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Monday, January 21, 2008
Rich Galen :: Townhall.com Columnist
Orange Ya Glad for Florida?
by Rich Galen
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Florida will hold its primary on January 29 in what the Washington Post's Dan Balz calls "the first Republican primary closed to independent voters, who have provided [Sen. John] McCain with his margins of victory in both New Hampshire and South Carolina."

To review the bidding, McCain beat Mike Huckabee on Saturday in South Carolina by about 14,000 votes 33% - 30%. Fred Thompson came in a distant third with about 16% of the vote. Romney with 15% came in fourth. As you know I have been a paid advisor to the Thompson campaign.

Huckabee the former Governor of a Southern state was counting on a win in South Carolina to offset third place finishes in both New Hampshire and Michigan. Whether because of the snow in the Greenville-Spartanburg area or Thompson's siphoning off nearly 70,000 votes it didn't happen.

McCain needed a win in SC to demonstrate that his strong win in New Hampshire was not just a one-off reprise of 2000. That did happen.

The general feeling of the national press corps which had descended on South Carolina was that Huckabee had made a strategic mistake in competing in Michigan which is Romney's home state. The chatter was that Huckabee believed Romney was in free fall (after coming in second in both Iowa and New Hampshire) and McCain (who had not competed strongly in Michigan) might split the moderate vote allowing Huckabee to buy a "surprise" second place finish on the cheap.

Huckabee came in third at the cost of four days of campaigning which might have been put to better use in South Carolina.

Romney bailed out of South Carolina after his Michigan win did not produce a bounce and took his effort to Nevada where he easily won the majority of delegates available as the result of the caucuses there.

On the Democratic side (whose primary in SC will be held this coming Saturday) Hillary Clinton got credit for a win in Nevada by beating Barack Obama 5,355 to 4,773 - a margin of 582 votes. However, because of the way the caucuses are constructed, Obama actually ended up with on more delegate than Clinton 13-12. Continued...
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About The Author

Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. He currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

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(18 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Jan 22, 2008 - 9:01 PM EST
Subject: rockmonster..to tampa dave
be glad your not in green bay! ha ha ha .
CHUCK- i see you have a good memory teddy boy and the girl in the lake..who drowned while he was trying to make up a good story! mit/mass.
remember, chuck. mass. was/is about 80% very liberal..so if mitt accomplished anthing conservative..and he did..he's gonna have lots of enemies..there! catch ya the 29th..go mitt!

elvis
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Reply # 2
Date: Jan 22, 2008 - 6:20 PM EST
Thompson - late in early out
I voted for Fred in S.C. but that's the way it
goes. Fred please don't endorse McCain. My vote in Dec. will be for any one republican except
McCain.He is just to much of a liberal like Kennedy, Findgold , Kerry, Reid, L.Graham, Clinton, or any other liberal.
Robert From S.C.
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