Luck Of The Draw

This weekend has been all about politics on CNN. Coverage of the Nevada Caucuses and the Republican South Carolina Primary started at 1PM ET on Saturday afternoon. The early coverage was anchored by Wolf Blitzer and John King live from the CNN Election Center in New York.

They had reports from Abbi Tatton, Ali Velshi, Candy Crowley, Dana Bash, Juan Carlos Lopez and Christine Romans. Bill Schneider was providing the break down of the voters from entrance and exit polls.

John King was working the telestrator and talked with the panel of analysts: Gloria Borger, Bill Bennett, Donna Brazile, and Jeffrey Toobin.

Jacqui Jeras provided the weather report for South Carolina. There were concerns that the miserable weather would keep voters from going to the polls. Jeffrey Toobin put things in perspective with this: Forgive me for displaying a north eastern bias here but it’s not exactly a blizzard in South Carolina. Its 40 degrees. It’s a little rain. There’s some snow. Go vote if you want to vote. It’s not like you need a tractor to get to the polling place. Come on! Toughen up, folks!

The best part of the afternoon coverage was getting to see an actual caucus live. There were 9 special Democrat caucuses setup on the Las Vegas Strip for shift workers. Ali Velshi was at the caucus held in one of the Caesars Palace ballrooms. They aired the entire process from the caucus goers waiting for things to get started once they were checked in, the first count for each of the candidates, the announcement of the who didn’t make the 15% threshold, and the process of doing a second and final count once all caucus goers had selected a candidate. I’ve never experienced a caucus myself and this was a fascinating process to watch. The Obama and Clinton supporters were passionately cheering for their candidates as they waited for the caucus to begin. I’ve never been to a polling place where folks brought their mega phones. The results from this particular caucus: 80 people for Clinton; 86 people for Obama. This translated into 17 county delegates for Obama and 16 county delegates for Clinton.

Saturday’s Ballot Bowl 08 coverage started at 4:30PM ET with Jessica Yellin, Dana Bash, Mary Snow, and Candy Crowley.

Coverage continued from the CNN Election Center at 6:30PM ET. My post on that broadcast can be found on All Things Anderson.

CNN’s coverage of the election results didn’t stop when the CNN Newsroom took over during the 10PM ET hour. Tony Harris spoke with Tom Komenda from a precinct in North Vegas about how they broke a tie between Clinton and Obama on Saturday. Below is the clip:

CNN reported some sad news on Sunday morning. Saturday night, Fran Lewine, who was a former AP White House correspondent and currently a producer at CNN passed away. Below are clips from the tribute that CNN did on Reliable Sources and Late Edition. She would have been 87 years old on Sunday. She had planned to celebrate her 87th birthday on Sunday at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, where friends had arranged to have a race named in her honor.

Ballot Bowl 08 continued on Sunday with John King anchoring from Florida.

Dana Bash, Jessica Yellin, Peter Hamby, and Bill Schneider provided reports from South Carolina.

John King is a fan of Fred. Now don’t go jumping to conclusions here, we’re not talking about the actor / presidential candidate. Here’s the clip from Sunday’s Ballot Bowl:

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Mystery Journalist

This week's Mystery Journalist was Betty Nguyen.

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