What Happens if It's Too Close to Call?
In this first-in-the-nation exercise in a unique form of democracy, the earliest sense of how the caucus will wind up should come trickling in around 8:30 p.m. EST, in the form of entrance polls.
According to The Post's Pollster Jon Cohen, entrance polls are all like the exit polls most people are used to seeing on a traditional election night. The Iowa caucus entrance poll surveys approximately 1,200 caucus-goers in each party on their way in to a random sample of precincts.
This all happens later in the day than a traditional primary, meaning that this year, when the Democrats are tripping to this Iowa finish (or starting line) roughly in a three-way tie, the results could be murky and emerge very late in the evening.
So what happens if it's too close to call?
Or, in a more exciting formulation, what happens if the results shift around so dramatically that it might be necessary to tear up one edition of the paper and start again?
Here's one take on it from the man who would actually make a "stop the presses" call come deadlocked deadline time.
Tonight won't be as difficult as some voting days because, after all, as The Post's Executive Editor Len Downie points out, "we're not electing a president."
"The GOP will go first, and it should be clear cut. The Democratic side is a more complicated story. But the job of the reporters will be to interpret the order of finish," he says.
Downie points to the wisdom in David Broder's column today, that one of the most important aspects of today's caucus is how it positions the candidates for New Hampshire.
And there's one more contingency to add to the drama: the Internet.
"The further back you go, before the Internet, there were more editions. It was just a matter of going from one edition to another," Downie says. So there weren't presses to stop, just editions to update. Tonight, Downie and others will be conferring over the right call to make for both the Web and the three separate editions of the print newspaper.
For down-to-the-wire election night memories, the clearest -- and most well-documented -- was the very early morning calls made on Nov. 8, 2000 the night George W. Bush seemed to beat Al Gore in Florida.
(One useful reference on this -- and one Downie consulted to refresh his memory -- is The Post's "Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election.")
As Downie remembers the scene that night, between 1 and 2 a.m.:
"At some point the networks called it for Bush. And Gore was going to concede, we were aware of that. Fox had projected Bush as the winner and then other networks followed. And it seemed logical to us too, for the same reason the networks were calling it. Dan Balz was writing various contingency versions. And we decided to go with the networks' call. But Steve Coll, then the managing editor, kept playing the numbers and he calculated it was still too close to call. By that time, the AP had refused to call. So particularly because of Steve's calculation, it didn't feel right."
Then, in a not-quite out of the movies moment, Downie made the call that it was, in fact, too close.
"We did have the plates ready to go, so I stopped the plates. I never actually stopped the presses, but I did ask them to stop the plates."
--Rachel Dry
Posted at 8:25 PM ET on Jan 3, 2008
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Posted by: JakeD | January 3, 2008 9:22 PM
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTcyMTM5YzRiMzVjMjA3MGEwMjUwM2Y3NGJiMzM1YWY=
December 05, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The Story Mike Huckabee Dreads
With his new success comes new attention to an old Arkansas crime.
By Byron York
In August, I interviewed former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee about the case of Wayne Dumond, the convicted rapist who was freed under Huckabee's administration, only to rape and kill a woman in neighboring Missouri. The crime attracted enormous attention in Arkansas, but at the time of our interview, it had not made its way into much coverage of Huckabee's presidential bid. "If [Huckabee] continues to rise in the polls," I wrote, "it's likely he'll be talking about it a lot more."
Now Huckabee is rising in the polls, and sure enough, the Dumond case is attracting more attention. This morning, ABC News ran a report featuring the mother of the woman Dumond murdered, who blames Huckabee for her daughter's death and vows to do everything she can to stop his campaign. "I can't imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country," the woman told ABC.
For many people, the report is the first they've heard of the Dumond case. Once they learn about it, however, they are unlikely to forget its bizarre details and the strange turn of events that led to Dumond's final crime. The case is the wild card in Mike Huckabee's record, the single most controversial event during his time in the Arkansas governor's office. And it is a potential threat to his now-soaring candidacy.
It began in September 1984, when Dumond, a 35-year-old handyman, kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old high-school cheerleader in the small eastern-Arkansas town of Forrest City. Dumond was allowed to remain free on bond while awaiting trial, and in March 1985 two masked men entered his house, tied him up with fishing line, and castrated him. People were stunned; the case, already notorious, became much more so. And that was before the local sheriff, a rather colorful man named Coolidge Conlee, displayed Dumond's severed testicles in a jar of formaldehyde on his desk in the St. Francis County building. Amid tons of publicity, Dumond was found guilty and sentenced to life plus 20 years.
The case took on a political coloring when it became known that the victim was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. After conviction, Dumond, who claimed he was innocent, asked Clinton for clemency. Clinton declined.
Dumond also argued that even if he were guilty his sentence was excessive, and his position won him some sympathy, not least on the grounds that he had suffered terribly at the hands of those unknown assailants. In April 1992, when Dumond had served just seven years, Lt. Gov. Tucker, acting as governor while Clinton was out of state campaigning for president, commuted Dumond's sentence to a level where he would be eligible for parole. That didn't mean Dumond would go free, only that the state parole board would consider the question. The board declined to free Dumond.
That's where things stood when Huckabee took office on July 15, 1996. Last August, Huckabee told me he had his doubts about Dumond's guilt, and also felt sorry for him over the castration attack. On September 20, just weeks after taking office, Huckabee announced that he intended to set Dumond free, saying that there were "serious questions as to the legitimacy of his guilt." On October 31, Huckabee met with the parole board. Not long after, the board voted to free Dumond, but on the condition he move to another state. Huckabee was pleased, in part because -- given that the board had voted to free Dumond -- there was no need for Huckabee to commute the sentence or pardon him. So Huckabee denied Dumond's now-irrelevant pardon application while at the same time congratulating him on his soon-to-come freedom. "Dear Wayne," Huckabee wrote in a letter to Dumond. "My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that parole is the best way for your reintroduction to society to take place."
But no state would take Dumond. He remained behind bars for two and a half more years, until the board voted to free him in Arkansas. He was released in October 1999 and returned home. The next year, Dumond left the state, moving to a small town near Kansas City, Mo. Within weeks of arriving, he sexually assaulted and murdered a 39-year-old woman at an apartment complex near his home. The day that happened, everyone knew that freeing Wayne Dumond had been a very, very bad idea.
A political storm erupted. Huckabee sought cover by saying that all he had done was to deny Dumond's pardon application. But some Democrats claimed that Huckabee had pressured the parole board to free Dumond. What actually happened between Huckabee and the board remains unclear to this day, but there is no doubt that Huckabee wanted Wayne Dumond set free. And today, he knows he was terribly wrong, but he still defends his actions. "My only official action was to deny his clemency," Huckabee told me in Iowa. As we talked, Huckabee spread the blame around, not only to Tucker, who originally commuted Dumond's sentence, but to Bill Clinton as well. "Tucker could not have done that without Clinton's full knowledge and approval," Huckabee said.
I asked about the "Dear Wayne" letter. Didn't Huckabee want Dumond to go free? "I thought he would, you know, be clean," Huckabee told me. "And he had a job, he had sponsors lined up, so at the time, I did not have this apprehension that something horrible like that would happen. I did want him to report in [to parole authorities], because I just didn't know -- you never know about a guy like that."
As he talked, Huckabee looked down. "I hate it like crazy," he said. "It's one of the most horrible things ever that he went off and did what he did. It's just terrible. There's nothing you can say, but my gosh, it's the thing you pray never happens. And it did."
The Dumond case followed Huckabee around for the rest of his time in the governor's office. In his 2002 reelection bid, his Democratic opponent based virtually her entire campaign on the issue. And beyond the narrow issue of Dumond, Huckabee's actions raise larger questions about his views on crime and punishment. Critics, and some friends, too, have said Huckabee's position was deeply influenced by his Christian faith. "When I first met him, I was going through his positions on issues and I said, 'You're a conservative, so I'm sure you oppose granting parole for violent felons,'" Dick Morris, the campaign consultant who ran Huckabee's first run for lieutenant governor, told me. "And he said, 'Oh no, I would never take that position, because the concept of Christian duty requires that there is a possibility of forgiveness. The concept of Christian forgiveness requires that we keep open the process of parole -- use it sparingly, but keep it open.'"
When I asked Huckabee about that, he reminded me that he was tough on a lot of criminals, too. "Heck, I executed more people than any governor in the history of the state," Huckabee told me. "It's not something I'm bragging about, I'm just saying that if it had been simply a matter of my Christian conscience saying I don't believe in capital punishment, then I was pretty lousy in my conscience."
Huckabee doesn't duck talking about Dumond or the larger clemency issue. But he doesn't enjoy it, either, given that it was unquestionably the worst thing that happened while he was governor. Now, with the press spotlight shining on him, he has no choice but to explain himself.
--
Byron York, NR's White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President -- and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time .
http://www.patriots247.com/forums/index.php?s=f8556f6dd7d5c4749e7471397ba29f7d&showtopic=1628&st=0&p=12750&#entry12750
Huckabee faces scrutiny for involvement in rapist parole
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Following the release of several new polls suggesting Mike Huckabee has risen into the first tier of the Republican presidential candidates, the former Arkansas governor is facing a fresh round of scrutiny over supporting the parole of a convicted rapist in 1999.
Huckabee, then in his first term as governor, expressed support for the parole of Wayne DuMond, who was serving a life sentence for raping a 17-year-old girl. Less than a year after his release, DuMond was accused of murdering and raping a woman in Kansas City, Missouri, a crime he was eventually convicted of in 2003. He died in prison in 2005.
Huckabee has repeatedly said he wished he had more information about DuMond before advocating the release, and recently told CNN there was no indication DuMond remained a threat.
"There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said. "None of us could've predicted what he could've done when he got out." Huckabee also said that the process leading to DuMond's release began under former President Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas.
But new documents posted on the liberal Web site The Huffington Post indicate Huckabee had received letters from several victims of Wayne Dumond's before his release. The letters detailed his past actions and pleaded that he remain incarcerated.
"I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time," one victim wrote. She described how DuMond had raped her at knifepoint.
In another letter, a woman documented how her mother was raped by DuMond, and said he had told her mother that he would rape her daughter if she did not cooperate.
The Huffington Post says it received the never-before-published letters from a "deeply troubled" former aide to Huckabee who believes the now-presidential candidate has "deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of DuMond's other sexual assaults."
Huckabee spokesman Alice Stewart denied to the Huffington Post that Huckabee ever received any of the letters, but now tells CNN he got at least one from a victim named "Onita" who lived in DeWitt, Arkansas.
It's not clear if this is one of the letters posted on the Huffington Post, because the site has redacted the names.
The Huffington Post has published three victims' letters, and says it will post additional files later Wednesday.
- CNN's Dana Bash and Alexander Mooney
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_po/huckabee_the_parodox
ON DEADLINE: Did Huckabee go too far?
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press WriterMon Dec 31, 4:56 PM ET
Mike Huckabee may have finally gone too far.
After running an unconventional, surprisingly strong and sometimes strange race to the top tier of the Republican presidential campaign, the former Arkansas governor topped himself Monday with a campaign stunt that smacked of hypocrisy.
He called a news conference to unveil a negative ad that he had just withdrawn from Iowa television stations because, he told a room full of journalists recording the ad, he had a sudden aversion to negative politics. Quite a convenient epiphany.
"If people want to be cynical about it," Huckabee said, "they can be cynical about it."
If he loses Iowa's caucuses, New Year's Eve will forever mark the day Huckabee blew it -- the day a crowd stopped laughing with the witty Republican and laughed at him.
If he wins -- a possibility that even Huckabee now thinks he put at risk -- he sealed victory in a weird way Monday.
Here's what happened:
Huckabee came out of nowhere a few weeks ago to overtake former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Iowa polls, despite being massively outspent and out-organized. Romney answered back with television ads criticizing Huckabee's record in Arkansas.
While guilty of cherry-picking the worst aspects of Huckabee's resume, the negative ads stuck with the facts. For example, Huckabee did grant 1,033 pardons and commutations, including for 12 convicted murderers, as Romney's ad stated.
Huckabee's lead evaporated, which suggests that the ads worked or that a series of gaffes had caught up to him.
Or both.
So he did what desperate candidates do. Huckabee took himself off the campaign trail Sunday to shoot a negative ad. He bought $30,000 in television time to air the spot and called a news conference to unveil it.
While awaiting the late-arriving Huckabee, more than 50 reporters and a dozen photographers got to read five huge cards placed on easels by Huckabee's staff -- all highly critical of Romney's record as governor.
"Enough is enough," the signs said.
When Huckabee arrived, he announced that he had just changed his mind. The ad wouldn't run. It was too negative.
"I believe the people of Iowa deserve better, and we are going to try and give them better ...," he said.
But he didn't. Instead, Huckabee showed off the spot to the journalists, knowing full well his negative message would seep out of the room. He told the media to pay close attention.
"You're not going to get a copy of it," he warned, "so this is your chance to see it, then after that you'll never see it again."
The media laughed.
One of the funniest, most charming presidential candidate in recent memory, Huckabee normally makes reporters and voters laugh at his one-liners. On Monday, he made himself the butt of his own joke, urging journalists to take careful note of the negative ad that he had withdrawn because he wanted to run a positive campaign.
"It's never too late to do the right thing," he said.
The ad criticizes Romney's record as governor, fairly so, but goes on to question his character. "If a man is dishonest to obtain a job," Huckabee says in the ad, "he'll be dishonest on the job."
Funny that Huckabee decided at noon that line was too negative, because he used it six hours earlier during a national TV interview.
He used it on a Sunday news show, too.
And he didn't disavow the line Monday. "I said what I said. I spoke the truth," Huckabee said.
If he loses Thursday, Huckabee said, "I'll be the last guy to do this. But I want to be the first who will at least try."
Iowans have a reputation for punishing politicians who go negative. The question is whether voters, particularly evangelicals who make up his political base, will believe Huckabee had the political equivalent of a deathbed conversion.
Or will they think he's treating them likes rubes -- appealing to their sense of fair play while being foul?
Either way, the bizarre news conference was the latest twist in a campaign that has given new meaning to the word paradox. Huckabee is an immensely talented communicator and successful former governor who is nonetheless a flawed candidate.
• He is mistake prone, particularly when it comes to commenting about foreign policy.
• He can be thin-skinned and rash. Two of his advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said privately Monday that the production of the ad was fueled by Huckabee's white-hot anger with Romney, and that his change of mind was jarring to the campaign staff.
• He has a paltry political organization in a state that values the ground game, according to an informal survey of GOP county chairs and co-chairs. "I haven't seen much of a sign of him or his people," said Jim Conklin, chairman of the Linn County GOP.
He can also be disarmingly honest. Asked whether Romney should stop running negative ads, Huckabee said, "I'm not going to try to run his campaign."
"I'm having enough trouble running mine."
___
EDITORS: Ron Fournier has covered politics for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years. On Deadline is an occasional column.
Posted by: nikb | January 3, 2008 9:07 PM
OHHH Gimme a BREAK!
Al Gore did Conceed! THEN, after the Western Part of Florida, in the Central Time zone, that is predominantly Republican got fooled, he Retracted his concession!
Then the meally mouthed Snit said: qoute"Well you don't have to get "Snippy" about it!".
Now, as far as it being too close to call...
In THAT event, I win by default! ;~)
Posted by: rat-the | January 3, 2008 9:03 PM
What time can we expect the exit poll results? And when can we expect the actual results?
Posted by: llgg23 | January 3, 2008 8:59 PM
It could be a long night!!!
Posted by: JakeD | January 3, 2008 8:49 PM
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Sorry, nikb, but ABC News just called Iowa for HUCKABEE!!!