The Primary Season

(WARNING: extremely wonkish analysis follows. Read at your own risk, May cause insomnia or mild cynicism)

Well, if you watch the news, you know that apparently the race for the presidential nominations is over. Iowa and New Hampshire have spoken, What else is there to say? McCain and Clinton it is, the comeback kids. . .except that the media is ALL WRONG!

It's really irritating to a confessed political junkie like me. Now, I couldn't care less who wins the Democrat primary, so I'll just shot apart the conventional wisdom on the republican candidates.

1. "McCain and Huckabee are winning all the delegates since they've won IA and NH, and they're getting all the press. . ." But (according to CNN) Mitt Romney actually leads the delegate count, even after Hew Hampshire.

2. "Romney's lost the first two primaries, he'll never recover. . ." but you probably didn't even hear about the Wyoming caucus, did you? Held between IA and NH, Romney won that one hands down, and it has exactly the same number of delegates as New Hampshire. Tradition has made everyone focus on those two states. But this year is different. It used to be that IA and NH were first, and everyone else was quite a but later. Not so this year, the schedule is compressed so much that no one has time to run out of money or lose momentum before the next election. There are 8 primaries and caucuses in January this year, there were none in 2004. There are another 19 in the first 5 days of February.

3. "IA and NH are the most important, they are representative of the GOP as a whole." They are not! New Hampshire is a suburb of Boston now, and is full of quirky, secular people. they also let independents vote in any primary they want. IA is a small state who's voters worry more about Ethanol subsidies than anything else. This is not the GOP on a national level. In addition, the only reason these two states are important is the incessant media coverage they receive. Only 5% of the necessary delegates have been awarded so far, with Romney winning about half of them.

4. "It'll all be over on Feb. 5th, Giuliani will sweep in and take the nomination." Not likely. The GOP needs 1191 delegates to win. 949 are awarded on Feb. 5th (Super Tuesday). Even if Giuliani swept them all, (not possible, as some are awarded proportionally) He couldn't clinch the nomination. Giuliani hasn't competed in any race so far. and if he's counting on Florida to give him a big boost with it's 114 delegates, tough luck, FL and a few other states (including MI) lsot have their delegates when they moved their primaries before Feb. 5th in violation of party rules. Even after Super Tuesday there are several large delegate totals to be decided. (e.g. Texas - 140, Ohio -88, N.Carolina - 69, Pennsylvania - 74, Virginia - 63 = 434 delegates). In all over 1000 delegates are awarded after Feb. 5th. A well organized campaign with money and resources to compete to the end can make up a lot of ground.

In short: This year is different. there is no front runner and it is certainly NOT over yet.