A week in politics is a very long time. One week ago, the California primary poll had John McCain ahead of Mitt Romney by about 5%. Today, the California poll has Mitt Romney ahead of John McCain by 8%. The difference between then and now is that almost all of the conservative talk radio hosts have endorsed Mitt Romney in the last week. They have also hit home the point that a vote for Mike Huckabee or other candidate is a vote for John McCain.

Similar, though not as dramatic, results are happening all over the country. Where Romney was behind in almost all of the Super Tuesday states by substantial margins, he is now ahead or close in all but the Northeast and Arizona. That gives hope for tomorrow. Romney has a good chance to take home a good share of the delegates from tomorrow’s primaries. He may not win enough to be in the lead in delegates, but he will at least be close in delegates.

Huckabee is hanging tough. He refuses to withdraw from the primaries. When Rush Limbaugh says that a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for John McCain, Huckabee says that a vote for Romney is a vote for Mrs. Bill Clinton. I am not sure how he got to that point, but he got there. He has become rather bizarre in the last couple of weeks. He seems to be running hard to be John McCain’s running mate.

My predictions for tomorrow are as follows: I predict that Romney will take a majority of the delegates tomorrow. He will lose in New York, the northeast and Arizona. I predict that he will win almost everywhere else. The wins may be close, but they will be wins. Romney will only get blowouts in Utah and Montana. He might get a decisive win in California if this swing continues. Conservatives are heeding the message put out by the talk show hosts that now is the time to put up or shut up about the Reagan revolution. If the Reagan revolution is to be salvaged, they need to vote for Romney. If they vote for anyone else, the Reagan revolution will be lost and may never be recovered.

I already voted for Romney. I did so the first day I received my ballot in the mail. Some others will have done the same thing and will not be able to respond to the changing environment. Those that waited will be able to make the difference between John McCain and Mitt Romney. It is interesting to me that when the campaign season started; Mitt Romney was considered some type of an establishment candidate. He has turned out to be the underdog. No matter what he spent in the early primaries, he is getting far more coverage now from the conservative bloggers than he ever did buying coverage. The coverage he is getting is also getting to a much more targeted audience than he had before. That should make the information getting to voters much more accurately targeted and effective. It does seem to be working. He is surging all over the country at the expense of all the other candidates.

The one thing I wish Romney would do is be more aggressive when pressed. When he is pressed, he has the tendency to act offended. But, he never gets angry. Sometimes it would be good to show your temper a little bit. I don’t mean swear and throw things, I just mean when pressed, call a spade a spade. That would be real effective coming from Mitt Romney.

Last night on the way home, Michael Savage endorsed Mitt Romney for President. As Michael Savage said, Romney is not perfect, but of the ones left standing, he is the best.  I went to bed optimistic that Romney will carry the day on Tuesday.

This morning, I read Patrick Ruffini’s post about the Huckabee voters. He basically said that they are going to stick with Huckabee and if they do not vote for Huckabee, they will tend to vote for McCain. That put a damper on my parade.

Then, I read Hugh Hewitt’s post about the momentum in the conservative blogosphere toward Romney. He said that Romney is getting more free press in the conservative blogosphere than he could buy in any ad purchase. I felt good again about Romney’s chances in the Tuesday primaries. Hugh Hewitt again made the point that a vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain. I would also add that a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for McCain. My daughter is going to vote for Ron Paul on Tuesday. It is her first vote ever and she came to the decision to vote for Ron Paul on her own. I do not have the heart to tell her that a vote for Ron Paul is essentially a vote for John McCain.

My feelings about this campaign are two fold. One, I do not like John McCain. I have not liked him for at least 6 years. He has stabbed the voters of Arizona in the heart too many times for me to be happy with him as a candidate. Second, I really want Mitt Romney to win because I believe he would be one of the best Presidents that we have had. At least he has the potential to be one of the very best. John McCain at best would be in the bottom ten. Of course, Clinton or Obama would be in the bottom 5, with Clinton being tied with her husband at number 50 and Obama coming in around number 38-40. I do know that there have not been 50 Presidents. It is just that Bill was so bad, there would have to be at least 50 Presidents before there would be enough to rate him as #50.

I made a second donation to the Romney campaign this week. I do not have a lot of money and giving anything is difficult. We are also building onto our house and that is taking all of our available funds. I just felt that it was so important to the country that Mitt Romney wins the election that I made another contribution.

From this afternoon, until Monday, my house will be consumed with the Super Bowl. We do this every year. Even though there are not any good teams in the Super Bowl this year, we will watch any way. We have watched every Super Bowl since Super Bowl I. Since I have the 65” HD TV, everyone will be at my house for the Super Bowl party. That means getting prepared today for the party. Tomorrow, we will be hosting the party and cleaning up. I will not be able to come up for air and reality until Monday morning.

The last 24 hours have really made a difference in my outlook on the Republican race. Yesterday, I was resigning myself to the thought that McCain would be the Republican nominee. With all the conservative leaders that have come out in support of Governor Romney in the last 24 hours, I have hope that we can pull it out.

John McCain is the candidate of the Republican establishment. He is the candidate that the old Republican blue bloods want to support. They are not conservatives, they are just pro-business. They controlled the party for many years during the 50’s thru the 70’s.

Mitt Romney is the candidate of the conservative Republican Party. The conservative Republican Party became the dominant group with the Reagan revolution in 1980 and was solidified in 1994 with the Contract with America. The blue bloods to not like the conservatives, they tolerate them like a poor relative.

The media would like a return to the blue blood Republicans controlling the Republican Party. That is when the Democrat Party ruled the roost. The Republicans were the minority party and knew their place. The conservative Republican Party thinks like it should be the dominant party and the Democrats do not like that. The media does not like the fact that their Democrat leaders are not in power when conservative Republicans are leading. So, the media and the Democrats both like the fact that John McCain is winning. That way they can defeat the conservative Republicans and get rid of the stain of conservatives.

In the last few days, more and more conservatives are coming out and supporting Mitt Romney. Today, Rick Santorum and Laura Ingraham announced on her show that they were for Romney. Yesterday, Mark Levin wrote that he is supporting Romney. Sean Hannity announced that he is supporting Romney. That is a pretty powerful lineup of talk show hosts that are supporting Romney.

I am not sure it is enough to make a difference. They only have to have an impact in three or four conservative states to turn the tide away from McCain toward Romney. Right now, McCain is poised to almost perform a knockout blow on Tuesday, Feb. 5. If three or four states turn against him, that would eliminate his lead and allow Romney to pull things out later this month and on March 4. There are three or four states where McCain and Romney are close, like Tennessee.

The fly in the ointment is Mike Huckabee. By him staying in, he makes it that much harder for Mitt Romney to win on Feb. 5. Voters that would vote for Mike Huckabee have to ask themselves if they really want John McCain as the nominee. If they do, then they should continue to support Mike Huckabee or they should vote for John McCain. If they do not want John McCain, they should vote for Mitt Romney. The big difference between the positions of Mike Huckabee is that Mitt Romney understands the danger we face with Islamo-Fascists and Mitt Romney understands the economy better. Their other positions are identical. John McCain is a long way from holding positions that are in any way similar to Mike Huckabee.

The other unknown is what will happen with the Rudy Giuliani voters? Rudy Giuliani endorsed John McCain for President. That should have an impact on where they will go. But, many of the Giuliani supporters were really conservatives that felt he was the one candidate that could win in November. That would mean they would tend to go for Romney.

My hope is that the endorsements of all these talk show hosts will have a positive impact on the campaign. I just hope that enough voters in enough states change their minds and vote for the real conservative candidate in the race. We need a conservative leading the Republican Party. That is our only hope of winning in November 2008. A conservative Republican against the most liberal Senator in Barack Obama would be really interesting.

Listening to talk radio this morning, I am getting the opinion that John McCain is probably going to win the nomination. I also read that Mitt Romney has decided not to make an ad buy for the Feb. 5 primary states. That is almost conceding the Feb. 5 primaries to John McCain. Things definitely look bleak for conservatives.

Knowing John McCain as I do. He is my Senator and has been for a long time. I know that as long as there is no problem, John McCain is your man. If there is any kind of hint of a problem, you might wake up tomorrow to find out that he has jumped to the other side. That is what is so frustrating about him. He has no core values that he will not violate. If he thinks that he can get better press, he will violate any vow or promise and go to the other side.

I have no confidence that John McCain will appoint judges that will judge the law and not make up law. He has said he will not appoint judges like Sam Alito. Sam Alito is one of the best judges on the Supreme Court. To say he will not use Alito as an example is saying that he is thinking about appointing judges that do not think that the Constitution should be interpreted, instead of a living document. That is another way of saying that he will appoint judges that will make rulings from the bench that do not have a Constitutional basis. That is the problem we have with judges today. There are too many judges that have been appointed by Democrat Presidents. Those judges think their job is to legislate from the bench. Their job is to decide on the facts, not make up new laws.

John McCain has said that he thinks that Mrs. Bill Clinton will make a fine President. That is no way to talk if you are running against that person. That quote will be played over and over again and everyone will be sick of it. But, it will also cause John McCain to lose the election.

John McCain does not believe in political free speech. He helped write McCain-Feingold. McCain-Feingold makes it illegal for groups to mention the name of a politician within 30 days of an election. If that is not an abridgement of free speech, I do not know what one is. The Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech.” Since he got that one through, he would probably like to make more laws abridging the freedom of speech for those interested in politics.

Those are just a few of my objections. One other one is his part in the gang of 14. That was when the Republicans had the majority in the Senate and could not confirm judges because the Democrats were filibustering the judges. That had never been done by any Senate before Harry Reid and the Democrats started it. The Republicans were going to have a show down and end the practice. The Constitution says that every judge voted out of committee has to have an up or down vote with a 50.1% majority needed for confirmation. The Democrats said that the Constitution did not apply in the case of judges, even though it specifically mentions judges. The Republicans scheduled when they were going to implement their “Constitutional Option”. The day before, John McCain organizes his “gang of 14” to stop the Constitutional Option from being used. That ended the opportunity to confirm judges with 51% of the vote. They now need 61% of the vote to be confirmed, even though the Constitution specifically says 51% of the vote.

People that support John McCain say that judges were confirmed that were being held up. That is true, but they would have been confirmed any way. McCain agreed to get rid of some of the judges that were nominated that would have been confirmed. McCain supporters also say that we got swift action on Roberts and Alito because of McCain’s gang of 14. If the Constitutional Option had been in play, the confirmation of Roberts and Alito would have been as easy if not easier.

I am not sure what I will do if John McCain is running for President as the Republican nominee. He will act like a Democrat in office and continue to destroy the already damaged Republican Party. If I do not vote and a Democrat gets in, things would be worse. But, Republicans would know when to fight against a Democrat President. They would feel obligated to support a Republican President. I have voted in every election; city, county, state and federal since I turned 21. (You had to be 21 when I was young. The government changed the law later.) On the other hand, I would have a very hard time voting for someone who cannot be trusted. He would really have to have an outstanding Vice-Presidential candidate for me to even consider voting for McCain. The person would really have to be a strong Conservative like Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

I am reminded of the adage that it is always darkest before the dawn. I hope that the results on Feb. 5 tilt toward Mitt Romney. That would mean that Republicans are serious about winning in November 2008.

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.

Last night at 7 pm Mountain Standard Time, President Gordon B. Hinckley died. He was the 15^th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He had served as President since 1995. For most of my children, he is the only church President they have known. He was 97 years old and the oldest person ever to be Prophet. He served longer than all the Prophets, except for Brigham Young.

He was a great person and an enlightened leader. He understood the new age of the internet and the new media. He wrote many books and brought the church into the forefront of American life. He will be greatly missed. He did hint at the last conference that it might be his last. He turned out to be correct. He did age a lot after his wife died four years ago. That took a lot out of him and he was never the same, physically.

When my daughter called me last night about 9 pm, I was surprised. I had not heard that he was ill. That the church got out information so quickly told me that they were not surprised. If tradition holds, Thomas S. Monson will be the next Prophet. Tradition is that the longest serving Apostle and President of the Quorum of the Twelve becomes the next Prophet. As the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, he is nominally the President, anyway. Boyd K. Packer will become the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He had been the acting President while President Monson served in the First Presidency.  A new Apostle will also be chosen to replace Gordon B. Hinckley.

General Conference will be held the first weekend in April. There the new Apostle will be announced. The new First Presidency will be announced after the funeral for President Hinckley. I believe the funeral is Wednesday. The meeting to choose the new Prophet will be held on Thursday with an announcement made later that day.

For some people, this will shake their faith. They have leaned on President Hinckley for so many years that a new Prophet will be hard to take. The fact that it will be President Monson will make it easier. He is one of the most beloved Apostles alive today. He at least tells the best stories. I know I always sit on the edge of my seat when he tells one of his stories.

I am not sure of the dates, but I think that President Monson is the last Apostle called before I joined the church. I believe he was called in 1953. I believe that President Packer was called at about the time I joined the church, in 1967. It is amazing that there has been that much turnover in the last 30 years. It does not seem like there ever is turnover in the Quorum of the Twelve. But, when you look back, you can see how many changes there have been over time. For me, I will support President Monson with the same intensity that I supported President Hinckley. It will take some time to be comfortable calling President Monson the Prophet. But, it will come and the entire world will be blessed. President Monson will have a task to accomplish just like all the other Prophets. It remains to be seen exactly what that will be.

On Saturday, John McCain may have committed a blunder so big it could sink his campaign. He accused Mitt Romney of wanting to set a timetable for removing our troops so we could give victory to Al Qaeda. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you listen to the quote from Mitt Romney in question, you understand that he supports the troops and the timetables are for the President and the President of Iraq, and no-one else. John McCain said something very similar at the very same time. Of course, he claims that his comments mean something completely different than Romney’s comments.

McCain was looking bad for a few days as he clearly does not understand the economy. He needed to change the topic of conversation. He chose to bring it back to Iraq, which is his strength. He chose a comment by Romney that clearly does not mean what McCain says it means. He probably thought he could sneak it by everyone and be home free. Unfortunately for him, that does not work in today’s hyper-fast media environment. Almost before he was finished saying it, he was being slammed by the new media. It took the old media a little longer, but they did not bite either.

McCain must have some internal polls that show him losing to Romney for him to pull this stunt. This is not the kind of thing a front-runner does on the eve of an election. This is the kind of thing that someone does that is in trouble. The big problem with this attack is that it goes against the grain. McCain has always been known as a person of honor. This is a dishonorable thing to do. He should have said it was a mistake and apologized right away. He stuck with it all the way through yesterday. I have not heard anything today that would change his status.

The last poll from Florida has Romney at 33% and McCain at 28%. That is just outside the margin of error. On Saturday, the Governor of Florida endorsed McCain. That should give him a boost. This mistake may cost him a lot of the undecided voters. They may not want to vote for someone that pulls this kind of dirty trick on the eve of an election.

Rush Limbaugh credited someone named McCarthy with the idea that McCain should not be allowed to use the name of another candidate within thirty days of an election. That would be consistent with McCain-Feingold. With this attack, a Romney support group could not put out information that put the lie to McCain’s comments. Romney himself had to put out a comment refuting McCain’s comments.

Tomorrow, in the Florida primary, I predict that Mitt Romney will win with 35-38% of the vote. McCain will come in second with 25-28% of the vote. Third will go to Huckabee with about 15% and Giuliani will take fourth at around 13%. That will be the end of the Giuliani campaign and maybe the Huckabee campaign. They are both out of cash and getting trounced that bad will cause their already diminished fundraising ability to dry up completely. A win by Romney will propel him to win most of the elections on Feb. 5. McCain will win Arizona and maybe one or two others. Romney will win the rest.

On the Democrat side, Ted Kennedy and the John Kennedy side of the family are endorsing Barack Obama. They are hitting Mrs. Clinton and the Clinton machine with a lot of heavy hits. There is a lot of bad blood in the Democrat party over the way the campaigns have been conducted. A Clinton-Obama ticket is out of the question at this time.

Last night, my wife brought up global warming and some points she saw on a web site.  She knows that I do not believe in global warming, so she immediately said that she thought they had some good ideas to clean up the environment. That of course makes me go ballistic. That is an apples and oranges argument.

Cleaning up the air and water is something that everyone on the planet agrees with. I doubt that one person on the planet thinks we should be polluting the planet. Everyone would therefore want to clean up the environment that we do have. But, that is an entirely different argument than talking about reducing carbon emissions and the like.

I pointed out to her the fact that the new “environmentally friendly” bulbs we will be forced to purchase in the next few years actually have a bigger carbon footprint than the regular light bulb they are replacing. The issue involved is not reducing the carbon footprint of people; it is controlling people’s lives.

Michael Crichton has a quote that says that the global warming crowd is actually a religion. It has its creation, Garden of Eden, penance and everything else that every main stream religion has including faith. They have faith because they cannot prove their global warming claims. The high priest of global warming would be Al Gore. He even does for the global warming religion what the 14^th century Catholics did, sell indulgences.

In another article I read, the author made the point that during the medieval warm period, the Vikings could grow crops in Greenland. Crops cannot currently be grown in Greenland. If current trends continue, that may happen in 50-60 years. Throughout the history of the world the climate has changed. It has been warmer than it is today and it has been colder than today. What makes global warming believers think that this period of warming is any different than any of the thousands of warming periods in the past? Logic itself would say that this warming period is similar to other warming periods. Logic would also say that man may influence local climate. The earth’s climate is too vast for the puny amounts of pollutants we put out to influence the overall climate. One volcano puts out more “greenhouse” gases in one eruption than we put out in one year.

At one of the other Community Colleges in my district, they are having a day long workshop to promote global warming. I want to go over there and tell them the truth. Unfortunately, I do not believe that they would listen to the truth if it was presented to them. Global warming believers have their minds shut to the facts. They only believe the people that promote doom and gloom. They do not believe scientific facts that are developed all of the time that debunks the major ideas behind global warming. There are never scientific studies that point to global warming being true. Just scientific articles that say man caused global warming is false.

One other thing my wife said, the web site had pictures of the ice sheets in the Antarctic. My wife said you could see the changes as it got bigger and smaller over time. The caption below the pictures just talked about the ice sheets melting. That the ice sheets got bigger and smaller over time would be perfectly natural and should have been identified by the caption. Obviously the person writing the caption for the picture had an agenda and was not going to let facts get in the way. That is so typically true of those that believe in global warming. They never let facts get in the way of their belief system.

Al Gore is going around saying that global warming is even worse than he had thought. He is just a scaremonger. In the next 10 years he will have been found out to have been a fraud. Of course, undoing all the damage he will do between now and then will be expensive. Al Gore and the global warming believers want to impose communism on us to “solve” global warming. That will really solve global warming. It will put the economies of the world back to the 18^th century. Only the rich and powerful communist leaders will have anything like the lifestyles of the 21^st century we live in. Even they will have to cut back as the world sinks back to the 20^th, then the 19^th, then the 18^th centuries. Where it will stop no-one knows. Will the economies of the world retreating into the 18^th century have any impact on global warming? No, it will have no impact at all.

The Republican debate was held last night in Florida. For once, there was a clear winner. Mitt Romney stood head and shoulders above the crowd in the debate. Romney showed that he is clearly the most conservative of all the Republican candidates left in the race. He clearly understood the issues better and could articulate his positions better. At no time was he put off message or in any way flustered by any of the questions. Clearly the economy was his strongest issue and it showed. The economy was foremost in everyone’s mind and that played to Romney’s strength.

John McCain was flustered by questions on the hoax of global warming and his age. Both clearly put him off message and caused him to have to regroup. He also did not have even an elementary grasp of the economic problems that face this country. He was strong on the war against Islamo-Fascism. He even talked strong on the border. I tend to doubt his sincerity about the border. He wants to give all illegal aliens citizenship and open the doors for any new illegal aliens that want to cross the border to join in on the citizenship giveaway. Remember, Senator McCain is my Senator. I have voted for him for Senate many times. I also voted for him for the House of Representatives when he ran that first time. I know Senator McCain rather well. He has not changed his spots. He still believes in giving illegal aliens citizenship, no matter what he says right now.

Rudy Giuliani was very good last night. He showed a good command of the issues, except for the economy. When Mitt Romney asked him about China, he rambled around for 90 seconds and did not really answer the question. That was an excellent point for Romney to make. It showed Rudy’s shortcomings when it comes to the economy. But overall, Rudy was excellent. He was probably the second best candidate in the debate. His support for the CAT fund will really help him with Florida voters and really hurt McCain who does not support the CAT fund. The CAT fund will also help Romney as Gov. Romney also supports the CAT fund, though not as strong as Rudy.

Mike Huckabee was his usual self. He was charming and friendly. He blew one question when he talked about building a highway as an ecological savings. But, in general he showed why he is really a second tier candidate right now. He also showed why he would probably be an excellent choice for Vice-President. By being charming and friendly, would help him go a long way as a Vice-President. His general lack of knowledge about the issues will keep him from being a good Presidential candidate right now. With some seasoning as a Vice-President, he could be a good Presidential candidate in 8 years.

Ron Paul was his usual self. He was blunt and irritating. His message appeals to the young people. My daughter is going to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary on Feb. 5. I told her that was ok. I would accept her voting for anyone except for John McCain. I do like Ron Paul’s libertarian message when it comes to national issues. He believes in smaller government and less government regulation. That is what I believe. What turned me off to Ron Paul is his lack of understanding of the threat we face from Radical Islamic Terrorists. If he understood that threat, I could easily support Ron Paul for President. In fact, he would be my first choice for President if he understood the threat. Unfortunately he does not understand the threat and so he is my last choice.

Florida votes on Tuesday. I believe that Mitt Romney will win there by 5-6%. Romney will have 32% of the vote and McCain will have 26% of the vote. Giuliani will come in third with 16% of the vote. Huckabee will take fourth with 15% of the vote and Ron Paul will come in fifth with 11%.The win in Florida will put Mitt Romney on the fast track to the Republican nomination. He would win almost all of the Feb. 5 votes and have the lion’s share of the delegates. The handwriting is on the wall and all signs point to Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee for President.

The polling results from polls in Florida look promising. They show that John McCain has not changed in his polling numbers. Mitt Romney has gained enough to be in the lead and Rudy Giuliani has lost support. All in all this is a good result. If this holds for the vote on Saturday, it will be a knockout for Rudy Giuliani and probably Mike Huckabee as he is trailing badly in 4^th place. That would mean that Super Tuesday would be between Mitt Romney and John McCain with almost all Republican voters on that day. That bodes well for Romney and poorly for McCain.

The other development is that McCain has had to leave Florida and go fund raising. That means that he is in the same money crunch that Giuliani and Huckabee are. Romney is rolling in Florida full bore. He does not have a money crunch. He could use more donations and I received a request to donate just today. But, Romney’s staff is not going without pay during this time. Every other Republican, except for McCain, has had to have staff work without pay for the Florida primary. If things are this bad for the contenders for the Republican nomination, what are they going to do for the general election?

On the Democrat side, Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama are hitting each other over the head with accusations. Mrs. Clinton claims that he has or has not done something. He claims that Mrs. Clinton or her husband is not telling the truth. Barack is now learning what everyone on the Republican side learned in the 1990’s, the Clinton’s will say or do anything to get or keep power. That is really true for this campaign cycle. The worst of it is Bill Clinton. He is shooting off his mouth about almost everything. He does not seem to care about the truth in the least little bit. He accuses Barack of playing the gender and race cards. Barack has not played the race card and is not playing the race card. In that way Bill Clinton puts the idea in play by denying that he is putting it in play. If their opponent responds to it at all, they then have their opponent playing the race or gender card. If the opponent does not respond, then the story gets printed just how the Clinton’s want it printed and the opponent is screwed. The opponent cannot win no matter what they do.

According to Dick Morris, the Clinton’s are trying to deflect criticism from Mrs. Clinton to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is trying to make himself obnoxious. He is doing a great job. Of course, he has had years of practice. As a result, he is taking a lot of heat from talk radio and conservatives. This has resulted in a reduction of negative articles about Mrs. Clinton. They also got Barack Obama to react to their tag team attack on his character. His negative reaction to their attack will hurt him in obtaining the nomination. When he was keeping his message positive and he did not react, he was riding high. By reacting angrily, he is playing into their hands. He is also showing that he is not ready for prime time. Republicans can expect more of the same in the general election.

What does all this mean? It points to Mitt Romney representing the Republican Party in November. It also points to Mrs. Bill Clinton representing the Democrat party. That will be a barn burner. Mitt is by far smarter than both the Clinton’s put together. The problem is that he is also honest and true. Those are not good qualities when playing ball with the Clinton’s. You want someone who will dust it up with the Clinton’s and give them more than they give you. He has to come across as charming and positive in every situation. If he does that, he will be the next President of the United States. If he gets surly and sour, he will go down in flames. The Clinton’s play dirty and will say and do anything to get or keep power. He will have to remind himself of that every day from the day he secures the nomination, until Election Day.

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.

Today, South Carolina and Nevada primaries are being held. In the Nevada primary, Romney is expected to win as he is about the only candidate that has spent time in the state. On the Democrat side, the race is between Obama and Clinton. After the ruling by the judge that the state can hold caucus meetings in casinos, that opened the door for Obama to win. Obama had been endorsed by the food handlers union and they have to work in the casinos. With the caucus being held in the casino, they can attend on breaks. That will give him a big boost in votes. Clinton had tried to suppress the vote by the lawsuit. It is interesting that no-one tried to suppress the teacher’s union vote by stopping caucus meetings in schools. Obama will probably win in Nevada. Any time Mrs. Clinton loses, America wins.

In South Carolina, it is a close race between John McCain and Mike Huckabee for the top spot. The last poll I saw put them almost tied with 25% for McCain and 21% for Huckabee. Romney has about 18% and Thompson has about 16%. Unfortunately for America, I expect John McCain to win in South Carolina by a very narrow margin. Patrick Ruffini suggested that voters for Romney and Thompson put their votes behind Huckabee. His reasoning is that a win by Huckabee is less damaging than a win by McCain. He is probably right, but I could not vote for either McCain or Huckabee with a clear conscience.  I would feel that I would be deserting my core values to vote for either candidate. I can understand his reasoning. Other people may be able to vote for Huckabee and deny McCain a victory, but I could never vote for Huckabee.  Huckabee’s anti-Christian bias and his misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches are too much to overcome.

After this vote in South Carolina, there are 10 days before Florida. The winner of South Carolina will get a big boost and the winner of Nevada will get a small boost.  The endorsement of Romney by Ann Coulter this week will surely help him win some votes. She is very popular. A lot of people put a lot of stock into what she says. Even Joseph Farah of World Net Daily is resisting the tidal wave that is starting to get behind Romney. He is sticking with his Huckabee pick, even though he can see that Huckabee is not going to win.

Rudy Giuliani has put all his eggs in Florida. If he does not win Florida, he is pretty much finished as a candidate. He will be out of money and unable to get much in the way of campaign cash. The polls have Giuliani, Romney and McCain pretty much tied for the lead. There is a fourth name, but I do not remember if it is Thompson or Huckabee. Any one of the four could win as they are all within two percentage points of one another. The theory is that Giuliani has hit his floor in Florida. I think he has probably hit his maximum. Over the next 10 days, someone will break out ahead in Florida and I do not expect it to be Giuliani. The person that breaks out ahead in Florida will have a great shot at taking a lot of states on February 5. My feeling is that Romney and McCain are the only ones with a chance to break out ahead in Florida and take a big chunk of states on Feb. 5. Since Republican voters do not like McCain, I do not think that McCain is that person to run the table. I still think that Romney is that person to take the lion’s share of delegates.  

Balloting for the Feb. 5 primaries are in full swing. I received my ballot in the mail yesterday. This morning, I voted in the Arizona primary. I was amazed at the number of names on the Republican ballot for President. I expected the main candidates to be there. I was surprised at the number of candidates that I had never heard of. It made it difficult to find the name I wanted to vote for.

To end the suspense, I voted for Mitt Romney. Any regular reader of this column will know that my candidate is Mitt Romney. I believe that he is our best chance against anyone the Democrats choose to put against us in the general election. He is the best candidate on the economy by far. There are no other candidates that can claim credibility like Mitt Romney on the economy.

On Immigration, all the Republican candidates claim to be for securing the borders first. Since all of them claim to be for securing the borders, you have to weed out those that are just giving it lip service and those that are serious. Those that are giving it lip service include John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Both of them are for amnesty. They now claim they want to secure the borders. Mike Huckabee has even made more radical claims. Just a month ago, he was for giving in-state tuition to children of illegal aliens. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson all are for securing our borders and cracking down on illegal aliens. There are some minor differences in their approaches, but basically any one of the three would be acceptable.

All the Republican candidates support our troops and are for taking the war to the Islamo-Fascists. Since all support taking the war to the terrorists, you have to look deeper. When you look deeper, you find that Mike Huckabee is completely ignorant of foreign affairs. He is ignorant of the terrorist threat that we face. He would be the weakest of the Republican candidates on the war against Islamo-Fascism. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson all hold positions that are essentially the same. You would have to look at the toughness factor to determine if they will stand or fold. There is no doubting John McCain is tough. He withstood the communist Vietnamese for 5 ½ years. The only problem there is that he likes to be the maverick and sometimes jumps on issues to the other side. You cannot be sure he will be with you when the chips are down any longer. So, he would be put on the list to be discarded as a candidate. Rudy Giuliani is tough. He worked to destroy the Mafia in New York and was tough after 9/11. No problem backing Rudy for the Presidency based on this issue. Mitt and Fred have not had the tough test that Rudy or McCain have had. But, both are tough men. Mitt has had to be tough in the business world. That toughens up a person real fast. Fred has been a prosecutor in Tennessee. As far as the war against Islamo-Fascism is concerned, I could support Rudy, Mitt or Fred.

On Social issues, Rudy Giuliani openly is a liberal. This disqualifies him for my support if there are any other candidates to support. All the others are social conservatives. Mike Huckabee has been the most consistently a social conservative his entire life. Mitt Romney has had a conversion from the first time he ran for office in Massachusetts. People have conversions. I believe that Romney’s conversion is real. John McCain has been consistently pro-life over the years. Recently he has waffled some, so I would hold my support if there is someone better in the pro-life portion. Fred Thompson has been pro-life for most of his career. He did work as a lobbyist for an abortion group for a couple of years. This causes some questions to be raised. Fred has answered them to my satisfaction. I could support Fred.

When you boil it all down, the only candidate that is positive in all the categories is Mitt Romney. He is not the best in all the categories. He is just one of the best in all the categories. He also does not get disqualified in any category.  My second place vote would go to Fred Thompson. Fred also is good in all the categories. He is just completely outclassed in the economy and ties Mitt everywhere else.  Third would probably go with Rudy Giuliani. He has fewer negatives than some of the others. John McCain and Mike Huckabee would be very difficult for me to support. McCain would be difficult because you cannot count on him. Huckabee is a liberal in every category except for social issues. That is my reasoning on why I voted for Mitt Romney.

The other day, I was asked about the primary coming up on February 5. The person asked me if I was going to vote for Senator McCain. I told him that I was not going to vote for Senator McCain because you could not trust him when it counted.

If things are going well and there are no problems, John McCain is right there with you. If there is opposition and he can get some positive press by going against you, he is suddenly on the other side. That is why I cannot trust the man. He may have an 80% conservative voting record, but that just validates what I just said. Most of the time things are going well and he is with you. It is the high profile important issues that he disappears from your side and appears in the lines against you.

When it comes to a President, I have to have someone there that can be counted on when the chips are down. When it is time to stand for principle over publicity, I want the person to stand on principle. John McCain is not that person. When it comes time for principle, he will take publicity.

One other reason I will not vote for John McCain is that he believes the greatest hoax ever. That is the global climate change myth. Anyone who really believes that man has any real impact on the climate is living in the twilight zone. If you look at how vast the environment is and how small the amount of “greenhouse” gases man emits, you would look like a fool for believing that such a small amount has a major impact. This is especially so when you compare the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by nature itself and the amount that man emits. Man emits almost nothing when compared to nature.

To further buttress my argument, you can look at the leaders of the “environmental” movement. They are some of the biggest polluters on the planet. Most of them live lifestyles that cause more pollution than vast amounts of ordinary people do on an ordinary day. Yet, they are asking ordinary citizens to completely change the way they live their lives. All the while, the “environmentalist” makes no changes in their lifestyle. They have to get out the word that pollution is bad, while polluting to their hearts content.

The goal of these “environmentalists” is to control the way everyone lives their lives. They want to have more control over your life than the old Soviet Union ever thought of having. They will make it impossible for you to do anything, except for what they want you do to. This will result in very high taxes and high inflation. The “environmentalists” don’t care about whether you can afford to purchase anything; they only want to control you. If you are poor, you are more easily controlled.

John McCain believes this hoax. He has bought the hoax, hook, line and sinker. That makes him dangerous as a politician. He would particularly dangerous as President because he would control much of the agenda in the country.

Currently, John McCain is tied with Huckabee for the lead in South Carolina at 24%. Romney is close behind at 18%. Thompson has 14%. There are still a couple of days to go before the primary. In the last two primaries, John McCain has collapsed a lot in both New Hampshire and Michigan just before the primaries. My hope is that he does so again. I also hope that Huckabee does not pick up any of the McCain people. I hope most would go to Romney as he is the best candidate the Republicans have this year.

Yesterday, I predicted that Mitt Romney would win Michigan in the neighborhood of 9%. I was correct. That is even though the polls had John McCain running neck and neck with him up until the end. I also predicted that Mrs. Clinton would have some problems on the Democrat side and would not get 60%, she got 56%. I feel good about my predictions. Those are my first correct predictions of the primary season.

For the Republicans, it is on to South Carolina. That primary is on Saturday. The polls currently have John McCain leading with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney trailing in that order. Thompson is closing fast by taking people away from Mike Huckabee. Thompson is almost within hailing distance of the top three candidates. After the people in South Carolina hear about John McCain taking a loss in Michigan after leading big only a week ago, I think he will lose support there as well. McCain did not do well there in 2000. His support has to be rather soft. I would think that some people will jump from the previous perceived front runner of John McCain to the new perceived front runner of Mitt Romney. That may put Romney in first or second place in the voting. For him to take first in South Carolina would really be an upset of major proportions. If Thompson does not beat Huckabee, he will probably drop out of the race.

Shortly after South Carolina, there is the Florida primary where all the candidates are campaigning. That will be a real test and it might be Rudy Giuliani’s last stand. If Rudy loses Florida, I do not see him surviving very long. He will show that his support is not as strong as advertised and he will probably drop out by early February. Right now, Huckabee, McCain, Giuliani and Romney are virtually tied for the lead in Florida. Romney will probably get a bump for winning in Michigan. Whoever wins in South Carolina will also get a bump. That may push out the other two candidates from the race altogether.

The Democrats next primary is in Nevada. That is coming up soon. Obama and Clinton are fighting over everything trying to get the upper hand in Nevada. In the Michigan primary, Mrs. Clinton only got 30% of the black vote. That does not bode well for her in the next primary states and in the general election. The union that represents the restaurant workers voted to back Barack Obama. That really got the Clinton team upset. The Clinton’s feel entitled to the union vote and for Obama to get it really hurt.

The Democrats also held a debate last night in Las Vegas. They really battled over race, gender and other insignificant issues. All of them did poorly. Mrs. Clinton did the worst. Barack Obama did the best with John Edwards coming in a close second. The interesting thing is that they only allowed those three to attend the debate. They excluded all the candidates that had no chance to win the Nevada primary. The debate was a major snooze. The highlight was when Brian Williams stating that he was glad to be in Los Angeles, he was in Las Vegas. That brought everyone a good laugh.

The primaries are starting to winnow out candidates. Some have already dropped out of the race, most of them Democrats. The next few primaries will shorten the list of Republican candidates as well. It is ok to have a lot of candidates, but at some point there can be too many. That time is here for the Republicans. The Republicans need to shorten the list down to three or four candidates in the next week. That will enable voters to concentrate on the candidates that have a real chance to become the nominee. For example, there are too many Republican candidates. Duncan Hunter is an excellent candidate. He would make an excellent President. However, he has no chance of being nominated as the candidate of the party. There are others that could be named as well. I think that after Florida, that will happen to the Republican list.