And The There Were Four

I mostly concur with Rob’s analysis of the Democratic race; I wouldn’t say it’s over but Clinton has to be considered a heavy favorite. With the GOP, I guess it depends what the definiton of “wide open” is, but that’s not the adjective I’d use. Obviously, it’s a two-man race — if Huckabee can’t win there he has no chance, Thompson’s campaign was stillborn, and Rudy9 Giuliani11’s campaign is a historic farce with 4 fewer delegates than Ron Paul and 1 more than Duncan Hunter. And while it’s not close to over I think at this point McCain probably to be considered the favorite. Certainly, I violently disagree with the claim that Romney wins however S.C. comes out. A Huckabee win and he would have been in pretty good shape. But to beat McCain straight up, you have to think that the majority of Thompson and Giuliani votes would go to Romney, and that doesn’t seem like a good bet. And while I’ve said this before, while I have little doubt that the GOP establishment would thwart McCain if it had a plain-vanilla Southern conservative to work with, this is irrelevant to the current race. (And some GOP elites have to be smart enough to understand that McCain 1)has a more conservative record than Romney and 2)would have a far better chance in the general.) There’s also a serious proof-is-in-the-pudding issue; if the Republican Establishment was determined to (and had the power to) stop McCain it’s not clear why they didn’t just do it in South Carolina.

As everyone who reads this site knows, Clinton/McCain is my least favorite matchup among the viable ones, but I’ll have to learn to live with it.