Exits indicate that McCain will win the overall California vote. Obviously, how it breaks down district by district will determine whether Romney has been utterly humiliated or simply beaten. McCain is running strongest in central California, the Bay area and L.A. County, while Romney does best in southern California and the northern coast. McCain’s margins in both L.A. County and the Bay area are larger than Romney’s in his best areas, which means that McCain may be more competitive in Republican-held districts than some expected.

P.S. CNN has already called California for McCain. So much for Romney’s late polling surge.

Of course, that doesn’t make any sense, but neither has the constant refrain from the Romneyites that a “vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain.” This is the same line they tried once before when Giuliani was perceived as Romney’s major adversary. What they can’t seem to grasp is that, at the very least, a vote for Huckabee is almost certainly a vote against Romney, and it also does not noticeably help McCain. In every state that Huckabee has won tonight, except for West Virginia, McCain was in second, which suggests that Romney would have lost these states anyway, since a large portion of Huckabee’s voters seem to prefer McCain, which means that almost every Huckabee victory is a victory denied to John McCain. Rejoice, ye anti-McCainists! Your champion has arrived, and he is the one you cannot stand.

Even a West Virginia win would have been consistent with Romney’s pattern, which seems to have been replicated in North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota (and maybe Colorado): he wins caucuses that can be dominated by a heavily funded and well-organised campaign, but when it comes to winning over masses of voters he just can’t deliver. His entire campaign has been geared towards appeasing activists and insiders, and yet he has the gall to wrap himself in a populist mantle.

You have heard me going on about Huckabee’s potential in today’s election for some time, and it seems as if his campaign is delivering in the expected states, and even in a few where he wasn’t expected to do terribly well. He has won Arkansas, Alabama and West Virginia, he is contending seriously for Georgia, Missouri and apparently even Minnesota, and he has a reasonable chance in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Clearly, as the results are showing in many of these states, the viable non-McCain candidate is Huckabee, which is all the more remarkable considering how poorly funded his campaign is. Had movement conservatives not thrown a fit and rejected Huckabee out of hand, they might have had a candidate who could stop McCain. Continuing to belittle his campaign at this stage, as the “great” political maestro Mary Matalin is doing along with others, is something akin to insanity if stopping McCain is the goal. At this point, Huckabee has no incentive to thwart McCain, and he has every reason to drop out once Romney is finished.

Update: Ross asks the question:

Incidentally, if Romney throws in the towel after tonight – which is by no means impossible, depending on the outcome in California – and Huckabee doesn’t, will any of the McCain-haters on the right insist that all good conservatives need to rally around Huck?

Surprisingly, the answer will be no for almost all of them. Having decided at some point that Huckabee is an unspeakable commie (when he is merely Bush redux with some better advisors), these people have already rejected any chance of striking a deal with Huck. Just watch the same people who spent the last two weeks screaming about McCain’s treachery suddenly re-discover the man’s virtues when the alternative is the Huckster.

Second Update: CNN called Oklahoma for McCain. Exits indicate that Huckabee will win Tennessee and Georgia, but they also suggest that McCain will take Missouri. Minnesota seems to be slightly less competitive than I first thought.

This seemed remotely possible, but I never took his chances here seriously. Yes, it is “just” a caucus state party convention, which exaggerates the level of support for the campaigns with the most dedicated activists, but even in an old border state Huckabee was able to mobilise enough Christian conservative support to win 52-47 over Romney. This might be one of the few cases where Huckabee really did cost Romney a state. That’s 18 delegates for Huckabee.

Update: Those are the second-round results (Paul had only 10% support after the first round and wasn’t included on the second ballot). Romney was leading the first round, but almost all the McCain and some of the Ron Paul supporters rallied to Huckabee on the second ballot. Given the options, I can’t blame them.

Second Update: This is doubly distressing for Romney, since his campaign never anticipated a serious challenge from anyone else in West Virginia:

An interview with John McCutcheon, a state consultant for Mitt Romney, made clear why he is expected to win easily.

“We have had the only organizational presence in West Virginia to speak of,” said John McCutcheon, a state consultant for Mr. Romney. “It’s all Romney all the time.”

Romney’s been so busy fighting with Bob Dole that he has forgotten to watch out for Huckabee. Again.

See the over-confidence of Team Romney:

Mr. McCutcheon described an ambitious county-by-county ground operation, complete with phone-banking, direct mail and radio advertisements, compared to only modest efforts made by all the other candidates.

“Any presence that has come in has been last minute and skeletal,” he said about the other campaigns.

So the “last minute and skeletal” operation beat out the well-funded, elaborate, ambitious ground game. Again.

Third Update: Just to clarify, West Virginia has 30 delegates, nine of which will be awarded after their actual primary, plus three at-large delegates. Huckabee has won all the delegates that were at stake at the convention, but conceivably he could lose the primary and fail to pick up the others.

Fourth Update: The Caucus describes Romney’s loss as a “significant setback.” Via Freddoso, the Romney campaign whines about a “backroom deal” throwing the convention to Huckabee. Romney’s camp said that this reflected McCain’s “inside Washington ways” (i.e., his people are better political operators than Romney’s). It wasn’t really a “backroom deal,” but it was a second ballot at a convention. Making deals with different factions at a convention is one of the things that happens at a political convention–it’s the kind of “scheming” that one needs to be able to do in the event that your side doesn’t carry the first ballot. Ponnuru correctly calls this whining silly.

Dole defended McCain to Limbaugh, and apparently Romney said this about the letter:

It’s probably the last person I would have wanted write a letter for me. I think there’s a lot of folks who tend to think that maybe John McCain’s race is bit like Bob Dole’s race. That it’s the guy who’s next in line, the inevitable choice.

McCain then played the military service card and called Romney’s mocking of Dole “disgraceful.” McCain is overreaching because he knows he has Romney on the ropes, but this is the sort of unforced error that Romney keeps making because he is always trying so very hard to prove that he’s not some moderate squish. He just doesn’t know when to stop. McCain’s campaign is a lot like Bob Dole’s, and will probably meet the same fate in the general election, but when you’re seeking a party’s nomination it is usually a good idea to respect the former nominees.

Since my predictions seem to ensure doom for whomever I select, I will do my bit to stop McCain by saying that he will win every state today except Utah and Alaska.

When he sauntered back onto a flight on Saturday, he broke the ice with an unusual remark.

“What did they say in ‘Star Wars?’ ” he asked. “What’s that line? ‘There’s nothing happening here. These droids aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’ ”

Eric Fehrnstrom, his traveling press secretary, said it had actually been rendered: “These are not the droids you are looking for.”

“These are not the droids you’re looking for,” Mr. Romney said. “Sorry.” ~The New York Times

Does anyone else find it unusually strange that Romney is making offhand references to robots? I would love to know the context of this remark–what would have prompted him to make it?

Campaigns can change who you are, particularly politically. ~Rick Santorum

Well, in that case, he’s picked the right candidate to endorse. You have to admire how Santorum acknowledges that Romney started his campaign just by checking things off a list, but now is supposed to believe them. His conviction must increase exponentially as his campaign approaches Election Day.

P.S. I would just note for anyone holding out hope that Romney represents some meaningful break with the administration in foreign policy that Santorum, head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s “Enemies”Program to Protect America’s Freedom, thinks Romney is entirely on board with his views on Iran. This would be the same Iran that Santorum believes is trying to conquer the world. As Santorum put it:

He is someone who understood the issues and where he didn’t understand, was willing to listen and quickly able to assimilate the points I was making into things he already understood and saw the connection, saw how it fit.

The Romney campaign doesn’t pretend the sour attitude toward its candidate doesn’t exist. But chief counselor Ben Ginsberg insists— echoing one of the campaign’s main themes — the attitude stems largely from the fact that Romney is “the outsider candidate. He’s not from Washington and he’s going to change Washington. He’s not part of their club.” ~Ana Marie Cox

But that doesn’t really explain why so many people outside of Washington also dislike him.  Still, there is something to this, in that Romney isn’t exactly “part of their club,” but he acts like someone desperately craving an invitation and likes to refer to all of his newfound friends who have been in “the club” for years.  His sycophancy has won some supporters, but at the same time it has embarrassed many would-be supporters  and alienated others. 

It is also quite funny to see the campaign push the “outsider” theme, when virtually every Romney ad carries some positive blurb about him or a criticism of McCain from a conservative magazine or think tank located in the Beltway or in New York.  No other candidate has gone so far out of his way to ingratiate himself with establishment institutions as Romney has done.  What he and his campaign seem to be missing is that all the ingratiating and all of the things he has had to do in the process to win new friends in “the club” are off-putting not just to other “members” but to many others as well.  As I have suggested elsewhere, Romney is running as the “change” candidate embraced by significant parts of the establishment while McCain has found himself running a status quo insurgency.  The former embraces and is supported by the administration’s friends, while the latter promises the perpetuation of virtually everything the administration has done.  The establishment prefers Romney because he appears to need them and they believe he will be dependent on them, but more importantly because, once they let him into the “club” or on the “team,” they think he will be reliable and predictable.  That he has completely altered his views on almost every policy question to gain this trust doesn’t seem to worry them.