The counting is almost over, and the verdict is in: We at Various Things and Stuff don’t know dick about Nevada politics.

Consider some predictions we made in the very first issue of CityLife this year:

“U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s prediction of 100,000 voters turning out to the Democratic caucus will be way off the mark; in reality, no more than 30,000 people will turn out statewide.”

Color us embarrassed! According to an e-mail news release from Nevada Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirsten Searer, the count is at least 114,000 Democrats who turned out to caucus. That not only means that that Reid (and, long before him, state Sen. Steven Horsford) were right about the turnout, but that the caucus was a much bigger success than we anticipated.

Oh, we of little faith. We humbly bow before the superior political instincts of the Senate majority leader and the state party’s organization skills.

And more:

“U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton will win the contest, by a decisive margin. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama will come in second.”

With numbers we have now, it looks like Clinton is leading with 51 percent, with Obama at 45 percent. OK, we’ll call that one correct. But that’s not going to save us from this:

“On the Republican side, the turnout will be even lower, as the GOP here will be totally overshadowed by its counterpart in South Carolina, rudely holding its primary on the exact same day. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will win, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney coming in a close second.”

Talk about way off. The GOP numbers at this hour look like this:

Romney: 53 percent, with Congressman Ron Paul and Sen. John McCain tied at 13 percent each. That’s an excellent showing for Paul. but not so good for us, since Giuliani’s at 4 percent, below former Sen. Fred Thompson and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who are tied at 8 percent.

Clearly, we should stick to what we do best: Semi-witty commentary and reactions to the news, not predicting the future.

So, it looks like it was a good day for Clinton and Romney, and a bad day for us and the Culinary Union Local 226, which backed Obama.