So I got sick the last couple of days. It wasn't terrible, but enough coughing to keep me up at night and make my head pound in the day. I figured it was probably time to take some time off of work when a guy in another office nearby started offering me cough drops and eveyrone I was interviewing kept pointing out that I sounded like I was sick. That is mostly the reason why I haven't blogged. The other part of the reason is that I was finishing up the rest of Harry Potter.
That's right. I finished them all. I started around Thanksgiving and I blew through the last two in the last two weeks. The last one I actually finished in a 24 hour period. I'll post more on that later...
What I was going to go over a little more in depth was the GOP primary for Florida. That one is coming up this next Tuesday, January 29th. That one is a really big one because it's the last one (I think) before Super Tuesday when 22 states have their primaries. Florida is a winner-take-all state, with 57 delegates up for grabs. What's more is that it's a closed primary, meaning that only Republicans are going to be voting and that basically means that none of the candidates will be getting a boost from Independents or Democrats. Basically that's good news for Romney, bad news for McCain and maybe even Giuliani.
In related news, you've heard that Fred Thompson withdrew from the nomination, right? Some people speculated that his voters would distribute pretty evenly between the other candidates, but with his across the board stance on conservative positions, it would seem that his people would go to the next most conservative candidate, Mitt Romney. I think this is reflecting in the most recent polls that show Romney pulling ahead of McCain and Giuliani. On top of all of that, there are rumors that Huckabee is going to go ahead and pull out of Florida early and concentrate on other Southern states. Again, it would seem that his strongest contingent of voters (social conservatives, more specifically the evangelicals) would be aligning themselves with Romney. Probably not as much as will be the case with the Thompson voters, but they would seem to lean more in his direction than the other candidates.
How does everything shape up then? Well...obviously this would be a huge boost for Romney if he were to win because it would finally give him a win in a state where it's widely contested by other candidates and he has no personal connections to the state like he has had in his other wins. Also, it sets the stage for what happens on Super Tuesday because of its timing, being the last primary and all. If McCain wins, that's hard for Romney to bounce back from because he needs something to swing momentum in his favor going into February 5th. If Giuiliani manages to pull it out, then he's right back in this thing and could validate his campaign strategy and refute decades of political history. There is a lot of volatility in the polls right now though, so there's really no telling what it all means. Remember that last time with Michigan polls were showing McCain up by one or two points, then Romney ended up winning by nine. In South Carolina it was pretty right on. This time, however, the dynamic is different because there is a new candidate (Giuiliani) and with the withdrawal of Thompson, that should change voter behavior a little bit. Just stay right there on the edge of your seat and we'll be finding out more in just a few days.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention it, but tonight is the only debate before the primary on Tuesday. I think it starts at 730pm pacific. It's do or die for these guys now. Romney has had solid performances the last several and McCain has looked flat, so let's hope that trend to continues. Plus Giuliani will have to come out with his guns blazing if he wants to make his mark on the nomination race, and all this adds up to a lot of negative light on McCain because Romney of course will be doing the same. It's gonna be very interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment