By the way, my title rhymes…

Recently it looked to me like the Republican nomination was virtually sown up – as long as nobody messed up in an incredible way. Huckabee has made incredible gains and as usual if he wins the early states he most likely wins the nomination. But after looking more closely at the polls, I’m not as sure anymore…

Huckabee definitely seems to have Iowa sown up: the Times/Bloomberg poll (12/20/07) puts Huckabee in first with 36% to 2nd place Romney at 28%. And clearly if he wins Iowa, he’ll get a boost in all the other states as well as the momentum.

New Hampshire currently is with Romney with the same pollster (12/20/07) putting Romney at 34%, Huckabee at 12%, and McCain is at 20%.

South Carolina according to SurveyUSA (12/17/07) has Huckabee at 28%, Romney at 18% and McCain at 16%.
Lastly Michigan is currently Romney’s, although Huckabee has made such a large surge and is so close that after winning Iowa and South Carolina he’ll probably take Michigan. Nevada currently is in Giuliani’s court, but once again, as Huckabee wins, Huckabee could possibly take Nevada as well. Finally Florida, California, and New York (obviously) are all currently with Giuliani as well. New York will probably stay with Giuliani, but Huckabee has also surged in Florida and California, and he could possibly take both of these as well.

Currently the only possible Republican winners are Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain (in order of likelihood). Huckabee is on the right track – He is making huge gains and has a good plan to win most of the early states. If he continues this way, he should definitely win.

Giuliani doesn’t have a chance in the earliest states. His only hope is that a clear winner isn’t found after the dust of the early state voting and that he thus wins Florida, NY, and Cali giving him momentum to barely win the primary. This is a very risky move and usually doesn’t end well historically for those who try. With our electoral process, the earliest states are very important, and ignoring them like Giuliani has done almost never works. But we’ll see what happens, he could get lucky!

I’m not sure what Romney’s plan is…? He’s obviously hoping to win New Hampshire and gain some momentum, but I think his only current plan is to win NH and see what happens in the aftermath. Although he’s still doing alright, he’s doing very badly electoral math wise overall and I don’t see much hope for his campaign at the moment…

Finally, McCain’s entire campaign is hinged on his winning New Hampshire, which he hopes to do when Huckabee wins Iowa and Romney takes a big hit. This is definitely a possibility. Still, even after winning NH, he would also have to do a wait and see like Romney before knowing exactly what the next step is. So he is holding onto strings as well.

Thus my conclusion is still that Huckabee will win, but every other candidate has 1 decent plan that they believe will make them win. Some of them are better then others, but I don’t know if its completely sown up yet. We’ll see what happens after Iowa… I can’t wait!