Hugh Hewitt handicaps a worst-case scenario for Mitt Romney (who he supports). The summary is that if everything went against Romney on Super Tueday, he would still not be knocked out. The scenario:
Next Tuesday the winner-take-all states that lean McCain are New York (101), Missouri (58), Arzona (53), New Jersey (52) Connecticut (30), and Delaware (18) for a total of 272 delegates. Even though Missouri, another winner-take-all leans Huck right now, lets give its 58 delegates to McCain.
That means in w-t-a contests, McCain picks up 370 delegates in w-t-a primaries. Romney is favored in winner-take-all Utah (36) and Montana (25), for a total of 51 delegates. Thus before the sorting takes place in the other states, McCain's got 467 delegates and Romney's got 125. Huckabee will certainly get the 34 Arkansas delegates to go with his 29, for a total of 63.
States dividing delegates Tuesday on other-than-a-winner-take-all basis:California - 173
Georgia - 72
Illinois - 70
Tennessee - 55
Alabama - 48
Colorado - 46
Massachusetts - 41
Minnesota - 40
Oklahoma - 41
West Virginia - 30
Alaska - 29
North Dakota - 26
Total - 671
If these divide 40-40-20, McCain and Romney will add 269 delegates each, and Huck 133. But since we are going worst case for Romney, make it 50-30-20, or 336 for McCain, 201 for Romney, and 134 for Huck.
Total at the end of Super Tuesday without a major reversal of fortune for Romney:
McCain 803, Romney 326, and Huck 197. It takes 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination. Start looking hard at the numbers and put yourself in the discussions with Team Romney. It isn't pretty, but it is far, far from over. And if the Huckabee voters look at the reality and see they are voting for McCain when they vote for Huck, anything can happen.
Michelle Malkin reports on the alleged voter irregularities yesterday. According to exit polls, it looks like a full 20% of those voting in the Republican primary were non-Republicans. It is legal to change your registration for the primary (i.e. to Republican), then back (to Independent/Democrat) for the general election - it's a strategy that can be used to skew results in the opposite party. The illegal part is in voting as a Republican when you're not registered that way, which is what seems to have been happening in Florida yesterday. Usually it doesn't swing the outcome, but that is not the case here. If the total number of votes cast was 1.8 million, and if 20% of them were actually Dems/Indies, that would mean a total of 360,000 votes are suspect. McCain beat Romney by 5%, or about 90,000 votes. Hmmm...
Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics.com goes into some depth about how the voting broke down in McCain's favor. Given the previous numbers, it's hard to give too much credibility to this analysis, though if you're interested in the details you should check it out. One thing I do think is important, though, is when Cost says the following:
What about the geographical distribution of the vote? Florida has four large metropolitan areas: Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Romney won decisively in Jacksonville, 42% to 29%; he won a slight victory in Orlando, 33% to 32%. McCain won Tampa, 37% to 30%; he won big in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, 45% to 22%. Unfortunately for Romney, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale/Tampa out-voted Orlando/Jacksonville by better than 2:1.
What strikes me about this is that the more conservative parts of the state (north and panhandle) favored Romney heavily, and the more liberal part of the state (south) favored McCain, further proof of the ideological split between McCain and his supposed conservative base. If these numbers hold, Romney is certainly not without hope.
Dick Morris, among others, has stated that Romney can't beat Hillary or Obama, but that McCain has a shot. Morris cites large support for McCain's national security position, and large Hispanic support because of his immigration history. He says McCain's only real weakness is the economy, and neither of the Democrat candidates is any better, so it would be a wash.
One thing I think that Morris and other McCain bandwagon-riders are forgetting is the non-Hispanic vote. If Hispanics and African Americans make up about 25% of the total voting public, and if you throw in another 10% for the other minority groups (which I think is high), you still have at least 65% of the voting public that remembers McCain's record on things like amnesty and his attack on the 1st Amendment (McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform), and they are pissed about it! And, if Hillary wins out against Obama by continuing her racial assaults, she may disenfranchise a good portion of her black vote, too, which would help Romney out a lot. Here's the other wild card - Huckabee. If Huckabee bows out soon, the logical place for his conservative evangelical supporters to go (especially with an official endorsement) is Romney, who is clearly the more conservative of the remaining two. That could put a very interesting spin on things. This race is far from over, and Romney's got the deep pockets to stay in it through the low points.
A growing number of conservative-ideology-before-Republican-party pundits (led by Rush Limbaugh) are floating thoughts about not voting for the Republican nominee if McCain gets it. While my initial reaction to this is a major cringe factor, the theory definitely bears some serious consideration. The thought process goes like this:
- outside of national security, McCain holds essentially the same positions as a liberal (i.e. Clinton or Obama)
- having any President with liberal positions will likely drive the country into a near-disastrous condition within the next four years
- it would be better for a Democrat to lead the country into the ground than a Republican because of the backlash
Obviously, if McCain presides over the decline, it's almost a guarantee that a Democrat will take his place in 2012. As Limbaugh has said more than once, it took a Carter to get a Reagan, and he thinks it might take a Clinton or an Obama to get the next Reagan.
I don't like it - it seems a lot like defeatism to me, and it's taking an awfully big risk about how much damage will occur in the next four years. My argument for supporting the Rep nominee even if you don't like him is that it's better to have the person who agrees with you 80% of the time than the person who agrees with you 20% of the time. But, if you look at the long-term, Limbaugh's theory makes a whole lot of sense. I think I could get on board with it if you pair it with a Republican-controlled Congress, which would really limit the damage done by a liberal President.
There's really not much difference between McCain and either Democrat. Of course, propelling Romney into the GOP nomination would actually give us a choice in the general election.
There's my two cents.
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