McCain Wins South Carolina!

The state that ended his campaign in 2000 when the George W Bush Juggernaut crushed him beneath its weight has delivered John McCain the victory he needed to finally be considered *a* front-runner in this race (though not *the* front-runner.) McCain goes into Florida riding fairly high with his victory here, though he could have been in a much stronger position (if he won Michigan and won more convincingly in SC.) That's why he's one *a* front-runner, because there's a significant chance that someone else walks away with the nomination.

Let's look at the numbers.

John McCain - 33% - Two victories puts him, in number of victories, second to Romney, but actually equal with Romney because noone cares about Iowa. That's in the expectations game at least - if this is actually a delegate race, as will become crystal clear on Februrary 5th, then Romney's ahead, but we'll continue playing the expectations and momentum game for a little while longer (at least until after Florida) to see if *the* front-runner is going to emerge. That front-runner could very well b John McCain. It wasn't a huge win in South Carolina, he only collected one third of the votes cast, but that's partly because the field is so diverse and cuts a large chunk of votes amongst a few candidates.

Mike Huckabee - 30% - He needed to win South Carolina to prove that he had the power of the South behind his candidacy. He almost won, and many will say that if Thompson had not been in the race he probably would have, but unfortunately this is a blow to Huckabee because he can't continue to be second or third. It's like Barack Obama, who if he doesn't winmore contests is going to hit up against momentum problems (despite the closeness of delegate count.) He has to win some contests, and this was where he was supposed to be able to do it. He needs to win in Florida to be *a* front-runner once again, and not a close second. Be a winner Mike, not a loser.

Fred Thompson - 16% - He said that third place was okay, but how many times is third place going to be enough just to stay in the race? A Southern Conservative needs to be able to win a Southern Conservative state. If he can't pull that off then there's nowhere in the country he can possibly win. Expect to see a Thompson drop-out either in the next couple of days, but I think certainly after Florida.

Mitt Romney - 15% - The duality of the Romney campaign is pretty crazy. He wins some states and comes fourth in others. It's clear the game he's playing - delegates, delegates, delegates - but I'm not sure it builds him the wide-spread good will in the Republican Party. It seems that he's sneaking off to the states the other candidates aren't campaigning in and winning those states because he turned up (Wyoming, Nevada.) I continue to be deeply troubled about the prospect of a Romney nomination. There's no doubt he's in this race for the long-haul. Unless he's crushed on Super Tuesday we'll see him for a while, and he could win. *sigh*

Ron Paul - 4% - We'll never know at which point Ron Paul will pull out. Probably never since he has so much money. He'll still be running for the Republican 2008 nomination in 2010 considering the amount of money he has available to him. A few times now he's been Giuliani. That's got to smart a bit for Rudy's campaign. Paul's not going anywhere nationally, but he'll continue sweeping the small, zealous group of his supporters.

Rudy Giuliani - 2% - In 9 days we will see whether Giuliani's strategy was a clever one, or one of the stupidest ways of conducting a primary campaign...well...of all time. This is not Senator Jackson in 1976, when he waited to later states because noone yet knew how important the early states were. This is eyes wide open 2%. If he doesn't win Florida he's a failure. And I think he might lose there... I'm going to talk more about this in the next post.

Duncan Hunter - 0% - And...he's out. Hunter is gone. I'm not even going to bother with a separate post to discuss Hunter's campaign, because it would be an incredibly short post.