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.
Pro-Abortion does not equal pro-killing babies. Being pro-abortion does not mean that he walks through life chanting, “Kill Babies,” “Kill Babies.”
I actually heard a McCain supporter say this morning, “We voted for McCain because he’s going to keep the war going. The war is our bread and butter.” They’re a military family. It makes me sick to think there are some people out there that are using this war for a primary paycheck. THAT is a GREAT reason to NOT support McCain in my eyes.
What were Missourians voting for with McCain/Palin? More war? More economic collapse? More of being despised by other countries? More blood sucking fat cats? More ruin for the middle class? More racism? Not to mention Sarah Palin as President! I can’t understand why they got even a thousand votes, let alone half our state. The count will show just us as backward or forward. It’s the 21st century; we can’t go into it with 18th century attitudes. Get a calendar, Missouri!
Look at the county by county numbers if you want to understand why ‘Missourah’ would go to McCain. The populated centers which understand the necessity of doing things that are good for community and neighbor all voted decisively for Obama.
It’s the out-state, red-neck, gun-toting, christian bible-belt types that give this state a bad name and went for McCain.
St. Louis County/City, Columbia and Kansas City should cecede from the state and take our tax dollars with us.
Susan,
“I’m proud to be an American this morning, but ashamed to be a Missourian”.
I totally agree with you on that one.
With 100% of the precints reporting, McCain has won Missouri. What’s so hard to understand about that? The St Louis Post Dispatch has gone from being a voice of Mid-America, then to a voice of the St Louis region, and now it is degrading into the voice of St Louis city and county. It ought to rename itself the St Louis Town Journal.
I am NOT ashamed to be in Missouri nor am I ashamed of voting for English only. I think that is great. We need to establish English as the official language(for the country as well) and we can certainly have a secondary language as Spanish or something else. Some of these people leaving comments need a “reality” check. If you want to speak Spanish as your first language, why don’t you move somewhere else. It isn’t racist nor is it discrimination. Quit being a crybaby and realize that most (if not all) of our documents are in English, so it would make sense to keep it that way. Lets do what makes sense. Just as others have pointed out, if we moved to Europe, we would have to speak their NATIONAL language. Get a reality check on what is going on in the world.
I’m not clear on why intelligent people couldn’t vote for McCain. Certainly, there were reasons to be concerned about Obama
1) Connections to an extremely corrupt political machine
2) Pro-choice record
3) Inexperience
4) Anti-free trade stance
5) Terrible healthcare proposal (McCain’s wasn’t much better)
6) Increased tax burden on some people
I’m not suggesting that any of these are or should be dispositive, but to argue that all McCain voters are “out-state, red-neck, gun-toting, christian bible-belt types” is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Certainly, reasonable intelligent people can make a case for McCain.
Does the final count in MO matter?
Obama won, with the majority of the popular vote, with a landslide of electoral votes.
America’s majority has spoken clearly:
Racism sucks, religious extremism is unacceptable, and ‘fear’ politics is for losers.
No matter what happens in the next 4 years, America has shown the world it can and will ‘Do the Right Thing’.
Amen!
I support obama and I also supported making English the official language. My parents immigrated here from Poland 25+ years ago, and promptly learned English. My grandmother, however, did not. And she immigrated here just a few years before my parents had. Because she did not have to learn English, she did not. She was extremely dependent on her family, what if something happened to us? Sometimes people need to be put in a situation to learn English. Allowing bilingual use is only going to make it harder for immigrants to become productive citizens. Take, for example, my husband who works with non-english speaking immigrants. One worker noticed a customer stealing but was not able to effectively communicate the act until the customer had left. What if there was a bigger emergency? Being an American includes learning English, and we need to encourage immigrants to do so.
Hopefully the English only provision will be found unconstitutional, as it is, according to the “Freedom of Speech” in our 1st Ammendment.