Posted by
Steve on Thursday, January 10, 2008 12:43:33 PM
The campaign lost one participant yesterday, Bill Richardson from New Mexico. He made almost no impact on the campaign, so his leaving will not make any impact at all.
Mike Huckabee is going on all the late night shows. There is nothing wrong with going on the shows. He is just leaving the campaign in the middle and going to show up on the show. There is something unseemly about the appearances. He also showed up on the Colbert show. That is a comedy show and he made a long series of one liners with the show host. In listening to the one liners this morning, I was put off by how juvenile they sounded. He is supposed to be a candidate for President of the United States. He sounded like someone auditioning for a job as a comedian at a show in town. The one that got me going was where he said that if he was not running for President, he would be flipping hamburgers. That was tacky at best. He should be dealing with serious stuff, not trying to out do a comedian on how funny they can be.
Speaking of Mike Huckabee, he is going to make one Michigan campaign appearance on Friday to speak about economics. Mike Huckabee comes from the more government is good philosophy. He will almost positively suggest some government program to get Michigan’s economy going again. Michigan is in a one state depression. Why are they in a one state depression? The state government is entirely controlled by Democrats. They are trying to tax their way out of a recession by raising taxes. Michigan has the highest taxes of any state in the US. Companies that can are leaving in droves. The way to get their economy moving again is to reduce the tax burden.
Mike Huckabee is putting all his eggs in the South Carolina basket. He has to win South Carolina to be viable. He also has to win big to vault back to the top of the hill in the Republican contest. Mitt Romney needs a victory badly. He has an excellent shot in Michigan. The problem with requiring a Romney victory in Michigan is the fact that Democrats do not have a contest. They also can vote in the Republican contest, if they so choose. That could muddle up the Republican field somewhat.
On the Democrat side, Mrs. Clinton is almost assured of winning in Michigan. She is the only name on the ballot. If Obama makes it close with a write-in campaign, she would be in trouble. Edwards is basically finished. He only has a shot to win in North Carolina and South Carolina. One is where he lives and the other where he was born. Outside of those two states, Edwards has no shot at winning at all. He probably will not even win in those two states given the state of his campaign.
Officially the Democrat contest is between three candidates. In reality, it is between two people. That will benefit Barack Obama. At least half of the Democrats do not like Mrs. Clinton. If Barack can increase the number to at least 51%, he will be the nominee. That number will not be difficult to obtain, as it already is over 40% and probably approaches 45%.
The Republican contest is between John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. I know there are others still in the race, but only those four have any chance at winning. Huckabee and McCain really cannot win. Huckabee appeals only to Evangelicals. That means he can only win in states that are heavily Evangelical. McCain can only win in states that allow Independents to vote in the primaries. As a result, McCain or Huckabee will win only one or two more states each. Romney and Giuliani will win the rest of the states. My hope is that Romney wins the majority of the rest of the states. I believe that he can. Conservatives will want to stop a Giuliani candidacy. They will have to unite behind one candidate. The only candidate that offers them everything they want is Romney. That is why I believe Romney will ultimately win the Republican nomination.