McCain wins South Carolina

John McCain beat Mike Huckabee in the South Carolina Republican primary by a margin or 33-30 (with 93% reporting).  McCain’s support came from independents, veterans, non-evangelicals and older voters.  Huckabee’s support came mainly from evangelicals.  Thompson was beating Romney (16% to 15%), while Giuliani’s support remains in single digits.  Giuliani got 2% of the vote – half of what Ron Paul received.

So what does this all mean?  Not a lot.  There are three viable candidates among the Republicans – Huckabee, McCain and Romney.  Giuliani is still acting like he’s in the race.  He may well be – some of the pundits say that he has a good chance in the northeast.   It strikes me as a game of perceptions – if Giuliani can convince his supporters that he’s still a viable candidate, then he has a chance to pick up a lot of delegates in places like New York and California.

The US presidential primary system is interesting.  States are weighted (more or less) on the basis of population, not party affiliation.  Will the relatively “liberal” Republicans in the northeast embrace Giuliani or McCain?  Or are moderate Republicans just a myth?

Hillary wins Nevada

With 85% reporting, Hillary Clinton looks set to win the Nevada Caucuses .  She’s currently leading Obama 51-45, with Edwards left with the remaining 4%.  Some people are touting it as a big win for Hillary, others say that it isn’t a surprise, since she was leading in the polls all along.  Greg Sargent comments on some very interesting entrance polls: Clinton beat Obama among Latinos 64%-24% and women 52%-35%.  Obama won the support of African Americans 79%-16%.  Hillary won among voters over 45, Obama among voters under 45.

So now to South Carolina.

Among the Republicans, Romney picked up 53% of the vote.  Ron Paul was in second place, with 13%, a handful of votes ahead of McCain (with 36% of of the vote in).  Romney was the only Republican frontrunner who really campaigned in Nevada.  Mormons make up 12% of the population in Nevada, and they were probably a key demographic for him as well.

Clay County, Florida, walks up to the Kitzmiller line, gazes longingly across

The Clay County, Florida School Board adopted a resolution opposing the new science guidelines, saying “that the State should not teach Evolution ‘fact’.” The board reportedly

ask[ed] the Florida Department of Education to reword its newly proposed state standards, which presents evolution as “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported in multiple forms of scientific evidence.”

and

The resolution also stated that the curriculum should be “fair and balanced” – clearly an attempt to open the door for the teaching of religion in science classes.

Perhaps the most interesting – and disturbing – part of the whole situation was that the school board intentionally went as close to Kitzmiller as they could without intentionally crossing the line. It’s one thing when school boards do these kinds of things out of ignorance. It’s quite another thing when they do their best to skirt the law.

However, their attorney was quick to speak up when some of the board members seemed concerned. He stated that the resolution came as close as possible to violating the Kitzmiller decision without actually crossing the line. This made it obvious that legal concerns were discussed with the attorney prior to submitting the resolution for discussion – with PARTICULAR CONCERN over their resolution being similar to Kitzmiller.

From Greg Laden.