Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 1:31:05 PM
Interesting developments have occurred since last Friday. The biggest was that Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race for President. He was never a big player, but did take votes away from conservative candidates and helped John McCain. His leaving the race will shorten the list of conservative candidates and make the conservative vote less fractured. The candidate that it will help the most is Mitt Romney. In polls of Fred Thompson supporters, Mitt Romney stands to gain the most support from former Thompson supporters.
In other developments, Mitt Romney won the Nevada Caucus on Saturday. That gave him a large chunk of delegates. He took over 50% of the caucus votes in Nevada. That is the first time any Republican has taken over 40% in any caucus or primary this season. I am not sure of the total number of delegates he won, but he now has 58 delegates. Huckabee is second with 38 and McCain is third with 32 delegates.
Florida is next up for the Republican candidates. With Thompson out of the race, it still is uncertain who will gain the Thompson votes. Since the polling has the top four candidates within 5% of each other, almost within the margin of error, any pickup will change that dynamic. If Romney gains the most votes as the national polls show, then he would vault into the lead. If Huckabee gains the most because Florida is a Southern State, then he would take the lead. In any case, Rudy Giuliani will probably be left holding the bag in Florida. Thompson’s leaving the race and not endorsing any candidate will hurt Rudy Giuliani the most. He would not stand to gain any of Thompson’s votes and would stand to lose Florida as a result.
If Giuliani loses Florida, he is probably finished as a candidate. He put all his eggs into Florida. If he cannot pull off a victory where he made his stand, he is unlikely to win anywhere else either. He is also short of campaign cash. Losing in Florida will not help in the fund raising campaign. He would most likely have to forego campaign commercials in most if not all the Feb. 5 primary states and that would doom him to defeat almost everywhere.
Huckabee is critically short of campaign cash. He will hang on until Feb. 5. I cannot see him lasting much after that. He may win a Southern state, but that is increasingly unlikely. What is most likely is that he will deny Mitt Romney a chance to finish off John McCain in one or more states and keep the campaign rolling until the March primaries. Most likely is that he will suspend his campaign after Feb. 5th. That will allow him to keep his delegates and might allow him to be a king maker.
John McCain has to win Florida to have any credibility with the Republican base. Florida is a Republican only primary. To date, McCain has only done well where Independents and Democrats were able to vote. If McCain wins Florida, then he has a great shot at winning the Republican Presidential endorsement. If he does not win Florida, then he can be relegated to the backwater of only winning where Independents and Democrats can put him over the top.
Mitt Romney has an opportunity to score a knockout punch. If he wins in Florida, he will put a stamp on the Republican nomination. It will not yet be his, but it will be very difficult for anyone else to defeat him at that point. Winning in Florida would give him a big bounce going into Feb. 5. That would translate into a lot of wins on Feb. 5. He would not have the nomination sewn up, but no-one else would be close to him. He then could seal the nomination in the March primaries or maybe even before.
Saturday is the make or break day for all of the candidates. All of them need a win to give them a shot at the nomination. Romney and McCain have the inside track. Whoever does the best in the Florida and Feb. 5 primaries will win the nomination. Giuliani and Huckabee have to have lightning strike in a bottle for them to have any chance at all.