Mark's musing

This is just in case you're a political junkie like I am, here is my "Mark S." analysis of the Primary Election process and how it might turn out.

Democrats:

This one is fairly simple. No form of calculations shows Obama getting enough votes to win the nomination at the convention. He may, however, keep Hillary from taking the nomination on the first ballot. It places John Edwards in the king-maker position. This is a 50-50 situation at the moment. I'd still bet on Clinton but if the Clinton's keep up their gnarly backroom antics and the Dem leaders finally have their fill, it could all backfire. The number is growing for Dem leaders who once supported the Clintons but have tired from their constant meanness, petulant behavior, and position-a-minute stances.

Independents:

Bloomberg has $1 billion he's willing to spend should Obama and Huckabee get their respective nominations. He won't enter the race if it is Rudy, McCain or Mitt vs. Hillary.

Republicans:

As I calculate it, as things are-- and this is strictly if the trends continue -- the final delegate count is likely to be the following given rosy projections for Romney and Huckabee, average weighting for McCain and negative weighting to Rudy:

Giuliani Romney Huckabee McCain Thompson Paul

30% 26% 18% 22% 3% 3% of the delegates...

giving them the following delegates

Giuliani Romney Huckabee McCain Thompson Paul 719 615 435 523 66 77 delegates.

I did figure that Thompson would indeed pull out but his delegates remain tied to him until the first ballot. I doubt any of the others will officially pull out although the Huckster has already ground his campaign to a dead crawl. He's out of money on has irritated too many Republicans with his "amend the constitution to be in line with God's law" kind of stuff. McCain gets my vote as the one who would drop out first (he won't) ... not sure why except I see the Huckster and Mitt as being more stubborn as well as having ulterior motives for other national leadership if a Republican wins.

In that no one will have even close to the 1191 delegates to win, the Republican Convention would end up as an "open" or "brokered" convention, first we've seen in 100 years. The delegates must vote for the candidate they committed to during the state election on the first ballot. Thereafter they may vote as they wish.

My open convention scenario wonders if Rudy and Huckster don't make a VP deal for the second ballot although Thompson has been working hard to be the VP and would be better. Not with McCain because it would be known as the Undertaker Ticket. How old can you go?

Regardless, I don't see Mitt able to make any deals with anyone with the possible exception of Thompson, but he'd likely go with Rudy first.

In other words, there is no winning gambit for Mitt, Huckster or Thompson... and frankly McCain is far more of a long shot than the media makes out. As his own mother says, he has little support from the base of the GPO.

Of course if any of the others dropped out after Feb 5, that will change some of the weighting but I don't see that being of particular help to Rudy unless it was McCain.

Who wins the general election??? Too much time until then. Most polls show a 5 point difference between either Hillary or Obama and whoever the Republican is. That's just too narrow for now.