Posted by
Glen Albrethsen on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 5:31:03 PM
Random thoughts:
Senator John McCain won where he was expected, and with the exception of Missouri and possibly Oklahoma, did not win where it was a toss up or where he was not expected to win.
Governor Mike Huckabee won entirely in the south (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia) and nowhere else. He was second in Oklahoma and Missouri.
Governor Mitt Romney won his home state of Massachusetts, Minnesota and all of the Mountain West. He was within four points of the eventual winner in Georgia and four percent in Missouri. He lost California in such a way that he did not pick up very many delegates.
Most sources are conceding McCain is the nominee for the Republican party. It would be very difficult, given the number of delegates left, and how McCain is likely to do, for Romney, or for that matter, Huckabee, to win now.
Either of the latter would have to virtually win all of the delegates from here on out to win the nomination outright. The likelihood of that happening, barring some meltdown (and we're talking major meltdown) of John McCain, is nil. Not as impossible, but still unlikely, is the chance that Romney, by staying in the race, could get enough delegates to keep McCain from winning the nomination outright, and keeping Huckabee from gaining enough delegates that he and McCain could pull another West Virginia at the Republican National Convention by brokering a deal through delegate sharing.
The question is, will Romney go on? It sure sounded like he would in his speech to supporters last night. And there's less doubt that Huckabee will continue. That despite the fact that his campaign, which has been running on vapors from the very beginning, must be running on air now. As he said, it's definitely the greenest of the campaigns.
I haven't crunched any numbers to know just what it would take to win or block--someone probably has--but it's evident that aside from a majority of conservatives, who know McCain is not conservative, but have nevertheless been splitting their votes between Romney and Huckabee, that those who have been voting for McCain are moderate and more liberal leaning.
A lot is being said now about what the Republican party rank and file should do from this point forward. Many, mostly not conservatives, are calling for all Republicans to rally around the presumptive nominee, McCain. Others, mostly conservatives, are sticking to their guns and are threatening not to vote for McCain by either voting Democrat or for no one. Those who say "Rally around McCain" are mainly doing it for the good of the party. Those who are saying "No way I'll vote for McCain" are doing so, mainly out of differences with McCain's non-conservative stances on a host of different things.
So, where to go from here?
A lot will have to do with what Romney decides to do. He is the only one, from here on out, that can stop McCain. Huckabee proved last night that outside the Bible Belt and Iowa, he does poorly. Even were Romney to leave and Huckabee to stay, it is not likely that he would defeat McCain in the states that are remaining. My guess is if Romney quits, so does Huckabee. He might stay in for another week, but what possible reasons would he have?
Romney is supposed to be huddling around his advisers, to determine what the game plan is from here on out, and he's supposed to be polishing up his speech for CPAC tomorrow. Odds are, he'll stick around. He's got most of talk radio on his side, and he has been winning more of the conservative vote.
I know what I'm going to do, and I'll lay it out in the next blog.