How DU is approaching tonight's primaries and caucuses

[Skinner]

Overall, we think our approach to New Hampshire and Iowa went pretty well, so tonight we're going to do roughly the same thing we did before. In fact, here I'm going to copy most of my announcement from last week.

The only difference this time is that I'm going to post seven separate "official state results threads" so we can easily follow the returns as they come in from each state.

Again, we are going to shut off new user registrations. We'll leave registration off as long as we feel we need to -- maybe into tomorrow.

We expect people to get pretty emotional tonight. I think that the dangerous combination of winners' euphoria and losers' anger could make things pretty ugly. We understand that some level of inappropriate behavior is probably inevitable, and we're going to try to be understanding. However, we still expect everyone to try to act in a relatively civil manner. And I would like to remind tonight's winners that a little bit of empathy could go a long way toward soothing resentment toward your candidate.

In order to hopefully contain some of the inevitable ill-will, we plan to start seven "official" threads for supporters and well-wishers of the various candidates, so you can celebrate or regroup without disruption from political opponents. The moderators will be instructed to keep these threads free of disruption.

Threads discussing what happened in the primary will of course be permitted. We expect that people who start these threads will make an effort to post their thoughts in a way that is not antagonistic to others.

Remember that people are going to be feeling very extreme emotions tonight, both good and bad. Please try to show a little sympathy. People have a lot of respect for gracious winners.

Thank you for your understanding. Good luck tonight!

Skinner
DU Admin

APPENDIX: State info and poll closing times (from CNN.com)

7:00PM ET

South Carolina
Type of contest: Open primary
Delegates at stake: 45
Poll closing time: 7 p.m. ET

8:00PM ET

Delaware
Type of contest: Closed primary
Delegates at stake: 15
Poll closing time: 8 p.m. ET

Missouri
Type of contest: Open primary
Delegates at stake: 74
Poll closing time: 8 p.m. ET

North Dakota
Type of contest: Open caucus
Delegates at stake: 14
Poll closing time: 8 p.m. ET

Oklahoma
Type of contest: Closed primary
Delegates at stake: 40
Poll closing time: 8 p.m. ET

9:00PM ET

Arizona
Type of contest: Closed primary
Delegates at stake: 55
Poll closing time: 9 p.m. ET

New Mexico
Type of contest: Closed caucus
Delegates at stake: 26
Poll closing time: 9 p.m. ET

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Thanks and good luck to everyone. I want this wide open still.

The more the better. It is getting better negative stories about Bush in the press and keeping the Repubs off balance. Let's hope as many candidates remain in the race as possible after tonight.

[maddezmom]

2. Thanks for the rules and the info, Skinner

will do my best to follow the "golden rule" again tonight.

[Bronco69]

3. Best wishes to

all of the candidates! :-)

[bigwillq]

4. Good luck to all

Thanks to Skinner for all the info and on a personal note:

Go Dean

[NV1962]

5. Go Democracy!

I hope that turnout will be massive, whatever the result: that'd be a collective winner.

Hang on to your hats, and good luck everyone...

And thanks to the staff of admin and mods! :toast:

[MaineDem]

6. Excellent plan, Skinner

Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. It's all so very appreciated!

:yourock:

[kentuck]

7. Should be an interesting night, guys!

:)