Giuliani had a solid lead in Florida before the early primaries.  Some polls had him over 36%.  Then the early primaries happened and Giuliani was not playing in any of them.  That changed the political landscape.  Now Giuliani, who has spent heavily in Florida, is tied for third with Huckabee who hasn’t spent much and isn’t campaigning there.  Pretty much everyone believes that if Giuliani doesn’t win Florida his campaign is over.  I think it likely he’ll come in forth. 

The polls show Romney and McCain in a statistical tie for first in Florida.  I suspect Romney will handily defeat McCain in the sunshine state, giving McCain a likely second place finish.  Of course, the large liberal northeastern snow birds could tilt that the other way. Second is as good as last in this winner take all state and if that is where McCain ends up it hurts him a lot.  Huckabee will be third which will give him no delegates but it will still energize his campaign because he will again have done it without much money, meaning he has real, solid support.

What does all that mean going into Super Tuesday?  I think it will be a three man race at that point with Romney leading the pack.  McCain and Huckabee will be fighting for second place.

There are, of course, some wildcards in play.  Where will Thompson supporters go?  They should go to Huckabee since both Huckabee and Thompson were going for the same constituency.  Some will go to Romney because he is the most conservative of the front runners (if you don’t consider Huckabee a front runner).  Some, like ALa of Blonde Sagacity, seem determined to go with McCain, primarily I think, because of his war record.  I’m mystified by that since these people consider themselves conservatives but they can ignore McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, etc.  But many of them bought pretty much anything Thompson said and Thompson attacked Huckabee relentlessly.  That was no surprise considering Huckabee was his main opponent.  They were, after all, reaching out to the same constituency.  Once again, violation of Reagan’s eleventh commandment takes its toll.

Then there’s the small group who supported Duncan Hunter.  Hunter is now endorsing Huckabee, which has to really irk some of the pundits on the right as well as Thompson supporters.

I still think Huckabee has a decent shot but I concede he has an uphill battle and the odds are against him.  If, as I am predicting, Giuliani comes in third or forth in Florida, he is toast.  His support has already shrunk considerably and without a win in Florida it will pretty much dry up.  That leaves a three man race with Romney, McCain and Huckabee going into Super Tuesday.

I am convinced that McCain cannot win overall in states that have closed primaries.  In the South Carolina primary McCain did not do well among those who consider themselves conservative or very conservative.  He also did not do well among those who are pro-life.  Additionally, Protestants and those who attend church regularly went largely for Huckabee (Source).  I said last week, McCain barely won South Carolina and it took independents crossing over to give him that win and had Thompson not been in the race Huckabee would likely have won anyway.  None of this bodes well for McCain going forward.  The best thing he has is the claim of momentum coming out of South Carolina and I’m not convinced he really has any momentum, though the media has worked hard to generate some.

Based on what is known now, I believe Romney is the most likely winner on Super Tuesday.  How well Huckabee does will depend on his ability to stretch a dollar and enlist the active support of the organizations that already exist in the FairTax community and the evangelical community.  That carried him in the Iowa Straw Poll, it carried him in the Iowa Caucus and it has the potential to carry him on Super Tuesday.  The question is, will those organizations mobilize?  If they do Huckabee could defy the odds and the pundits and be positioned to take the nomination.  If they do not, Romney wins on Super Tuesday.  Either way the best McCain can hope for is second and that would mean the end of his candidacy.  Indeed, if Romney is the clear winner after Super Tuesday he will likely be the nominee.  As much as that thought does not appeal to me, it is infinitely preferable to a McCain win.  Still, I have hope, if not giddy optimism, that Huckabee can pull this off.

If, by some miracle, McCain emerges from Super Tuesday a winner, the Republican Party is in real trouble!  More on that possible outcome in another post.

During Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California, Republicans established the so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

It was proposed by State Republican Chairman Gaylord Parkinson to help prevent a repeat of the liberal Republican assault on Barry Goldwater that laid the foundation for Goldwater’s trouncing in the 1964 presidential election. Just as Nelson Rockefeller and his East Coast cronies had branded Goldwater as an “extremist” who was unfit to hold office, so candidate George Christopher and California’s liberal Republicans were leveling similar personal attacks on Reagan. Party liberals eventually followed Parkinson’s advice, and the rest is history.

Source

All the Republican candidates have invoked the name of Ronald Reagan numerous times.  It seems they all want to be associated with the Reagan legacy.  But most have forgotten Reagan’s eleventh commandment.  It is one thing to contrast one’s record with that of another candidate.  it is quite another to resort to character assassination and that is precisely what some have done.

The pundits are even worse and they don’t seem to realize the risk they are taking.  The quote above illustrates why Reagan was unwilling to speak ill of his Republican opponents.  He stuck to issues because he understood that it was important that Republicans won in the end the constant assaults in the primary process made that less likely.

The lesson holds true today but you wouldn’t know it listening to the pundits.  I have to admit that I have been guilty as well.  I’ve made my views on John McCain, for example, very clear.  But as I said in my last post, I have to think about the possibility that McCain will be the eventual nominee.  What do I do then?  Can I reasonably blog in support of McCain at that point after all the negative posts I’ve written about him?  I’m not sure anyone would take such post seriously but I’m quite sure some would use my older posts to argue in favor of whoever the Democrat nominee is.

Therein lies the problem.  I need to tone down my rhetoric against McCain, Romney, et.al. in favor of arguing for my candidate.  I think others need to do the same thing.  otherwise we all contribute to making the Democrats’ job easier and our nominee’s job tougher once the nominees are chosen.