine plans to attack Santorum. But I'm not sure the DC insider label will stick to Santorum the way it does to Newt.

8:44 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney tells a rags to riches story about his dad. Think he's sensitive about the 1% thing? More than a little...

8:46 PM PT (Jed Lewison): LOL @ Mitt's closing line: "We've got a long way to go. And I sure love this country." Something tells me that was NOT on the TelePrompter.

8:58 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

8:15 PM PT: Romney hasn't won a single county tonight in Minnesota or Missouri. And that county problem extends nationally:

Among the five states to have voted before tonight, plus the in-progress results from Minnesota and Missouri, Mr. Romney has won only 73 counties from among the 412 to have reported results in the Republican nomination race so far, giving him an 18 percent success rate.

8:18 PM PT (Steve Singiser): It looks like Colorado has decided to start tallying votes, after all. The number of votes has tripled (up to 3 percent reporting), and Rick Santorum still enjoys a wide lead here: he leads Romney 48-22. More important: with the snail's pace of the vote count in Colorado, he will be the beneficiary of the narrative tonight, even if Romney gets the win here some time on Wednesday.

8:22 PM PT: Goddam Ron Paul won't shut up. Ever.

8:23 PM PT (Steve Singiser): FYI: It is not showing up in the statewide numbers just yet on the Colorado GOP site, but they have tallied all the precincts in the Denver metro county of Adams County. Santorum carries the county by a 41-31 margin. Adams is the 5th largest county in the state. Thus, the overall margin is dominated by this result: Santorum 42, Romney 31.

8:25 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Whoa ... quick postscript to the Adams County results that just posted: our own David Jarman notes that Mitt Romney got 66 percent of the vote in Adams County in 2008. Tonight? Less than half. His night, clearly, is not getting any better.

8:29 PM PT (Jed Lewison): CNN's Jim Acosta reports Mitt Romney's election night "party" still has plenty of empty space—room not filled, even though it's in Denver. Maybe they should try an open bar next time.

8:30 PM PT (Steve Singiser): The following has to be considered a telling, and disturbing, statistic for Team Romney in Colorado. 17 counties have finished their tallies in the state. Rick Santorum has won 13 of them. Romney has won just one (Alamosa). Gingrich has won one (Bent). The other two counties (San Juan and Lake) were tied between Romney and Santorum.

8:32 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Tonight, Mitt Romney is finding out there's a hell of a lot more evangelicals in the GOP than Mormons

8:33 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Meanwhile, back in Missouri, a little extra indignity for Mitt: Barack Obama now leads him in actual votes: 64,019 to 63,489. Remember that Democrats really didn't even have a rationale for voting, since Obama is unopposed. That renders a "beauty contest" even more meaningless, and yet Obama is outpacing Romney there. The final margin, for what it's worth, looks like it will be 30 percent (Santorum 55, Romney 25).

8:34 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney is about to start speaking. He's going from a TelePrompter. Have you ever heard of a TelePrompter concession speech? Has that big shit eating grin that he often has when under stress.

8:35 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney congratulates Rick Santorum ... but says he still "expects" to be the nominee.

8:37 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Mitt Romney's sideburns are getting long. I get the feeling that he's hiding his seething anger about tonight's results in there. His speech so far is mostly focused on President Obama. I don't think he realizes that he needs to beat Rick Santorum first.

8:38 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Hahahaha: Mitt Romney just "borrowed" Newt Gingrich's food stamps attack. There's really nothing he won't say if he thinks it'll help him win.

8:39 PM PT (David Nir): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

7:54 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Rick Santorum: "Mitt Romney has the same positions as Barack Obama ... I don't stand here to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama."

7:55 PM PT:

7:57 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Rick Santorum says that Mitt Romney has only done well so far because he's gone scorched earth negative—and that he's had the money to do it. And now he's going after Romney's comments about not caring about the poor.

7:58 PM PT (David Nir): This is truly an epic ganja break they're taking in Colorado.

8:00 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Rick Santorum is making the case for Sharia Law. Er, I mean, he's making the case for basing public policy on God's will. Thankfully he's wiling to interpret God's will for us.

8:00 PM PT:

8:02 PM PT (David Nir): Newt's so crazy that sometimes he winds up saying moderate-ish shit by accident. I'm not sure Santorum is ever capable of sounding moderate.

8:03 PM PT: Arithmetic-challenged Colorado Republicans are doing their best to make their Nevada colleagues look good.

8:04 PM PT (Jed Lewison): I've been on vacation, but it's truly amazing to me what a hard-on these guys have for opposing the birth control coverage requirement. Santorum's speech reached it's emotional height when he talked about the birth control issue as if it were a question of freedom of religion. He honestly thinks it's a winning issue for him. He doesn't talk with many women, I assume.

8:07 PM PT (David Nir): Why did Romney skip Minnesota? Says the WSJ:

With a vast war chest and an organization already in place, the Romney campaign could have made a more forceful push in the state, an adviser to the campaign said. But that would’ve pulled time and resources away from states like Colorado and Arizona – states that hold more weight in the general election.

Emphasis added, of course. If the calculus was that sacrificing Minnesota was necessary to compete in Colorado that: a) suggests Romney is pretty weak if he can't walk and chew gum at the same time and b) means he better actually win Colorado, right?

8:08 PM PT (Jed Lewison): There's still a TelePrompter up at Mitt Romney's Colorado rally site.

8:09 PM PT (David Nir): One further point to my update just above: If CO & AZ are "states that hold more weight in the general election" than MN, then does that mean Romney is conceding MN in the general—and also admitting that AZ will be in play? Big shift in the playing field, if so.

8:15 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

7:38 PM PT (Jed Lewison): The grossest headline you'll ever be happy you saw:

7:40 PM PT (David Jarman): Check out the suburbs to the north of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. If you're Mitt Romney, you're banking on these educated, upper-middle-class areas as your core. Today, Romney is in 3rd place in both, at 14% in Anoka Co. and 15% in Washington Co. (These counties are the bulk of Michele Bachmann's MN-06, with a big evangelical presence, though, which seems to have carried Santorum for the day.)

7:42 PM PT (David Jarman): Wondering who they like in Branson, Missouri? (Which is like Las Vegas, if it were run by Ned Flanders.) Rick Santorum's at 59% there (Taney County). In fact, Santorum's cresting 60 in much of southwest Missouri, a strongly evangelical area that's one of the real epicenters of the Bible Belt.

7:44 PM PT (Barbara Morrill):

Midwest GOP voters enjoy being able to fire front-runners.
— @pourmecoffee via TweetDeck

7:52 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Rick "The Conservative Stool" Santorum is speaking now, claiming the mantle of the tea party. He says Obama is a "privileged person" who thinks he has the right "to rule over you."

7:52 PM PT: Kind of ironic that Santorum got the color pink, huh?

7:53 PM PT (Jed Lewison): Rick Santorum's backdrop: a bunch of a angry white dudes. But really given that it's Santorum, it could have been a worse backdrop.

7:55 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

7:12 PM PT: Arizona is the next state on the calendar, on February 28. So we have several weeks were the candidates can camp out there and try to get some momentum heading into Super Tuesday a week later.

The GOP establishment will blast Santorum to high hell. The big anti-Santorum attack is that he supported earmarks. Is it enough? Who knows, but Arizona's GOP is amongst the craziest in the country. Remember, this is the state that gave us Barry Goldwater, the last state to honor MLK's birthday, the state that gave us SB 1070, etc. Santorum has a natural base.

Then again, Arizona has a significant Mormon population, which should help Romney. So it's potentially quite the battle.

7:15 PM PT: Too bad Santorum doesn't have a sugardaddy to fund his campaign.

7:18 PM PT: Romney's really bad night continues.

To the growing list of troubling signs for Mr. Romney in Minnesota, add this: he's currently in third place in Hennepin County. It's still early, but this is a county Mr. Romney where should have expected to do well based on history and demographics.

[...] Mr. Romney won 46 percent of the vote there in 2008.

With about a fifth of precincts reporting, Mr. Santorum leads in Hennepin County with 35 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. Paul with 29 percent. Although things could shift, Mr. Romney is on track to receive about half of his 2008 vote share there.

7:19 PM PT: NBC projects Santorum wins Minnesota, which he WILL do easily. So the tally is now Romney three victories, four loses.

In fact, this now means Santorum has won as many states as Romney.

7:24 PM PT (Steve Singiser): From Missouri, a sign of how breathtakingly bad Mitt's night has been: with two thirds of the vote in, he and Barack Obama are neck and neck. If you think a "beauty contest" will have weak turnout, how do you think an uncontested "beauty contest" should look. Despite that, at 63 percent reporting, less than a thousand votes separated the two men.

7:29 PM PT:

7:38 PM PT (Barbara Morrill): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

6:48 PM PT: As we celebrate Rick Santorum's successes this night, we can't avoid the flip-side -- Gingrich is just getting hammered. His results are dismal.

Meanwhile, Romney confirms that he has no juice in the crucial midwestern battleground states.

6:50 PM PT (David Nir): I guess it doesn't make much of a difference at this point, since the networks are calling Missouri for Santorum already, but St. Louis County was Romney's 2nd-best in 2008. And St. Louis City was McCain's 2nd-best that year, too. So both of those places (which will have a lot more votes than the smaller, rural counties) should favor Romney... once the votes actually come in.

6:51 PM PT: So far, the eventual GOP nominee has won just three of six contests. Not exactly a dominating performance.

6:55 PM PT (David Nir): A statement from the MO Democratic Party makes a good point:

On the other hand, the Missouri Republican Party will continue to ignore the votes cast on Primary Day and instead, they'll let a handful of insiders gather in March to decide which presidential candidate they'll support at convention.

For inexplicable reasons, the MO GOP insists on conducting an entirely separate caucus next month. Tonight's primary results are completely non-binding. So not only is this a wasteful exercise, but it's also potentially a big screw-you to the majority of the GOP's voters, since most won't attend (or even be able to attend) the caucuses.

6:59 PM PT: Romney is underperforming his 2008 results in Colorado:

This is not to suggest that Mr. Romney is assured of victory in Colorado. His vote share has fallen by about half in these rural counties. If it were also to fall that much in Denver and its suburbs, he would be tracking to about 30 percent of the vote statewide, possibly low enough for him to lose to Mr. Santorum. But it's premature to make any assumptions about how the suburban counties will behave until we see some of their results.

7:00 PM PT:

7:05 PM PT (David Nir): Santorum is still crushing in MN. With 16% reporting, he's at 43-28 over Paul. Romney's slipped to a pathetic 18%.

7:07 PM PT: Rick Santorum will get a nice introduction to "the GOP Establishment" in the next few pre-Arizona weeks. Gingrich knows what I'm talking about.

7:07 PM PT (David Nir): Guess I was wrong about that: St. Louis County (MO) has now reported about a third of its vote. It seemed like it should be Romney country, based on how well he did there in 2008. But Santorum is ripping him, 48-31.

7:10 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

6:25 PM PT:
Yup. Hell is DEFINITELY being stuck in one of these caucuses for eternity.

6:30 PM PT: Assuming Santorum wins Missouri and Minnesota, they'll join Iowa in a frothy alliance of midwestern hilarity.

6:30 PM PT (David Nir): I'm sure it's gonna be slow all night in Minnesota—it almost always is in caucus states. But if paint tends to dry too quickly for your tastes, I can tell you that with 4% reporting, Santorum is up 55-24 over Ron Paul, with Mitt back in third place at 20 and Newt at just 12. Poor Newt!

6:30 PM PT:

6:36 PM PT: 2008 turnout benchmarks.

Minnesota caucus - 62,828

Colorado caucus - 70,229

Missouri primary - 588,844

That was turnout for the excitement powerhouse that was McCain. I bet they don't hit that tonight.

6:41 PM PT (David Nir): Santorum's lead is up to 52-26 in Missouri now with 30% reporting, but in the combined region of St. Louis County & St. Louis City, only 1 precinct out of some 700+ is reporting as counted.

6:43 PM PT: Santorum is going to win Missouri, which is pretty awesome. Even better, he'll probably do so by a bigger margin than anything Romney has won.

6:48 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Kaili Joy Gray

Tonight is the first multi-state night in the clown race we call the GOP nomination contest, with caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a non-binding beauty contest in Missouri.

Results: CNN (CO, MO, MN) | Google (CO, MO, MN)

5:51 PM PT:

5:53 PM PT: Poor Mittens. He may be headed for the nomination, but no one is motivated to turn out and vote, and the less Republicans like him.

5:53 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Numbers coming in a little quicker now, but with the emphasis on the word "little". With an additional thousand-plus votes tallied (up to 3 percent reporting), Romney has cut ever so slightly into the Santorum edge. It is 46-30 out front, with Ron Paul still back at 13 percent.

5:54 PM PT: Ahh yes, Rove's outfit Crossroads GPS running ads on CNN bashing Obama based on Solyandra. Really, do they think they can move his numbers? There is no one better defined than the President of the United States. People either love/tolerate him, or hate him. No one is undecided, not three years into his presidency.

5:58 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Slightly amusing factoid out of Missouri's primary: currently, the GOP rejects that have already dropped out (Cain, Perry, Huntsman, Bachmann, and Johnson) are getting 4.2% of the vote.

6:04 PM PT:

6:05 PM PT: CNN has footage from a caucus in Minnesotta, which tells me all I need to know -- hell is being stuck in a Republican caucus for eternity.

6:07 PM PT: So asking these caucus goers if they were undecided when caucusing. Obviously, most are not. So why waste everyone's time with caucusing? Just let them go in, cast their vote, and go home.

6:09 PM PT:

6:09 PM PT (David Nir): We're up to 7% reporting in Missouri, with Santorum leading 49-29. However, almost none of the vote has been counted in St. Louis, which looks like it'll be Romney territory.

6:11 PM PT:

6:11 PM PT (Barbara Morrill): Guess Romney camp knew they were going to get smoked in MN:

In the hours before the caucuses convened, the front-runner sought to lower expectations.

"Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest," Rich Beeson, the campaign's political director, wrote in a memo for public consumption.

"John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too," Beeson wrote. McCain, the Arizona senator, won the Republican nomination four years ago.

6:12 PM PT (David Nir): By the way, Operation Rescue nutcase Randall Terry is running in the Democratic primary in Missouri, and he has 3% of the vote.

6:16 PM PT: How bad is coverage of the painfully boring caucuses?

Yeah, that bad. And CNN has a "EXCLUSIVE" tag on their chyron.

6:20 PM PT (David Nir): First votes showing up in Colorado as well....

6:23 PM PT (David Nir): Up to 17% now in MO, and Santorum still with a huge lead, 52-27. But still almost bupkes from the St. Louis environs.

6:24 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.