Missouri a squeaker — McCain, for now, may have an edge
+St. Louis County election officials finally released their tally at 1 a.m. Wednesday. Then they issued a new total at 1:32 a.m.
Democrat Barack Obama – 330,157
Republican John McCain – 219,787
Obama’s 110,370 margin is a record-setting lead for a Democrat in the county, the state’s largest bloc of votes.
But it’s unclear if that is enough for Obama to squeak out a victory, thus preserving Missouri’s status as the best bellwether in the country.
A quick addition here of the county’s final, with the existing 1 a.m. statewide totals from elsewhere, initially appeared to give McCain a statewide lead of about 400 votes.
BUT, after the county’s updated tally at 1:32 p.m., it initially appeared that Obama could be up statewide by about 1,500 votes.
None of those totals include any of the rumored 4,000 provisional ballots in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County that likely would be pro-Obama.
BUT, at 2 a.m., the state had revised its tally again, to include additional votes from Christian County.
The result: McCain had an edge of about 4,800 votes.
State GOP executive director Jared Craighead said he expected McCain’s victory to stand. He called it “a testament to the voters of Missouri.”
Expect a long battle over all those provisional ballots, especially if there are thousands more in Kansas City.
Independent Ralph Nader could once again be the scapegoat. He got 17,469 Missouri votes.
Why does it take seven hours to get reports from a relatively small county like Christian County?
Yes, count those provisional ballots. Lets hope there are thousands. I don’t want MO to vote against the Pres. winner for the second time in 100 years as soon a black guy gets up there. Can we ditch that honorary star on the Confederate flag already? But if we are going to hate Latinos so much (English only, really?), why not vote against the black guy, too?
Regarding the Presidential race, there really isn’t a need to kill ourselves to see who truly won. It won’t make a difference and would be a waste of money. True, it is kind of a state pride issue, but it’s not that big of a deal.
Tom F — This is America and we speak English. That was a no brainer amendment.
It’s not that we don’t like Latinos. We have been speaking English in this country since we kicked the native Americans off the land. If I was to move to France, I would expect to have to learn French. If I moved to Japan, I would expect to have to learn Japanese. When you move to America, expect to learn the common language, or go back to the country of your origin. When the Mexicans/Canadians kick all of us English speakers off the land, then they can set the common language. Until then, have the respect for the people who won the battle first (no matter how unfair it may have been, and it was). Flame wars in 3….2….1…
Tom F. - you should be ashamed of yourself and your racist thoughts. If all you see is a man’s skin color, you need some multi-cultural sensitivity awareness help.
Tom F-
Keep it classy with assumptions about racism. There is no way it could simply be ideological/policy differences…
There are plenty of non-racist reasons to vote against Obama. Start with the fact that he’s the most pro-abortion candidate the Democrats have run since Roe v Wade. He’s pledged to pass the “Freedom of Choice Act”, and he’s said clearly that he’d advocate abortion for his daughters in the event of an unplanned pregnancy.
These things would explain clearly why he couldn’t win in Missouri.
I think Tom is making a point to the opposite of racism.
No, it’s not true that English has always been the language used in the U.S. Right here in St. Louis, for example, before World war I, German was the language used in many South St. Louis public schools (yes, paid for by taxpayers). There are many other examples of languages other than English being used officially in this country over the years. Now Missouri has put itself in the forefront of states that do not know what they are talking about.
Tom F, I hear you.
People, as far as being a racist goes, a yes on 1 and a no on Obama is about as much as we need to know about you. Check your hearts.
I’m proud to be an American this morning, but ashamed to be a Missourian.