They say the opera isn’t over til the fat lady sings.\u00a0 In this case the fat lady is the arrogant group of main stream media pundits who think they get to decide things for the rest of us.\u00a0 A lot of pundits apparently think the race for the Republican nomination will be over soon.\u00a0 It may be, but only if we let the main stream media make the choice.\u00a0 Choosing a winner based on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is like awarding the Super Bowl trophy after the first quarter.\u00a0 There is a reason they make people play the entire game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following chart shows the election schedule and the number of delegates per state.\u00a0 I added a couple of columns to show how many votes someone would have if they got 100% of the available delegates, 75% of the available delegates and 50% of the available delegates.\u00a0 As you can see, the earliest someone can actually clinch this is March 13th<\/sup>, but that would require someone getting all the delegates.\u00a0 That is not very likely.\u00a0 The next earliest date is April 24th<\/sup>, and that would require someone to get 75% of the delegates.\u00a0 If someone gets 50% of the votes, it won\u2019t be over until the convention.<\/p>\n That used to happen a lot.\u00a0 Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan fought it out at the convention.\u00a0 Robert Kennedy was shot right after he won the California primary election in 1968 and the Democrats were headed toward a convention fight.\u00a0 It used to be rare for Presidential campaigns to be decided after just a couple of primary elections.<\/p>\n What the early contest measures is who can get enough money to stay in the race.\u00a0 That is why candidates drop out.\u00a0 They run out of money.\u00a0 The only candidate who definitely won\u2019t run out of money is Romney.\u00a0 Santorum is raising some cash right now, but that could change.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t raising anything before Iowa.\u00a0 There are a lot of signs that his \u201csurge\u201d has already run out of steam.\u00a0 Gingrich already has a big problem raising money and he is in serious trouble.\u00a0 He could end up behind Huntsman in New Hampshire, and Huntsman is near the end.<\/p>\n But Rick Perry does not have that problem, at least not yet.\u00a0 Even if he does poorly in New Hampshire, South Carolina, he may still stay in the race.\u00a0 The reason is that what really matters is how Santorum and Gingrich do.\u00a0 The smart people with money who are backing Perry know this.\u00a0 Chris Wallace admitted this last night when he said only Perry has the kind of money and organization it takes to run a nationwide campaign.\u00a0 It is hard to take anyone seriously who is running in single digits in national polls.\u00a0 But ultimately the real question may be:\u00a0 \u201cgiven a choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who would you choose. Neither Santorum nor Gingrich can win the nomination; they can only guarantee that Mitt Romney is our nominee.\u00a0 As long as Romney has two or three people splitting the conservative vote, he wins.\u00a0 In 2008, Mike Huckabee refused to bow out even when it was obvious he could not beat Mitt Romney.\u00a0 As a result, we nominated John McCain, a disastrous mistake that resulted in the election of Barack Obama.\u00a0<\/p>\n Saturday night, Rick Perry said he would send the troops back into Iraq.\u00a0 He said he could not stand by and watch the sacrifices made by our military thrown away for short term political gain.\u00a0 The moderators thought that was a huge mistake.\u00a0 But I had the opposite reaction.\u00a0 There is something very refreshing about a candidate willing to tell the American people the truth even it is not politically popular. \u00a0\u00a0I wonder if anyone else noticed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They say the opera isn’t over til the fat lady sings.\u00a0 In this case the fat lady is the arrogant group of main stream media pundits who think they get to decide things for the rest of us.\u00a0 A lot … Continue reading