Monday, February 04, 2008

MITT ROMNEY, JOHN MCCAIN

Romney's Raw Deal: The Winner-Take-All/Proportional Split

Hugh examines polling putting McCain up in the low 40s, leading by 9 to 17 percent, in Arizona and chuckles, "astonishingly, McCain cannot nail down a majority of Republican voters in his own state!"

Well, yes, but Suffolk/WHDH puts Romney at 50 percent in Massachusetts. And I'd rather have McCain's low 40s in Arizona than Romney's 50 percent in Massachusetts, as Arizona is winner-take-all, and the Bay State isn't.

I don't want to appear to be saying Super Tuesday is all over — we saw last night, they play the games for a reason - but the winner-take-all/proportional split among the primaries has just sorted out terribly for Romney. He's going to get a decent slice of the vote in McCain's best states and absolutely no delegates to show for it, while McCain gets a few here and a few there in Romney's best states, and California probably splits pretty evenly.

If New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Arizona were proportional, and Colorado and Massachusetts were winner-take-all, the race would probably look quite different.

02/04 02:11 PM Share