Mitt Romney has won the Nevada caucus, with a solid 51% of the vote. Ron Paul (14%) and John McCain (13%) are back in 2nd and 3rd, then Mike Huckabee took a distant 4th at 8%, tied with Fred Thompson. Rudy Giuliani took 4% for 6th place, and Duncan Hunter took 2% for 7th.
Apparently, Duncan Hunter decided to withdraw his Presidential bid after this showing. That’s probably for the best. As far as I know, he’s said that he isn’t endorsing any other candidate at this time. For him, that’s the best possible move.
Virtually everyone I know thinks that Rep. Hunter should be either Secretary of Defense or Secretary of Homeland Security, unless he’s Vice President. There’s no particular need to burn bridges with other candidates at this point.
Beyond the tactical concern, he might well simply not see a candidate he wants to support. Rep. Hunter is a very principled and strong man with firmly held beliefs. He might well not accept any of the other candidates at this point. I can’t fault him for that, either.
I like and admire Rep. Hunter. While he was never my candidate, he was my second choice. (Note that I won’t tell you any choices after my second.)
The win in Nevada does secure Gov. Romney against those of us who wanted to declare his candidacy dead prematurely. I admit that there was probably more than a little bit of wishful thinking in that for me. Leading in delegates, Mitt Romney remains one of the leading Republicans.
A distant second for Ron Paul, but a second nonetheless … I have no idea what that does to the dynamics. Since John McCain and Mike Huckabee fared better in South Carolina, I’ll talk about them later. Fred Thompson’s lackluster finish in Nevada compares to his uninspiring finishes everywhere else … but I’ll deal with him later.
As for Rudy Giuliani … his campaign is running with no expectations for the early states, so I won’t say much at this point except that I doubt he expected to lose this solidly in each of the early states.
Moving to South Carolina …
Obviously, I had hoped for a Huckabee win here, and it was very possible. I think that a close second is good enough to keep Huckabee in the race. Obviously, the win here helped John McCain tremendously.
John McCain leads SC with 33%, Huckabee’s close second place is 30%. Thompson comes in at a distant third (16%), after spending a great deal of time and effort in South Carolina. Romney’s close fourth (15%) is worth discussing. Ron Paul at 4%, Rudy Giuliani at 2%, and Duncan Hunter weighing in at less than 1% round out the major candidates. (Rep. Hunter announced his withdrawal today, so that might have hurt his afternoon numbers.)
I don’t know what a McCain win in South Carolina will do for momentum. I find it unlikely that the Southern states will be greatly influenced by this, but I wouldn’t have guessed that South Carolina would have gone for McCain. I always secretly suspected that this would be a Huckabee blowout, showing the polls to be inaccurate. In that, I was wrong.
Fred Thompson spent a lot of time and effort in South Carolina, and still managed only this showing. I expect him to give serious thought to withdrawing soon.
Mitt Romney’s fourth place finish is interesting. If Gov. Romney is not able to carry at least some of the Southeast, it is in great question whether he can really win a general election race. We’ll see how that plays out in the primaries.
Rep. Paul? Mayor Giuliani? I have nothing to say about them, really. We certainly knew that Giuliani would not do well in SC.
The only thing keeping Giuliani in the race at this point is that he had no particular expectations of success in these races. I’m not sure that that will help him in the end, but it has kept him from being sunk by these poor showings. Upcoming races will, though, be do-or-die for him. Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee can afford a few minor disappointments at this point, from where they are. Rudy Giuliani has to win the races he’s committed to winning, or else he’s doomed.
Mike Huckabee has to do well in the upcoming Southern races, though. He could afford to show 3rd in NH, and he can manage a close second in South Carolina. But we need some good finishes in the races coming up.
January 20, 2008 at 2:38 am
I was completely shocked that MCCain took SC. I really thought huckabee would get it.
I liked Hunter… and really, I think he was seriously hurt by a lack of name recogintion and media attention.
I donlt see how anyone can even consider Guiliani as in contention… while they now say they “wrote off” the early states, he had more of a presense in them then Paul, and yet Paul has been beating him.
It is really looking like a brokered convention.. which should be extremely interesting.
January 20, 2008 at 8:35 am
I think you’re right about Hunter. He lacked the star power of the early media-dubbed front-runners (Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, McCain). Huckabee overcame that, and I guess Ron Paul did (I think that most people know who he is, anyway). But Hunter didn’t get any help from the press, and just wasn’t able to work his way up.
The thing is, Thompson didn’t deserve any more attention than Hunter got, but he got it … I feel another post coming on.
January 20, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I just posted an article on http://christianpresident.blogspot.com/ about Hunter that you might find interesting.
January 20, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Yes, that is an interesting article.
I’m no longer sure that my half-written article is worth posting. On the other hand, since it’s largely done, I might post it anyway.
http://christianpresident.blogspot.com/2008/01/duncan-hunter-drops-out-thompson-next.html