Wednesday, February 06, 2008

MITT ROMNEY, JOHN MCCAIN

The Delegate Fight Is Steep and Rocky For McCain Opponents

It's not the place of a guy like me to say whether a candidate should stay in or depart the race.

But it's hard to see a scenario in which the next nominee of the Republican party is not John McCain. Maybe McCain will face a health scare, or maybe something goes terribly wrong at CPAC, or maybe some Dean-scream-like moment makes him completely unelectable.

But I think Rove's ballpark estimates are right, and McCain will have something like a 300 delegate lead over Romney when today's - no, it's now yesterday's - results shake out. Take a look at the remaining states after today.

In a perfect world for Romney, he would roar into some winner-take-all states and start gobbling up vast swaths of delegates. But there's only a few winner-take-all states left: Virginia (63 delegates), the District of Columbia, (19 delegates) and Vermont (17 delegates). Could Romney take those? Probably, but I figure McCain will be in strong shape in the Navy-heavy state of Virginia.

(The chart put together by Right For America gives Romney 37 delegates in Louisiana, and I'm not sure that's possible with the results in the state's caucus. Of course, that state has Byzantine rules that are less clear than Bayou mud.)

Washington state or Kansas? Yeah, I could see Romney winning those states, 40 delegates here, 39 delegates there. But they're proportional states; tough to see him sweeping by such an enormous margin that he gets enough delegates to really make up a lot of ground.

Wisconsin is in between in there, with 40 delegates. I'll have a more detailed look at all of these states after a lengthy night's sleep, but you look, state after state, and have a tough time saying, "oh, yeah, that state's definatley going Romney, and he'll win big."

On March 4, Texas (140 delegates) and Ohio (88 delegates) are two of the bigger pieces left on the board. If Huckabee is still in the race then (and he certainly doesn't seem inclined to leave the race, and must be gleeful tonight), if you're Romney, you have to worry about him taking a big bite out of Texas' delegates. Also note Texas is an open primary, so one would think McCain would be looking at a decent level of support from independents.

Bill Kristol predicted on Fox News a moment ago that Romney would announce his departure from the race at CPAC. I am skeptical of that prediction.

02/06 12:59 AMShare