Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:05:47 PM
Yesterday in the Florida primary, I was completely wrong as to the outcome. I thought that Romney would get between 35-39% and he got 31%. I thought McCain would get between 25 and 28%, he got 36%. I thought Giuliani and Huckabee would get between 13-15% and that was accurate. Giuliani got 15% and Huckabee got 13%. McCain got the 57 delegates from Florida.
Today, Rudy Giuliani pulled the plug on his campaign and endorsed John McCain. That comes as little surprise as they are both liberal Republicans. It does give McCain a boost with voters. Giuliani still has some credibility on the war even though he does not have any other credibility in the Republican ranks. I think that most of his support will go to Romney instead of McCain. Most of the people that supported Giuliani were conservatives that thought he had the best chance to beat Mrs. Clinton. That is out of the question now and so they will go to the candidate that best represents their views. Patrick Ruffini in the Hugh Hewitt blog stated that he is switching from Giuliani to Romney. That is part of why I believe the bulk will go to Romney.
The other wild card is Huckabee. He says he is still in the race. He has no credible chance of winning anything at this time. Anyone who is supporting Huckabee is really supporting McCain, but cannot bring themselves to do so openly. The longer Huckabee is in the race, the better it is for McCain. Votes for Huckabee are votes that would go to Romney. Romney needs all conservative Republicans to band together to defeat McCain and the blue blood Republicans. Huckabee drains away some of those votes in a super long shot that he might have some credibility at the convention.
The race is really between the blue blood Republicans represented by John McCain and the conservative Republicans represented by Mitt Romney. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are irrelevant. They only take away votes from Mitt Romney. They do not take any votes away from John McCain.
On Feb. 5, I expect to see Romney win states with over 50% of the vote in that state. I expect to see McCain to pull out another squeaker in most states with 40-35% margins or something like that. Worst case for Romney and it will not be over on Feb. 5, but McCain could only be 300-400 delegates away from the prize. Romney would almost have to win all the rest of the delegates to get the nomination and that is just not in the cards at this time. If Huckabee and Paul got out of the race, Romney would almost sweep all the Red states and take the nomination. As long as they stay in, it will be difficult for Romney to defeat McCain.
I still think that Romney can pull this thing out. I do not believe the worst case scenario will happen. I believe that he will get at least 50% of the delegates on Feb. 5. If he does that, Huckabee will almost have to drop out and then Romney can sweep to victory March 4. We shall have to wait and see what will happen between now and Feb. 5. There are still 5 days of campaigning. There are a lot of things that could happen between now and then. The McCain blunder could gain traction and derail his lead. McCain could put his foot in his mouth again. He is prone to say things that are incredibility stupid thinking that they are straight talk.
What I do not want to see is for Romney to move to the left. If he does that he is finished as a candidate. If he moves more to the right, I think that he can pull this whole thing out. He needs to stress the economy and his experience in the business world. The economy is bad right now and that could give him the boost he needs to get over the top. McCain knows nothing about the economy and is proud that he knows nothing.