January 08, 2008

The Second Place Strategy: Romney Still in Lead With Second Show

I'm not sure I get all the hype over Huckabee's Iowa win and a possible McCain win in New Hampshire. Even if McCain wins, Romney is still in the lead.

How so?

It's simple math, really, which is why I guess most pundits can't figure this out. Primaries, in most states, aren't run on a winner-take-all system, as are the general Presidential elections in all but two states. They have proportional delegate election schemes of one sort or another.

Because of this, Mitt Romney is still in the lead. As it stands now, Romney has 26 delegates to the Republican convention next summer, and Huckabee only has 20. Third place? Fred Thompson with 6. Coming in a distant fourth is Ron Paul with 2.

New Hampshire only has 12 delegates. The formula is rather complicated, and it's further complicated by the fact that the RNC is cutting New Hampshire's delegation in half from the normal 24 because of a scheduling violation. Assuming McCain gets the most votes, but has less than a majority, he'll get something like 6 votes. If Romney comes in a tight second, as the polls indicate, he'll pick up something like 3, with the remaining 3 split between the other candidates.

So here's the delegate tally, assuming the polling numbers are correct, after today's primary:

Romney: 29 (assuming 3 delegate pickup)
Huckabee: 21 (assuming 1)
McCain: 9 (assuming 6)
Thompson: 6 (assuming 0--Fred is last in polls in NH)
Paul: 3 (assuming 1)
Giuliani: 2 (assuming 1)

With so many candidates, a second place strategy could prove the winning one for Romney. He'll easily win in Michigan, but Michigan has been stripped of [update] half of its delegates for violating RNC scheduling rules. The big loser is Giuliani because Florida has also lost [update] half of its delegates for the same reason.

Hugh Hewitt, the blogosphere's number 1 Romney fan, has similar thoughts here.

I'm still a bigger fan of Fred than any one else, but unless he changes things drastically in South Carolina, I'm just not sure he's doing any good--except maybe helping Huckabee.

Yeah, I know I've said I'm not that interested in the primaries so far, but I've heard so much lunacy over the past week about the importance of NH or Huckabee being the guy to beat now that I just thought I had to throw in my two cents.