“Where’s Mitt?”—The Fizzle In The Drizzle

Thunderstorms have been rolling around the Palmetto State for much of the day and the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch in 14 of 46 of South Carolina’s counties until 8PM—one hour after polls close.  Great weather if you’re a duck.

The kindly folks at MSDNC smugly referred to an event scheduled for 10:45AM today at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville as the “Ham House Showdown”—so dubbed because Gingrich and Romney both scheduled appearances at the popular eatery.

Here’s what Alex Moe and Garrett Haake wrote:  

“The folks at Tommy's Country Ham House in Greenville are expecting a record crowd Saturday morning, and the mob's not coming for the grits.”

“In a state famous for its bizarre brand of Republican politics, mere hours after polls open in South Carolina, the primary's two frontrunners are hosting dueling campaign events at the restaurant over breakfast. Same time. Same place. Call it the Ham House Showdown.”

The anticipated food fight never materialized as Romney ducked the “showdown” showing up 45 minutes early; worked the crowd for about fifteen minutes and was gone by 10:31AM.  Ten minutes later Newt arrived asking, “Where’s Mitt?  I thought he was gonna stay and maybe we’d have a little debate this morning.”  He glad-handed the crowd for an hour.

Romney strained to be heard at Tommy’s because there was no microphone.  Newt got his “I paid for this microphone” moment because he had paid for it when the campaign set up the event.

At 7:00PM, when the polls officially closed, Fox News called the primary for Newt Gingrich, which again begs the question, “Where’s Mitt?”

Via a thread at Memeorandum.
Linked at Sentry Journal.  Thanks, John.