Florida Primary Results

First off, my favorite result. Hillary Clinton won 50% of the vote in
Florida in a crushing victory over Barack Obama and John Edwards,
picking up... oh yeah, ZERO delegates. Hillary's two big wins came in
Michigan and Florida, states which were stripped of all their delegates
by the DNC for holding primaries before Feb 5, with no other candidates
actually running in the state. In her other primary wins in Nevada and
New Hampshire, she still came away with less delegates than Obama and so
far the only place she's winning is in Washington and on CNN, but
nevertheless Hillary Clinton has officially "won" the Florida primary.
Fortunately next Tuesday a huge number of delegates will be up for
grabs, and the whole thing gets real.

In the Republican Primary, Rudy Giuliani had staked his whole campaign
on a win in Florida the way Fred Thompson and John Edwards were counting
on South Carolina. Instead, John McCain won the primary with 36% of the
vote, taking all of Florida's remaining 57 delegates (half of Florida's
delegates were stripped by the RNC for holding an early primary, which
is less exciting than it sounds). Mitt Romney came in second with 31%,
and Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were well out of it with 15% and 14% of
the vote respectively, with Ron Paul scooping up most of the rest.

This may mean Giuliani has to drop out of the race and narrow it down
even further, if losing in Florida means his financing dries up.
(Candidates will run as long as people will give them money, donors stop
giving when their candidate can't win.) Mike Huckabee is solidifying
his hold on third place, and the races seems to be settling down to
McCain vs Romney and Hillary vs Barack, with Huckabee and Edwards
holding onto third place and representing particular interests (poor
people and people who think I'm going to hell, respectively).

The third place candidates can stay in it because they have the
opportunity to swing the whole thing if there's a tight race and nobody
has the nomination locked up going into the convention. There is a lot
of speculation that Edwards won't give up his delegates without a vice
presidential spot, which is more likely to work for Clinton than for
Obama (who really doesn't need another charismatic one-term senator on
the ticket). If Huckabee can deliver a lot of Christian values voters
and a significant number of delegates, he can demand a cabinet position
and wield influence over the vice presidential nomination as well. So
this should be fun if either one survives Super Tuesday with a
significant number of delegates and fund-raising in place.

Election coverage will continue next Wednesday morning.