By now you know most of the "who won, who lost" as far as the candidates are concerned in the mega-round of primaries held in 11 states this Tuesday.  But what we're more interested in is the bigger picture.  Who are the big "winners and losers" based on how things turned out?

The Winners

Sarah Palin: Palin had a really good night.  In South Carolina's GOP gubernatorial primary, the candidate she backed, three-term state representative Nikki Haley came from fourth place to first (and within one point of winning a four-way primary without a runoff) in the little more than two weeks since Palin's endorsement.  And in Nevada, Palin endorsed another state representative Sharon Angle...who was also in last place...and also went on to finish first.  She also backed Carly Fiorina in California who won that state GOP's senate nomination.

The Tea Party movement: Although Democrats and pundits have belittled it, the Tea Party movement is now proving it can deliver the goods.  See previous notes on South Carolina and Nevada. In South Carolina's GOP primary, 39% of voters self-identified with the Tea Party movement. Add to that Rand Paul's recent win in Kentucky and you can't really draw any conclusion other than the coordinated backing of Tea Party activists matters.  Time will tell if it translates into real change in government, but in the meantime, the movement has to be taken seriously.  read more »

What a pathetic joke for a news organization… CNN has plumbed the depths of falsification again by telling viewers throughout the day, Saturday, March 27th, that there were ‘dozens’ of people, maybe hundreds at the Searchlight, Nevada Tea Party rally. It can only be described as a pathetic attempt at misinformation. They must have the pizza guy doing news editorial programming, which shouldn’t really surprise anyone given their perpetual low market ratings… it’s embarrassing to get beat by MSNBC.

The Tea Party Express Bus, Searchlight, Nevada.

If you are in the business of news prevarication, you could at least be a bit creative about it. But then that would take talent and that appears to be something that there is a severe dearth of at CNN. That could be the reason that they hired RedState’s Erick Erickson… goodness knows their stable could use the help.

The latest figures I have on the rally held in Senator ‘Dingy’ Harry Reid’s backyard at Searchlight, Nevada, is that right around 20,000 people showed up to hear keynote speaker Sarah Palin. Palin, as usual, is taking massive amounts of abuse from the left. That’s to be expected and is a direct gauge of the fear they have for her. Obama can’t get more than a few thousand people to his bought-and-paid-for teleprompter extravaganzas. Sarah Palin gets more than that to a book signing.  read more »