Wonkette

Here’s a new ad from Republican Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, who faces a tough re-election bid this year against Jeff Merkley, the bore who barely defeated that awesome little pirate hobbit in May’s Democratic primary. Smith’s ad here is the latest of his to compare himself to — gasp — Barack Obama and John Kerry! Is Oregon really so liberal that a Republican has to pretend he’s friends with two gay socialists? Anyway, this video is mostly funny because Smith never looks into the camera, and sometimes looks down, and everyone feels awkward. [YouTube]

This is inventive: “An Oregon state senator has been hospitalized with an accidental gunshot wound in the knee. The Medford Mail Tribune reports that Republican Jason Atkinson, 37, was hit while repairing a friend’s bicycle Tuesday. Central Point police say a .38-caliber derringer was in a bag attached to the bike, and it fired when Atkinson dropped the bag … The John McCain campaign named him an honorary chairman for Oregon activities.” Promote this man, Walnuts — he’s more competent than any of your current top advisers. [OregonLive]

Barack Obama has gotten his tushy thoroughly handed to him in Kentucky, and there are no results from Oregon yet, so there’s only one thing he can do: declare overall victory in Iowa! He has won a majority of pledged delegates, you see, although Hillary has declared a lead in the popular vote — which she determined by not counting caucus votes and counting Florida and Michigan instead. But whatever! Men suck! Barry can’t *really* declare total victory, because that would be Sexist! What kind of vague victory will he declare? Let’s find out! MORE »

Hello peoples are you ready for an address from Barack Obama, the man who lost Kentucky by a million percent tonight? Are you ready to watch him declare victorious victory in Oregon safe from his mountain perch in Iowa? Well, you have to wait another 90 minutes because God is Cruel. Stay with us and comment your crazy faces off while we look at the dumb television and feel despair in our hearts.

9:05 PM — Russert, Olbermann… oh hey who won American Idol? Wait whoops that is a TWO NIGHT season finale, nevermind. Let’s see, what else is on. Horrible crap. Fine, back to MSNBC.
9:10 PM –Claire McCaskill. She has an Elizabeth Edwardsian look to her. You know what is hard? Typing while an Airedale tries to lick your left hand.
9:15 PM — Over to CNN and John King’s magical maps. He is touching the magical map and drawing lines on it and flipping states from red to blue, a la Hillary Clinton. Now for Obama: he’ll get VA, GA, CO, NM, IA… basically any way you slice it the Democrat wins. OMG BREAKING NEWS: Obama wins 2 more delegates in Kentucky, so now he has the majority of pledged delegates, he is the President of Pledged Delegates.
9:24 PM — Hello Chris Dodd and your fabulous mane of hair! What do you think of your Northeastern pal, the guy who also has hair? You know, Ted Kennedy? “He’s a fighter,” Dodd says. WELL WE HAVE HAD ABOUT ENOUGH OF FIGHTERS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. “I’d be disturbed if I were that tumor. That tumor’s in deep trouble.” Gaah.
9:29 PM — Dodd: She has every right in the world to continue, and I firmly believe that at the end of her completely futile endeavor she will fall in line. Toobin: We’re always accusing the Clinton people of coming up with crazy categories, and now we are coming up with crazy categories too, like pledged delegates! Gergen: Are you, uh, on crack? It is no longer mathematically even POSSIBLE for her to pass him. “There are not many metrics left,” he says. Toobin: I have to go wash my hair.
9:35 PM — Ooh here is a delightful communication from a banned commenter: “Really? You disabled my comments? I guess I’ll never be a member of the Wonkette crew. Maybe I’m not a snarky enough hate-filled asshole: ‘Oh man, lemme tell you ‘PAULTARDS!’ Right!? Jesus, what a bunch of idiots, I can’t tell you how much I hate them, GOD! SO DUMB!’ Well, that’s not true, I am hate filled- but I only hate assholes. Like Wonkette, and your annoying mud-slinging ilk who are completely devoid of substance. Eat shit you guys, Fo’ realz.”
9:38 PM — You know what we would ban, if we were moderating the cable news shows? People saying “toe to toe.” We would also ban Paul Begala. He just came up with some dumb fake Texas mosquito colony comparison that everybody chuckled nervously at.
9:44 PM — Let us examine Obama’s Kentucky spanking a little closer. See that big pie, and how it is light blue? It means that Kentucky is not Sexist. Suzanne Malveaux, beaming in from Iowa: “Do you see how I am outside, in Iowa? Iowans only emerge from their snow-huts for a few precious weeks per year, and this is one of them. They heart Obama.” She looks like she’s lost weight. Hollow-cheeked. She is slowly turning into Nancy Reagan, with her red jacket. Weird constant drumming sounds, or is that the wind on her microphone? Horrible sounds, screaming, mayhem. Uh, hooray Obama?
9:52 PM — Andrea Mitchell has bad news. Hamilton Jordan, former White House Chief of Staff, has died. He had quite a few illnesses over the years, and fought valiantly. Man, Andrea looks truly sad. Ditto Matthews.
9:55 PM — But enough about all that! Let’s talk about the Constant Existential Death-Struggle within the Democratic party between the idealists and the douchebags. Ooh Obama sent out A EMAIL that has NUMBERS in it, and now we go to a commercial, again.
9:59 PM — Fine, CNN, we will look at you again. Donna Brazile is saying something about a president being younger than she is, so we can rest assured she isn’t talking about McCain. No mention of Hamilton Jordan among these ingrates/philistines. Anderson Cooper suggesting a “shellacking” in Kentucky.
10:05 PM — Leslie Sanchez: “build her case,” blah blah blah. Let’s ban “building the case” along with “toe to toe”. And you commenters, you are on watch for “totes.”
10:06 PM — Alex Castellanos looks like he is wearing a fake mustache on top of his fake face. Hillary Clinton can be “tough as trigonometry sometimes,” he says. Obama is tough as calculus, though, so Elitism wins again. OMG here comes Barack Obama!!! He will say Things! Read all about it in yet another liveblog, here.

With every passing Tuesday the Democratic party gets closer to cutting the Gordian knot that is its Presidential nominating contest. In other words, Hillary Clinton will win Kentucky, Barack Obama will win Oregon, and Pat Buchanan will lose his mind (again) on MSNBC tonight. Join us as we watch the early evening madness, with a glass of Kentucky bourbon in each fist! MORE »

This is a screen shot from a famous computer game called The Oregon Trail. This game is literally the only famous thing about Oregon, except for a few mediocre indie pop bands. Despite its overall irrelevancy, however, Oregon will host one of tonight’s two primaries. The other state is Kentucky, where horses come to die and leave corny extended metaphors in their wake. Your Wonkette will obviously be liveblogging the proceedings tonight, starting around 6:30 or 6:45 Eastern (polls close in Kentucky at 7:00 Eastern, shortly before the state’s “Chicken Supper Time.”) Loser Oregon does not close until 11:00 Eastern, but Obama is giving a speech around 8:30, so we will Never Rest.

Ooh, won’t tomorrow be fun! Obama, of course, is going to half-declare himself the winner, as his campaign predicts it will have the majority of pledged delegates following Kentucky and Oregon’s primaries. He’ll be spending the night in Iowa, where he started his Quest. (Circle of Life and all that). Obama is not very smart however, and he — like the DNC — considers the winning number of delegates to be 2,025; Hillary’s team has made up a new number, 2,209, that includes Michigan and Florida. And guess what she’s doing tomorrow? Declaring a popular vote lead. So tomorrow we will have two declared winners, and no souls, and an Iraq War. [AFP, NYT]

Silly Barry Obama held a rally with 75,000 attendees in Portland, Oregon today. Jesus, don’t people go to church anymore, or has Obama converted all the kids to Islam (via MTV)? According to the Washington Post, “The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the Willamette River. More hug the rails of the steel bridge that stretches across the water and crowds are even watching from jetties on the opposite shore.” After the jump, a picture of that. MORE »

Barack Obama is going to win in Oregon as big as Hillary won in West Virginia, but it will count for twice as many delegates. Also, he won the nomination. Still, he has to keep campaigning because Hillary will never ever quit the race, so he had to do this depressing Q&A with one of the “alt-weekly” papers in Portland. If you thought alt-weeklies were the last refuge of aging grunge losers, this interview really isn’t going to change your view. MORE »

OMG. Steve Novick is a hobbit from Oregon who is running for Senate as a Democrat, and he also has a hook hand. He opens a beer with his HOOK HAND, and it’s among the better things we’ve seen in life. He also owns an HDTV and is an Arugula Liberal Elitist. Vote Steve Novick! We must get this man to Washington so he can open beers for us, like a pirate. [YouTube via Steve Novick]

Here is a nice image of Barry Obama playing half-naked in a filthy industrial river with his pet unicorn, Mr. Pantsy, and shooting Bitter Roses out of his wide-angle crotch. Lucas Ketner’s terrifying painting accompanies a Barry endorsement from Oregon’s Willamette Week, which is actually edited by Mr. Pantsy. [Willamette Week via Slog]

Thousands of dockworkers from Seattle to San Diego didn’t show up at work today, forcing the closure of all 29 ports in the Western United States — including the busiest American ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach. What the hell? MORE »

Bill Richardson is such a sexist skirt-chaser that he has decided to endorse the male senator over the female senator who’s married to the guy he used to work for. The newly bearded New Mexico Governor and former ambassador to the U.N. under Bill Clinton will be endorsing Barack Obama for president today somewhere in Oregon. [NYT]