McCain Wins Florida!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Republican front-runner: Senator John McCain! With 99% of precincts reporting John McCain is the winner in Florida with 36% of the vote, beating Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani for Florida's 57 delegates. After six contests a Republican front-runner has emerged with a candidate who has won 3 states - New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. The candidate who was declared dead by the news media in the summer is now best placed to become the Republican nominee for President.

However, is it all over? Not by a long shot! Though we can definitely say that McCain is now the front-runner, he's not decisively so. He took 36% of the vote and won all the state's delegates - Romney wasn't all that far behind at 31%. McCain, after all, was only the choice of just over one third of Floridian Republican primary voters. But that's for Super-Duper Tuesday to see if McCain can lock things up there. For now he should bask in front-runner status.

Mike Huckabee's campaign is drawing to a close. He almost came third in this race, but he can't always be fighting for the spot behind the front-runner. After Super Tuesday, in which it's certainly possible that he walks away with a couple of wins, Mike Huckabee will probably withdraw (and if McCain is the nominee get chosen to be his Vice President).

Rudy Giuliani... Well, D-Day came. Ladies and gentlemen, I not only have the honour of presenting you with the Republican front-runner but one of the stupidest campaigns in the history of presidential primaries. I have more to say analysing the Giuliani strategy now that we know it hasn't worked...and so will confront the issue in another post. For now what I will say is that the news media is talking about Giuliani dropping out and endorsing John McCain, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton won with 50% of the vote, but it doesn't matter because Florida had all its delegates stripped for moving its primary before February 5th without the sanction of the Democratic Party. The results, therefore, are suspect since none of the candidates campaigned there or were able to influence the results. Much like Michigan, I'm not covering it because I don't trust the results (and it doesn't matter.)