By Big Tent Democrat

Josh Marshall argued it did not:

Just in terms of managing the news cycle I think what the Clinton folks would have been looking for are two things -- big pictures of Hillary smiling, preferably above the fold, thus suggesting victory and some mention of her margin. But I don't see either anywhere. Perhaps the print front pages will play this differently. But on balance I suspect they didn't get as much juice out of this as they wanted or expected.

This seems pretty blinded analysis to me. What was the purpose of the Florida gambit? I would say principally it was to change the headline away from Obama's Big Mo/Kennedy talk. Can Josh HONESTLY say this did not change it? Of course it did. But I think it succeeded in a larger way, much more so than I expected. I will explain on the flip.

It's over for Rudy Giuliani. The New York Times provides some of the reasons. Among the milder criticisms:

He allowed a tight coterie of New York aides, none with national political experience, to run much of his campaign.

....He accumulated a fat war chest — he had $16.6 million on hand at the end of September, more than Mitt Romney ($9.5 million) or Senator John McCain ($3.2 million) — but spent vast sums on direct mail instead of building strong organizations on the ground in South Carolina and New Hampshire.

Then there's the ones based on Rudy himself: [More...]

All the early voting states are now behind us. The big deal is Tsunami Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Delegates will matter. This map shows the states holding Democratic caucuses and primaries.

More than 1,500 delegates will be delivered from these states. 2,025 is the number needed to secure the nomination.

The delegate breakdown by states voting Feb. 5 is below:

California now has vending machines that dispense medical marijuana to users, 24/7, just like an ATM.

Check out this AP video.

The DEA wants to shut them down, even though they are legal under state law.

Another good thing about our Democratic candidates: All support ending the federal raids on medical marijuana clinics. Granite Staters has report cards for both the Democratic and Republican candidates. Here's where they were in 2003 and 2004.

Here are the vote tallies by county. Here's what they show: Obama won the counties closest to Georgia and the deep south. He won no county below the top of the state.

Florida by the numbers (from her campaign):

• Hillary will end up with more votes than John McCain.

• She won women, men, and just about every age category. She won the youth vote.

• She won 6 in 10 Latinos and nearly 3 in 10 African American voters.

• More than 1.5 million Democrats voted today, more than twice the number of voters in the 2004 primary.

• Among those who decided on Election Day, a plurality of those chose Hillary.

CNN just called Florida for John McCain.

Rudy is expected to drop out by Wednesday and endorse McCain.

Huckabee says hold on, we need Super Tuesday and the Southern states' votes before you count me out.

Does anyone think McCain would pick Rudy as his running mate?

Where does this leave Mitt Romney? Is he still viable?

Update: McCain is speaking now. He may be the least inspirational, blandest speaker ever. He sounds like he is reading rather than speaking. He also uses far too many cliches like "my dear friends."

I wish him a long, healthy life, but at 71, what I'm most concerned about is who he'll pick as his running mate.

NBC is at pains to NOT report the Dem results in Florida. Let's be clear, this is NOT a normal primary. There was no campaigning (though Obama ran a national ad and that reached Florida, and union allies for Clinton and Obama dropped literature in Florida). The DNC has ruled that no delegates will be awarded, though it is clear that it will be the Dem convention that makes that decision. It is not a win like Obama's in South Carolina.

But a lot of people voted. Indeed, Hillary is likely to have TWICE as many people vote for her than watch Keith Olbermann's program. It ill behooves them to ridicule the votes of Floridians who outnumber MSNBC viewers by a factor of 4. IF we start playing THAT numbers game, then let's all make fun of MSNBC's viewership.

(larger version here.)

Update 8:00 pm : CNN calls Florida for Hillary Clinton, based on exit polls and 15% of vote in. CNN says more people voted in Florida than all the other states combined.

CNN says the Obama campaign's response is Florida is a tie: 0 delegates for Hillary, 0 for Obama. I guess that means he won't call to congratulate here.

Update 7:45 pm: Hillary still way ahead in the counties reporting so far. Obama ahead in one county, Leon -- located at the top of the state. Demograpics for Leon County here.

[More...]

The Florida Democratic primary today will not select delegates, according to Democratic rules. The candidates did not campaign here or run ads, other than a national ad run by Barack Obama. Howver, all the candidates are on the ballot. It seems likely that the largest number of Democratic voters will cast ballots today in Florida that have voted in any state to date. Indeed, RECORD turnout is forecast. Can these votes be ignored by the Media? The Obama camp seems worried that it will not be:

. . . [O]n a media call that was led off by Sen. John Kerry. Here are quick translations of Kerry's opening remarks, which were directly specifically and near exclusively focused on the Clinton campaign's attempt to claim significance from what happens today in Florida:

"The bottom line is that Florida offers no delegates. It should not become part of some spin campaign. . . . You have a contrast today, a juxtaposition. You have an avoidance of a rule set up by the chair to create something that isn’t supposed to be something. In my judgment, personally, as voters look at the meaning of the Florida primary, the voters are not looking for spin to win the news cycle . . .

More....

Defying the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism, Clinton scores the endorsement of symbolically and substantively potent superdelegate/California Representative Maxine Waters [D-CA).