Hythia

Michigan Primary

The Michigan primary is today, but I just can’t seem to get excited about it.

Since they moved the date forward they got penalized with the stripping of a lot of their delegates. They lost all 156 of their Dem delegates, and 30 of their 60 Rep ones for moving their primary forward and out of the DNC / RNC approved timeframes.

While it no longer really means much for the Democrats, I do think that on the Republican side though, it is going to be a bit crazy and an important day.

A bit crazy since from what I understand, Michigan has no registration by party and that means that since the primary for Dem’s in this state is pointless (see above about having no delegates) a lot of the people who would normally be voting Dem will be voting in the Rep primary instead.

The importance of this primary for some of the Republican candidates can’t be understated.

Romney needs a win here if he wants to continue on as a serious candidate, he’s come in 2nd twice now in the previous big primaries (Iowa, NH) and really needs a strong showing here to be taken seriously. (Yes, he did win in Wyoming but did anyone even notice?)

McCain would love to win here as it would clearly show that his campaign is back and that he is a serious contender for being the front-runner leading into Feb 5th.

Giuliani has in the past stated that his campaign isn’t really starting until Florida, but I can’t him complaining if he picked up a delegate or two and showed strong here.

Thompson I really don’t know about anymore. There was a time when he looked like he might be the hope of the Republican’s for this election, and then nothing happened and his campaign never really seemed to take off. I really don’t see today mattering much for him at all and honestly I don’t see him staying in the election for much longer.

Even having gotten 2 delegates in Iowa I can’t seem to bring myself to take Ron Paul seriously as a candidate. Possibly because he ran as a Libertarian for president in the past (1988). But I just can’t seem to take him seriously as a candidate and really don’t pay that much attention to his returns either. He isn’t a front-runner for the Rep’s and he isn’t likely ever to be.

Mike Huckabee is a candidate I wish I couldn’t take seriously. Honestly, the idea of this man as president scares me. His viability as a candidate is really going to be tested on the 5th of Feb when we have some big primaries from what I suppose are more ’secular’ states (CA, NY) but until then I can definately see him staying in the running. Plus, he has Chuck Norris backing him up which I find simultaneously humorous and disturbing. I expect him to place strongly today, and while I don’t know if he’ll finish first he will be one of the top three all throughout this Primary season I think.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Politics

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Babbling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.