I plugged in some SWAGs to the CNN delegate calculator. I assumed that the Gingrich campaign would eventually run out of steam by the end of March, that Ron Paul would continue on to the end doing about what he’s been doing, and Santorum would appeal to the grassroots and Tea Partiers, and Romney would do well in most other places and especially strong in the Mountain West (lots of Mormons) and in outlying areas (lots of money and organization).
I wound up with: Romney 1109, Santorum 959, Paul 230, and Gingrich 184. That’s a brokered convention, with Gingrich and Paul holding the cards. Which got me sort of excited, until I realized that I’d apportioned more delegates than actually exist. One would think if this happened that the behind-the-scenes pols would jigger around with the rules so that the convention was locked up before it started, inspiring outrage from the supporters of whoever it was that got locked out (likely Santorum, if it’s the establishment folks pulling the strings).
I think the calculation also assumes that Santorum will not be the same flash in the pan every other non-Romney was.
ED had a post on his sub-blog a while back suggesting that Paul was likely to pick up more delegates than expected in the caucus states because his supporters were sticking around to vote for delegates, while everyone else’s were voting in the non-binding candidate poll and then going home.
The CNN delegate tracker seems to have assigned all of the caucus state’s delegates already, even though the state caucuses won’t be held for a few months…
Yeah, I’ve noticed a terrible habit of news organizations in general referring to many primary/caucus votes as non-binding but then taking the result for granted and never discussing the rest of the story as to what the actual delegate process is going to be.
That said, if a bunch of caucus states end up giving a vastly disporportionate delegate count to Paul vs. the initial caucus results AND it ends up having a convention impact of some kind, I’m guessing most of those states will suddenly get a fever for reform.
1 in 3 says santorum wins the nomination. *blink*
… that’s not my math, either.
It just occurred to me that (esp if it goes down to the wire) this nomination process is the bizarro world version of the last season of the West Wing. Santorum=Santos, Romney = Russell, Gingrich = Hoynes . (Paul really doesn’t map on Ed O’Neill’s character though)