So the scorecard changed after McCain winning the winner takes all FL primary. Current standing in delegates: McCain: 97 Romney: 74 Huckabee: 29 Rudy is out for good. McCain beat Romney by only 5%, which means that although he has a decent lead, if Romney manages to win about half of the other winner takes all states, he is still in good shape, and I would say still the leader of the pack. My bet for the Super Tuesday is that Romney will come out as a winner and pick up more delegates than anybody else. On the other side Hillary easily beat Obama in the not-counting FL beauty contest, although in a close tie, those delegates sure will make a difference. Edwards is out for good.
I just found this very interesting article today. Analysis: Is there life after Super Tuesday? The Republican race still has three major candidates, each of whom has won at least one state. Mike Huckabee is likely to win delegates in states and districts where evangelical voters predominate on February 5. A three-way split makes it harder for a Republican candidate to build a majority. Past campaigns have seen a reverse bandwagon effect. When a candidate gets close to winning the nomination, the bandwagon doesn't speed up. It slows down. Voters in the late primaries say, "Oh my God! What have we done"??. It happened in the 1976 Republican race. Gerald Ford defeated Ronald Reagan in the early contests. But when it began to look like Ford had the nomination, Reagan started winning the late primaries. The suspense continued right up to the convention. The same thing could happen if John McCain is the big Republican winner on Super Tuesday. Some conservative activists have already signaled an interest in trying to stop McCain in the late primaries. His biggest competition is Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.So even if we get apparent nominees on Super Tuesday, the late primaries offer a setting for the final phase of nominating process: voters' remorse. The race isn't over until somebody gets a majority of delegates, and both parties have rules that make it difficult to get to a majority. The Democratic rules award delegates proportional to the vote, so if a candidate gets 40 percent of the vote, he or she gets 40 percent of the delegates. The winner does not take all. The candidate who comes in second will continue to amass delegates. The candidate who comes in first has to win by overwhelming margins in order to get to a majority quickly. That seems less and less likely. Polls show Barack Obama gaining momentum as Super Tuesday approaches. Crushing victories by either Hillary Clinton or Obama don't seem to be in the cards. The fact that most delegates are awarded by congressional district makes it less likely that either Clinton or Obama will sweep the field. Each contender will be able to find pockets of strength in different areas of a state. And keep this in mind: Many states, including California, allow their residents to start mailing in their ballots weeks before primary day. See who votes on Super Tuesday » What happens to the thousands of Californians who voted weeks ago for John Edwards or Rudy Giuliani? Tough luck. They wasted their ballots. The Republican race still has three major candidates, each of whom has won at least one state. Mike Huckabee is likely to win delegates in states and districts where evangelical voters predominate on February 5. A three-way split makes it harder for a Republican candidate to build a majority. In a provocative and contrarian blog post, Josh Trevino has outlined the parameters of "Romney's Florida win." Trevino points out that according to CNN's exit poll numbers: Romney won pro-lifers. Romney won the mainstream religious. (Huckabee won the very religious -- less than one-fifth of the pool.) Romney won the Protestants. Romney tied Mike Huckabee with Evangelicals. Romney won the pro-GWB voters. Romney is the primary second choice of Giuliani voters, Thompson voters . . . and McCain voters. Romney won the immigration hard-liners. Romney won the upper-middle class, earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually. Romney won the terrorism-oriented voters. Romney won the self-identified conservatives and the self-identified very conservative. Romney won the values-oriented voters. Romney won the white voters. Romney won the tax-cutting voters. The problem with Trevino's analysis is that it neglects the dimensions of the Republican "big tent." At least since the days of Reagan, Republican strategists have tried to cobble together a big tent of stable Republican voters who would be numerous enough to ensure decades of Republican dominance. But with a growing tent comes a dilution of ideological purity. It's impressive that Romney carried all those little sub-populations in the tent last night.
Romney doesn't have enough juice to get it done... Its unfortunate because he is a good guy McCain has done something unusual. He came from nowhere to become the front runner. He had no money, no backers, and suddenly people started to check him out and agree with his comments....He has the best chance of any republican. On the dems side, Hillary is running on fumes. She is abrasive, and unpleasant, and for sure, men don't care for her. Hillary's main support comes from middle-aged women and mexicans. Obama has the broadest support according to polls, even in states where is running behind, it is only by a few points, as more and more people get behind his message. Hillary is old school and simply wants to get into the power seat. She will do just what the rest of the power brokers do once they get in power, and that is apologize for not being able to make changes, and blame it on lack of cooperation...We don't need any more pantsuit wearing bullshit artists in our government....She will give Obama a run for it, but ultimately she is a loser. Obama is smart enough to know how unpopular Hillary is with men and he will choose another person for his VP....
I don't think Huckabee ever had a chance. I would say even Rudy could beat him in a head-to-head comparison... Wait, Rudy did beat him in Florida....
As for you assholes belittling McCain's navy career - he refused parole from his captors who were torturing him because he would not leave without the rest of the prisoners. I guran-fucking-tee you that you would have taken the parole as fast you could. McCain is most likely going to win the nomination. If you want to sit high and mighty on your idealogical pedastal and refuse to vote for him because he isn't conservative enough, then you will be the blame for the Democrat who does win, most likely Hillary. Bottom line is this - we are all traders here and we can not afford a cap gains tax increase which is what we will get if either Hillary or Obama wins. Capital gains is the number one issue to a trader, none of this bullshit about illegal immigrants or stem cell research. You will have to vote for whomever the Republican is in the general. It will most likely be McCain, like it or not.
What kind of change he REALLY can bring?? (beside his skin color). let's see, in the past 16 years this country has been ruled by two former drug user. why we should elect another one?.. I got it, one used to smoke weed, the other one used to inhale coke, and obama used to sell both. bingo!.
Children, this thread is about guessing who will be the president. So leave out whom you love or hate, and make your bet. Thanks. We are strictly analyzing the election proceedings and not the candidates' records.
I haven't seen anyone belittling McCain's Navy career, but just as with another vietnam vet, John Kerry, I don't see it as reason to make him president. He's already parlayed it into 25 years in the Senate, with little to show for it other than a lot of appearances on the sunday morning shows. I don't think you fully understand the opposition to him among conservatives. It's not that he isn't quite conservative enough. You might make that criticism of Romney or Huckabee, for example. With McCain, it is that he has gone out of his way to sabotage conservative principles. Not only has he sabotaged conservatives, he has demonized them. He said evangelical supporters of Bush were "intolerant" and compared them to Al Sharpton. He said tax cuts were a gift to the rich. He made all kinds of accusations about immigration opponents, even implying they were racists. He bizarrely has led the fight for kid gloves treatment of captured terrorists. He has lied about or obfuscated his past positions, such as on amnesty. He blatantly lied about Romney's position on Iraq. He regards any criticism of his record as a personal attack. If you believe he will veto a democrat tax increase, I think you're dreaming. He will claim things are even worse than he imagined and that he was elected to work with democrats. He's already on record spewing class warfare nonsense. His understanding of the economy is nonexistent. I could easily see him going along with a cap gains increase and reinstituting the estate tax. As Ann Coulter put it, at least with Hillary or Obama in the White House, republicans will know who the enemy is. McCain would only confuse matters, and republicans would be under pressure to support his idiotic proposals as matter of party loyalty. I say no thanks.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UIQCP83&show_article=1 Romney won Maine's caucus, getting 18 delegates closing up the gap between him and McCain, basicly they are head to head: McCain: 97 Romney:92 Huckabee: 29 The actual results are telling: "The former Massachusetts governor had 52 percent of the vote with 68 percent of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain trailed with 21 percent, Ron Paul was third with 19 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 6 percent. "