John McCain emerged victorious last night, defeating Mitt Romney 36 percent to 31 percent. The Arizona senator can thank Mike Huckabee for stealing away some of Romney’s support among social conservatives, and there is even rumor that Huckabee will remain in the race for the sole purpose of continuing to strip away Romney’s support among these loons loyal Republicans (look how nice that sounded) in exchange for vice presidential slot. Suddenly, “Dead Fred” Thompson as VP is not looking that bad.
However, the big story of the night was the announcement that Rudy Guiliani, who finished third in the Sunshine State, will drop out of the race and endorse McCain in California today. Will Romney be able to recover from this one-two punch? He has a lot of money to spend, a large sum from his own personal wealth, but leading Republicans are expected to start falling in line behind McCain, and all the money in the world might not be able to save him at that point. McCain is now the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won the Florida primary 50 percent to Barack Obama’s 33 percent, earning herself a whopping zero delegates. You would have thought it actually counted for something if you turned into her “victory” speech. Maybe after some political maneuvering, the delegates will end up getting a vote at the convention but as of now these phantom delegates have no say in who gets the Democratic nomination.
It is interesting to note though that hundreds of thousands of voters in Florida cast their ballots early (probably before they made their ways to Denny’s for the Early Bird dinner special). That was the key to Clinton’s victory. According to MSNBC last night, Obama won more votes yesterday than Clinton if you exclude the early voting. I have not seen any actual numbers, but MSNBC did report this last night. Does this signify a bounce? We will find out next Tuesday. Stay tuned.
