8:35 PM: Hawaii and American Samoa results are going to have to wait for the Morning News. So here's what happened tonight: Despite spending a nauseating amount of money, Mitt Romney came in third in both Mississippi and Alabama. Neither of his opponents have any kind of a campaign organization. Santorum doesn't have a polling apparatus, a bus, or any of the other accoutrements you expect in a professional campaign. Gingrich just has one millionaire who keeps dumping money into his account. For a frontrunner to get schooled like this is a shameful thing. The fact that Romney didn't bother to speak tonight, too, made it look worse. And the fact that Romney said Santorum is at "the desperate end of his campaign" five hours before Santorum stomped him to death in two separate states is simply amateur hour.

Luckily for Romney, Gingrich doesn't seem to be dropping out any time soon, and so he'll continue to strip Santorum votes away; it's possible that Santorum on his own would put up a real race against Romney, even taking it to the convention. But as it is, the campaigns will continue, stabbing each other in the gut all around the country for at least one more month. I'm going to give the last word to my fellow Republican, Goldy, because he speaks for me, too:

I have never been prouder to be a Santorum delegate than I am tonight.
— David Goldstein (@GoldyHA) March 14, 2012

8:10 PM:

Starting at 7:48 PM: Someone is introducing Newt Gingrich. Hilariously, the Gingrich campaign logo is now a gas pump. Here's a screen shot:

This looks like some sort of religion from a John Carpenter movie set in a dystopian future. Ha-ha, Newt was just introduced as "your next president." Doubtful! Callista pumps Gingrich's energy policy and introduces him as your next president, too. Gingrich takes the podium to "Only in America," and not the Hulk Hogan theme song like his last few appearances. "I congratulate Rick Santorum on a great campaign," Gingrich says, and he doesn't mention Mitt Romney. He says his campaign is going toward Tampa with a substantial delegation. "The elite media's effort to convince the nation that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed," Gingrich says. "If you're the front runner and you keep coming in third, you're not much of a front runner." He says he hasn't gotten "the votes we would have liked," but he says his message about gas prices has found the mainstream. "Ideas matter," he says, and Romney's money won't get conservative concepts absorbed into the mainstream like Gingrich's Reagan-ish big ideas.

"Great solutions require substance and substance requires actually knowing something," Gingrich says, "and unfortunately everything President Obama knows is wrong." We're into the usual schtick: North Dakota has more gas than the entire fucking Middle East, Obama bows to Saudi Kings. Then Gingrich says he hopes we've put the Romney-is-inevitable narrative to bed. Gingrich predicts the news media will ask why he doesn't drop out in the next few days. "The person who gives me hope...is Samuel Sanford." Sanford is "an unemployed person" who heard Gingrich's speech and really liked what he had to say about $2.50-a-gallon gas. Sanford became the 175,000th donor. Gingrich called Sanford and calls it "a very humbling call." Sanford had come back from his cancer treatment and took the money out of his savings because "he wants to save America." He says Sanford donated because he's not willing to let millionaires roll over him. And that's it. It's a pretty standard speech for Gingrich, although the Clintonian mention of a real-life human being at the end was a nice touch.

7:45 PM: Multiple outlets, but mostly Fox News, are calling Mississippi for Santorum. No polls had Santorum in the lead in the buildup to this primary.

Starting at 7:16 PM: After being outspent something like ten-to-one by a wealthy asshole, this is a big night for Rick Santorum. He's apparently won Alabama, and now he's holding his lead in Mississippi, too. (Mitt Romney is behind Gingrich in both states right now.) Rick Santorum will be taking the stage to make an undoubtedly smug speech. Perhaps he'll bring along his best friend, also known as that piece of shale he showed off at the last victory speech? Let's find out together. Santorum is allegedly going to take the stage in less than five minutes. You can watch along at CNN.

SNAP! Now Politico says Gingrich might come out in nine minutes to speak. I might have to try to live-Slog them both at the same time. Okay! A speaker is claiming that Lafayette, Louisiana has the sixth-fastest-growing middle class in America. And here, finally, is Rick. He looks super-happy. The speaker just made Santorum an "honorary Cajun." "We did it again," Santorum says as he takes the mic. He's wearing what appears to be a pastel purple tie. Santorum thanks God for looking out for him. He says Mitt Romney "spent a whole lot of money against me for being inevitable." He says his supporters' prayers helped him "defy the odds, day in and day out." He says his campaign is "sorta like America," in that it's about "givin' and tryin' to do something" better than yourself. He's got a really fake southern accent going on right now. He's dropping more G's than John McCain in Las Vegas.

Santorum calls the government irresponsible in the way they're handling gas prices. He's in Lafayette, "the heart of the oil and gas industry in the Gulf Coast." He says the government almost "put this town under" with moratoriums. (Um.) "We will put this town and this region back to work," he promises. He says what people in Mississippi did for his campaign with "all the establishment...ALL the establishment on the other side of this race" was a great achievement. He tries to look humble when the room breaks into cheers of "RICK! RICK! RICK!" and he fails miserably. "The time is now to make sure we have the best conservative" to take Barack Obama on with "every issue." Rick Santorum says he's going to Puerto Rico to campaign for two days. "We're campaigning everywhere there are delegates because we are going to win this nomination." The room just exploded with cheers at the news that Santorum won Mississippi. His wife kisses him. It's a nice, human moment. Santorum thanks the crowd, and he's out. That wasn't much of a speech, but it was thirty times better than the best Romney speech, so there's that.

6:59 PM: Mississippi is more than 50% in and showing Santorum in the lead. We could be on the home stretch, as they say in the south. Speaking of southern things, enjoy this video:

6:56 PM: With just 29.2% of the vote in, NBC is calling Alabama for Rick Santorum.

6:24 PM: In MIssissippi right now, with 15% of the vote in: Santorum—33.5%, Gingrich—30.6%, Romney—29.5%.

In Alabama, with 5% of the vote in: Santorum—34.2%, Gingrich—29.3%, Romney—28.1%.

6:13 PM: Let's get meta: Here's a link to a Slog post that links to other sites that show Mitt Romney today promising to get rid of Planned Parenthood. This is the most exciting news of the day, so far. In other news, I'm watching Politico's live-cast, and I have never seen such a talented group of reporters struggle so hard to say exactly nothing.

5:46 PM: it's important to note that we are a little less than an hour in and both Mississippi and Alabama are reporting less than one percent of their totals. This is going to take forever.

5:32 PM: TPM asked Newt Gingrich's chief of staff about his poor showing in exit polls tonight. The response was that it's going to be a long night, and Gingrich is staying in all the way to Tampa. Yeah! Fuck the 'voters' with their stupid 'votes' that are supposed to 'mean' something.

5:25 PM: Headline of the night so far: "Very Few Blacks In Alabama, Mississippi Vote In GOP Primary:"

According to the exit polls in Tuesday's Mississippi GOP primary, 98 percent of the voters were white. Just 1 percent identified as black, and 1 percent were "other."

In case you were wondering, 37% of Mississippi is black.

5:15 PM: The exit polls are showing a good performance for Romney among evangelicals in Mississippi. That could be a good sign for him, as evangelicals are among his worst demographic. There's a stronger female turnout in Alabama than in 2008, too, which should be a good sign for Romney, but Santorum's internals say he might be leading in Alabama. The only person not ahead in the polls right now is Newt Gingrich. I think it'd be hard to make a case for Newt staying in the race if he doesn't win tonight. But then, that's never stopped Newt before.

5:08 PM: A lively speech from Mitt Romney, of course, has become the highlight of election nights: His vigor, enthusiasm, and everyman touch has fast become a real crowd-pleaser. Unfortunately, it looks like it's not going to happen tonight:

the former Massachusetts governor at least appeared to have no plans to deliver remarks on Tuesday night after Republican primary results from Mississippi and Alabama start rolling in.

Earlier Tuesday, Romney’s campaign said that the candidate will be flying when vote totals from the two Deep South states are expected to be announced.

Later, Romney himself seemed slightly uncertain of his plans when speaking to reporters as his campaign plane was about to take off from St. Louis to Kansas City.

Romney's given a speech after every other major contest. The Romney campaign is so well-managed that it's hard to imagine this scheduling "mistake" isn't a result of a bad showing with their internal polls.

4:58 PM: It occurs to me that the headline for this post should have been "Well, Slap My Fanny and Call Me Newt." The Stranger regrets the error.

4:55 PM: Can you feel the excitement? The deep south states of Mississippi, Alabama, um, Hawaii, and, er, American Samoa are voting for their preferred Republican candidates tonight. As I told you this morning, the primaries could go any way (except, of course, Ron Paul's way) and so things could get interesting. All our coverage will stay in this single Slog post, with the newest information up at the top. The polls close in five minutes. Go get something to drink and then you-all come right back now, you he-ah? (That's southern for "stay tuned!")