Tuesday, February 12, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN

The Increasingly Less Dramatic Delegate Math

Maryland's polls are open until 9:30 p.m., but we saw from the exit polls earlier that McCain was way ahead, and I don't think even many Huckabee supporters thought that the land of crabcakes was fertile territory for their man.

McCain needs 1191 delegates, and with Virginia, CNN puts him at 783. He should get most of Maryland's 37 delegates, and who knows about the District's 16.

McCain should be past 800 by the end of the night.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: I've heard from campaign sources that Huckabee is expected to stick around until at least the Texas primary on March 4.

Let's go over my review from last week, which was almost instantly out of date once Romney departed the race...

Guam holds its GOP caucus on February 16. They pick six delegates there.

A week from today, Washington state has its primary (which is for 19 of the state's delegates; 18 are through the convoluted, multi-step caucus process) and the Wisconsin primary, with 40 delegates. 

Based on his second-place finish in the first step of the caucus process on Saturday, Huckabee might make some noise in Washington state. But in Wisconsin, the two most recent polls show McCain up by 21 or 47.

American Samoa holds its caucus February 23, with another six delegates selected.

After that, it's Puerto Rico 's GOP caucus on February 24, with 20 delegates at stake.

Are any of those jumping out at you as natural Huckabee states or territories?

Finally, on March 4, Texas. The other states voting that day on the Republican side are Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

So after going 0 for 3 tonight, despite a valiant effort in Virginia, Huckabee is looking at probably no wins until Texas. (And I don't think I'd automatically give him a majority or plurality in the Lone Star State, either.) 

We're going to hear a lot about how close tonight was, and Huckabee can have his head held high, but with 86 percent of precincts reporting, it's McCain 50 percent, Huckabee 41 percent. A nine percent margin isn't a rout, but it's not neck-and-neck, either.

It's a free country, and Huckabee can stay in as long as he likes. But I suspect the question, "what's the point?" is going to get steadily louder in the coming weeks... 

02/12 08:47 PMShare