Florida prediction

January 29th, 2008 at 06:43am Pat Cunningham

 

Today’s Republican presidential primary in Florida is fraught with suspense and implications.

The winner will become the clear front-runner for the nomination, and Rudy Giuliani will have to do well or fold his tent.

I’m not terribly confident of this prediction, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitt Romney  prevails over John McCain by 4 or 5 percentage points.

Romney’s momentum going into Feb. 5 will be greater than McCain would enjoy if he were the winner in Florida.  Understand, McCain still has a big problem with the party’s right-wing establishment, and he’s constantly demonized  on talk radio.

This crowd sees Romney as the only guy who can stop McCain.  Yes, some of them would have preferred Fred Thompson, but he’s out of the race. Can’t Huckabee do it?  He’s out of the question because he scares the hell out of the party’s economic and foreign policy conservatives. And the even the social conservatives are a little nervous about his bleeding-heart populism.

So, if Mitt wins today, he’ll be the presumptive nominee, with McCain demoted to long-shot status.

And Rudy will be gone before the weekend.

It’s been a fun month, hasn’t it?  All this winnowing in both parties.  All these sudden swings from week to week. The record turnouts of voters.  No wonder the cable TV ratings for political news are soaring.

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