A Word About the Republicans

In keeping with the tradition of dealing with the primaries as separate races, because of course they are, I’ll just say a few things about the Republican outcome in New Hampshire. Like I said Monday, this was a must win situation for McCain. A second place finish would have dampened any momentum McCain had going in to Tuesday. Fortunately for him he did what he had to do. That doesn’t mean McCain’s out of the clear. No far from it. In South Carolina some polls have Huckabee ahead by double digits. Of course a lot could change from now till then as we visibly saw yesterday in the Democratic race.

Also, McCain has a lot more than just Huckabee at his heels. Big Love Romney is actually in the lead as far as total delegates are concerned. I stole this nifty little image from Matt Yglesias to demonstrate who’s leading in the delegate race.

Big Love has plenty of delegates and money to continue his crusade to the White House, despite his extremely disappointing, not to mention embarrassing, defeats in Iowa and NH. What's all this mean with Romney, Huckabee and McCain all in good shape to take the nomination for the GOP? Well, a couple different things actually. One, what happened to Giuliani? And two, is Fred Thompson even still breathing? No seriously, GOP turnout has been substantially lower this cycle than in the last contested primary (2000) and that's mainly because there's no real front runner, or favorite. It's safe to say that "none of the above" would easily pull double digits for the GOP. Especially considering almost triple the number of Democratic voters turned out in NH than did Republican. Excitement just isn't a word to describe the GOP base right now.

All that can easily change if McCain keeps building momentum and if he selects Huckabee as a running mate for November. Oh, and let's not forget as long as Fox News keeps fixing debates, surely the Republicans will begin to like one of their men.