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9:21 pm: CNN has declared John McCain the winner.

9:12 pm: With 82% of the votes in, the margins are still roughly the same, McCain 33%, Huckabee 30%, Thompson 16% and Romney 15%.

9:03 pm: With 72% of the votes in, John McCain is still maintaining his lead over Mike Huckabee with 34% of the vote. Huckabee is maintaining his second place position with 29% of the vote. In third is Fred Thompson with 16% of the vote, followed by Romney with 15%.

8:55 pm: With 61% of the votes in, John McCain is leading with 33% of the vote. Huckabee is in a close second with 30%, followed by Fred Thompson in third with 16%, followed by Romney with 15%

8:42 pm: With 50% of the votes in, John McCain is leading with 34% of the vote. Huckabee is in a close second with 29%, Thompson in third with 15% and Romney in a close fourth with 15%.

8:41 pm: Looking at the information so far, it looks like John McCain is doing significantly better than he did in 2000 against George W. Bush in the northern, more Evangelical Counties. This could be a problem for Mike Huckabee if he doesn’t see a surge in the remaining counties.

8:39 pm: With 46% of the votes in, John McCain is leading with 33% of the vote, followed closely by Mike Huckabee with 30% of the vote. Vying for 3rd is Fred Thompson with 16% of the vote, with Romney following close behind at 15%.

8:34 pm: Fairfield County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, John McCain has sealed the deal in Fairfield County with 33% of the vote. McCain was followed by Huckabee with 29%, Thompson with 17% and Romney 16% of the vote.

8:33 pm: Edgefield County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, Mike Huckabee has sealed the deal in Edgefield county with 35% of the vote. Huckabee was followed by McCain with 34%, Thompson with 14% and Romney with 11%

8:32 pm: Colleton County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, John McCain has sealed the deal in Colleton County with 45% of the vote. McCain was followed by Huckabee with 28%, Thompson with 12% and Romney with 10%

8:30 pm: Oconee County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, John McCain has sealed the deal in Oconee County with 37% of the vote. McCain was followed by Huckabee with 33%, Romney with 14% and Thompson with 11%

8:29 pm: With 35% reporting, John McCain is leading with 35%, Huckabee with 29%, Thompson with 15% and Romney with 14%

8:28 pm: Lancaster County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, Mike Huckabee has sealed the deal in Marlboro County with 39% of the vote. Huckabee was followed by McCain with 26%, Thompson with 20% and Romney with 10%

8:27 pm: Marlboro County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, Mike Huckabee has sealed the deal in Marlboro County with 40% of the vote. Huckabee was followed by McCain with 34%, Thompson with 11% and Romney with 10%

8:25 pm: Jasper County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, Mike Huckabee has sealed the deal in Jasper County with 41% of the vote. Huckabee was followed by McCain with 33%, Romney with 13% and Thompson with 8%.

8:13pm: 21% reporting, McCain 38%, Huckabee 26%, Thompson 15%, Romney 15%

8:10 pm: Allendale County, South Carolina - With 100% reporting, John McCain has sealed the victory in Allendale with 51% of the vote. Huckabee with 25%, Romney with 9% and Thompson with 8%. This is a small county, so these results aren’t really that telling.

8:05 pm: Looks like Fred Thompson speech didn’t really give much insight into what his plans were following the outcome. However, the tone of the speech definitely made it sound as if this was his last run. Throughout the speech he kept using keywords such as “thank you for all you’ve done”, “no matter what…”, all things suggesting that this might be wrapping up for him.

8:04 pm: 12% Reporting, McCain 34%, Huckabee 30%, Thompson 15%, Romney 15%

7:55 pm: 5% Reporting, McCain 38%, Huckabee 28%, Romney 16%. No significant developments.

7:54 pm: With 3% reporting, Fred Thompson is thanking his supporters for their support… is a pre-concession speech? More details coming…

7:45 pm: 1% reporting, McCain: 37%, Huckabee: 24%, Romney: 18%, Thompson: 12%

7:22 pm: Early Results In, McCain: 33%, Huckabee: 26% - Only less than 1% reporting.

7:04 pm: Michael Barone: “It looks like its going to be difficult for Huckabee to meet John McCain” - exit poll showing: McCain 32%, Huckabee 27%

7:01 pm: CNN Exit Poll: Very close between Huckabee and McCain for first, as well as between Romney and Thompson for third. So far, nothing surprising.

7:00 pm: The polls are now closed in South Carolina.

This was predictable, while he has a good record, he just couldn’t get his campaign off the ground. While everyone knew that he wouldn’t win, I’m curious who he is going to endorse.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Mitt Romney is looking to have a decisive victory in Nevada, where he was leading with double digits from early on.

With the victory and Nevada and the polls still open in South Carolina, the question of “what’s next?” is one that it seems many have found themselves asking.

Looking at South Carolina, it doesn’t look like Romney will come in first place. However, there are some factors, such as weather and the announcement of his victory in Nevada that might give him a boost to make the “silver medal” more competitive for Huckabee or McCain.

However, even assuming that Mitt Romney comes in third place in South Carolina, he will still be the leader in terms of number of delegates (though Nevada is non-binding) and looking at the early returns, he’ll also still be the leader in terms of the number of votes.

While the media has continued to say that Romney needs to win South Carolina to stay viable, I simply don’t see that as being the case.

Traditionally it has been said that if you don’t win South Carolina, you aren’t going to win the party nomination. While that has been seen in previous elections, this is definitely an election like no other, where even going into super Tuesday, there will be at least three strong candidates still in the race.

Now, Romney finds himself in a position where he has the lead in terms of delegates, however with Florida coming up and McCain and Giuliani both polling high, he is going to have to fight to place in second, or a close third, while still making serious inroads in the other primary states.

Shortly after Florida is the Maine Caucus, which has 21 delegates up for grabs. This could be a strong state for Romney, where he has the New England ties, as well as having the budget to have a strong marketing blitz both there and in the Super Tuesday states.

While Giuliani will also have potential to do well in Maine, if he doesn’t win in Florida, I don’t really see him staying in the race much longer.

To be honest, I find it offensive for a candidate who is seeking the Presidency to write off states, simply because they aren’t as valuable in terms of getting delegates. When I go to the polls, I’m looking for the candidate who has nationwide appeal as well as local appeal, not someone who understands that a presidential bid could essential be won with some simple equations.

Rolling in to Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney is going to give John McCain a run for his money in Arizona, which has an extremely large Mormon population, as well as Utah and Colorado, which also have a large LDS population.

In California, Romney is currently polling in second place, just behind John McCain and with Rudy Giuliani nipping at Romney’s heels. With the Nevada victory, I believe that Romney’s polling numbers in California will increase by at least 2% making that race even closer.

However, what is going to be the big decider in California is how the undecided voters decide to lean. Mitt Romney has the business background that should help him boost his support in places like Orange County and amongst some of the Republican-leaning executives in Silicon Valley.

While this race is nowhere near over, I think that with the first set of consecutive victories in this election season, I think that Mitt Romney is one step closer to successfully getting the nomination.

Now all eyes are on South Carolina…

Glad to see some of the top conservative fiscal policy groups are coming out against Huckabee early.

Today’s CBSNews.com had an interview with Katon Dawson, Chairman of the South Carolina GOP. Despite Dawson’s “safe responses” there was definitely a lot of information in this interview that the electorate needs to rule out before discarding any candidates from this race, as well as coining anyone the victor.

Dawson on Romney not focusing all his time on South Carolina:

I think that with as many undecided voters as there are right now, certainly you don’t like to go down in your political media. But there are a lot of undecideds out there in this race, and it’s up for grabs in South Carolina. So we will find out how well the strategy played. But Government Romney has got a strong team here, a strong presence here, for a little over a year.

Absolutely. Even though Governor Romney isn’t focusing on South Carolina, his poll numbers are still solid. However, what is even more interesting is how Dawson emphasizes the number of undecided voters in the state. Keep in mind, this is a state that commentators said would be a solid victory for Mike Huckabee do to the Evangelical vote.

I’ve heard commentators say that over 50% of the South Carolina Republican voting base identifies themselves as an Evangelical Christian. But only 24% of those polled say they are supporting Huckabee?

This was the same in Michigan, where optimistic commentators suggested that Huckabee would give Romney and McCain a run for their money due to the large Evangelical base in the state. That wasn’t the case.

Dawson even touched on this in the interview when asked if Romney’s religion effected him amongst South Carolinas large evangelical base

My opinion would be voters are looking for an entire package, not just one issue to disqualify you. But certainly Governor Romney has values that are very consistent with evangelical voters, and has run a good campaign here.

I always think this lumping and grouping into any type of category is very dangerous in South Carolina because we are a very independent state with independent voters. If evangelicals all voted the same, Pat Robertson certainly would have won here [in 1988].

Why don’t you hear more of this from the media? Anyone who has studied the modern Morman church understands that many of the values that they share are the same as the majority of most mainstream Christian faiths.

When discussing Senator McCain, Dawson also offered some more valuable insight into South Carolina politics:

I think Senator McCain certainly has had a good campaign staff in South Carolina the entire time. He is a war hero, and recognized for that. He has stuck to his message, and was right about the surge and where we are in the war on terror. And the voters, I think, are rewarding him with their favor right now for being very consistent with his message.

With that being said, there are more people in the race than there were in 2000. 2000 was basically limited to George Bush and John McCain. Right now you have got lots of very well-qualified candidates.

Focusing on the second part, this is something nobody in the MSM has really illustrated. In 2000 it was two major candidates and now in 2008 there are four.

Dawson went on to say:

Electability is huge. People want to know who could take the fight to the Democrats and retain the White House. I cannot tell you who that is right now.

Not only does this show that South Carolina is going to be a tight race, but also shows an alarming trend regarding the condition of the GOP. The party is fractured, and if the GOP loses I see a lot of people giving up hope on the partisan way of politics and simply identifying themselves as an independent.

I know many Republicans who are disappointed with all the infighting amongst the current candidates and have seriously considered the possibility of throwing their support behind the lesser of two evils on the Democratic side… usually Obama.

Either way, this election just gets more and more unpredictable, as well as more dangerous for the final condition of the party come November 5, 2008.

The article referred to has a variety of other great perspectives from Dawson in it, I urge you to read the article in its entirety.

While it might be an unusual method for determining which candidates the non-politico’s of the American electorate might vote for, after reading a recent survey in Playboy magazine, Sex in America, I definitely think that their data might have some truth.

It should be noted that the data from this survey was gathered by Frank Luntz, who is by no means an amateur when it comes to figuring out how people feel about candidates and why they vote the way that they do.

The data:

Q. Which of these candidates do you think is most likely to talk dirty in bed?

None of them - 37.0%
Hillary Clinton - 19.8%
Rudy Giuliani - 16.5%
Barack Obama - 7.6%
Fred Thompson - 4.4%
John Edwards - 4.0%
Mitt Romney - 2.9%
John McCain - 2.4%
Dennis Kucinich - 1.7%
Joe Biden - 1.0%
Mike Huckabee - 1.0%
Chris Dodd - 0.9%
Ron Paul - 0.5%
Bill Richardson - 0.3%

While there is no doubt in my mind that Bill Clinton is probably a freak, I like to think that opposites attract, thus suggesting that Hillary lacks in that department.

However, the data seems to be quite accurate, nonetheless.

Keep in mind that while this data is for the February issue (which comes out in January), the data would have had to have been gathered sometime in early December. Who were the National front runners? That’s right, for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and for the Republicans, Rudy Giuliani.

Now, this doesn’t suggest that people vote based on who they think is the most likely to talk dirty in bed, but I really think that the sex appeal of a candidate can really help them in the long run.

I’d be interested in seeing this survey run a on a monthly basis to see if there is any correlation between front runner status and sex appeal.

What I found remarkable, is who the respondents of this survey thought was the sexiest woman in politics.

Q. Who is the sexiest woman in politics?

Michelle Obama - 19.7%
Condoleezza Rice - 17.5%
Laura Bush - 16.3%
Hillary Clinton - 14.0%
Jeri Thompson - 9.6%
Elizabeth Edwards - 9.4%
Judith Giuliani - 6.3%
Nancy Pelosi - 5.7%
Barbara Boxer - 1.6%

WHAT?

Michelle Obama? Condoleea Rice? These are not to the two top names that come to mind in my opinion. How is it even feasible that Jeri Thompson came in 5th place with only 6.3% of the vote? Though, I’m guessing that the 4.4% that thought Fred Thompson talks dirty in bed probably attributes that to the fact that he was able to land a dime like Jeri Thompson.

I’m actually a bit surprised that Nancy Pelosi ranked lower than Hillary Clinton, I don’t know of many people who would disagree with me on that, regardless of political preference.

It’s a bit unfortunate that some of the most beautiful Republican women in Washington didn’t make the list. So, here are my honorable mentions, in no particular order:

Marsa Blackburn

Mary Bono

(It should be noted, that Mary Bono also has the Most Beautiful Office on Capitol Hill)

For those of you follow news on the hill regularly will be familiar with the latest piece of legislation introduced by Congressman Eric Cantor, the Middle Class Jobs Protection Act (H.R. 4995).

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the legislation, if passed in its current form, will essentially reduce the corporate tax rate from its current level of 35% to 25%.

Beyond the rate cut, this proposal will also allow a variety of other perks for business owners, such as allowing a five year carry back of Net Operating Losses as well as a carry back of tax credits for three years.

If delivered the right way, this is a proposal that I think could make serious progress in the House. With the economy in its current state, this legislation is almost certainly going to be well received by economists who have been informing congress for awhile now that action needs to be taken.

Furthermore, this seems like a decent compromise to the varying proposals that were floating around the Hill just before the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was to expire.

This legislation already has some strong support on the Republican side, including Jeb Hensarling, Kay Granger, Jim Jordan, Michele Bachman and John Campbell.

While Cantor has some strong, fiscally sound conservatives on board, I think they are going to need other champions of conservative fiscal policy, as well as leaders who can help deliver this legislation better.

To really beef this up, I think that having a young gun like Paul Ryan and/or Jeff Flake added to the mix will really give this some legs. Paul Ryan to be the smart, young, nice guy who everyone likes to get the signatures and Jeff Flake to get in the faces of people Paul Ryan isn’t successful with. The killer combo

Speaking of Jeff Flake, if you haven’t done so already, please visit makeitflake.com and add your name to the growing list of Americans who believe that Jeff Flake will bring the earmark cutting leadership that the GOP needs on the Appropriations Committee.

Today’s Washington Post had an interesting article discussing the declines in abortion since 1976. According to their data, in 2005 there were approximately 1,200,000 abortions in the United States.

While 1,200,000 is a 9% decline from the 2000 numbers, the article seems to be missing the obvious in terms of what might have caused this drop.

In the article, Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute was quoted on some of the things that she thought were responsible for this decline:

“It could be more women using contraception and not having as many unintended pregnancies. It could be more restrictions on abortions making it more difficult for women to obtain abortion services. It could be a combination of these and other dynamics”

I’m going to have to agree with Ms. Jones. More women are using contraception and because of a strong pressure on State governments, it is becoming more and more difficult for women to get abortions. Case closed, right? Not so far..

Just like any other story regarding abortion, there is always the Planned Parenthood angle. Normally, its Planned Parenthood interjects in debates by suggesting that the tight restrictions on abortion need to be lifted, but not this time.

In the article in the Post, they quoted Cecile Richard from Planned Parenthood, who stated:

“This study shows that prevention works, and that’s what we provide in our health centers every day”

How is that for spinning something in your favor? The study they are referring to in the article can be summed up by the earlier quote from Rachel Jones who released the study: tighter restrictions and preventative measures are responsible for the decline in abortions.

I find this amusing, because Planned Parenthood is the organization that continually touts that if restrictions aren’t lifted, there will be more abortions in less humane fashions.

I think that if this were the case, it would have been reported in the article.

All of this on the brink of the anniversary of Roe. v. Wade.

On a side note, if you haven’t already, I encourage you all to see the movie Juno. While its not explicitly pro-life, I think that it has many pro-life tones, without the common stereotypes.

The Hill has a brief story this morning about a Senate GOP retreat that is planned for next week to discuss what type of message they should be taking to the voters.

Alexander has said he wants the conference to craft a message aimed at attracting independents and conservatives. But he faces the challenge of bridging differences between diverse factions of the conference while appeasing those who want the GOP minority to take an increasingly confrontational approach to the Democratic majority as the elections draw near.

Since when does the GOP need to have a meeting to find a way to craft a message that will be appealing to conservatives? Doesn’t it seem like the problem isn’t with their message, but instead with how they vote?

What is more frightening is the fact that there is an openness about the different factions and how the goal is to please all of them.

Why not make those who vote for you happy and go back to an agenda that was based on limiting the size of government, keeping spending down, and protecting personal freedoms. If anything, these retreats should be for cracking into the Democrats election strategy, not seeing which strategy is going to be best for keeping those who have deviated from the GOP platform in office.

Despite only having 9% of the votes in, Mitt Romney was claimed the victor of the critical Michigan Republican Primary. This will be Mitt Romney’s first “gold medal” and should lead to the the building of Mitt Romeny’s momentum heading into South Carolina, Florida and Nevada.I’m sure that many people are now asking themselves what does a Romney victory do to the dynamics of the Republican campaign?

This should serve as a wakeup call to Republicans that candidates seeking the Presidency, as well as offices below need to start talking more about the economy. While national security, abortion, etc. are important issues to many conservatives, the economy is the issue that everyone is able to feel.

Rudy Giuliani, of all the candidates should take notes from Michigan on what issues are important to people. Thus far, Giuliani has been focusing a great deal of his time, energy and budget discussing such things as immigration, security and trying to preserve his image. It wasn’t until recently that he started to mention a comprehensive economic plan, which could put him at a disadvantage going against Mitt Romney, who obviously has more economic experience.

While some tax organizations in Washington have praised Giuliani’s tax plan, they have to question how his tax plan will work with some of his other proposals. I’m going to write more on this later, but this is something that voters have to keep in the back of their mind. His plans sound good, the look good on paper, but are they, more importantly, is his candidacy truly viable?

I’m not sure.

Then there is Fred Thompson. Even if he wins in South Carolina (which he wont), he really has no chance at this point. While it looks like he will receive more votes than Giuliani in Michigan, he just doesn’t seem to have the structure, message and persona to run a viable, long-term presidential campaign.

Finally, I’m confident that after South Carolina, Duncan Hunter will be out of the race. Depending on the numbers, this is probably where we will see Fred Thompson make his exit as well.

For Michigan Primary Liveblog, click here