Dan Balz writes of Florida for The Washington Post that it "looms as a potential showdown in the GOP nomination battle not only because of its size and importance but because it will be the first place this year where all the leading candidates are competing." Perhaps. On the other hand, Pollster.com currently has things as Rudy 21.7 percent, McCain 20 percent, Huckabee 18.3 percent, Romney 17.9 percent, Thompson 8 percent, and Paul 5 percent.
Now Florida's a winner-take-all state, so if Rudy really does sneak ahead of McCain he'll end up with a nice parcel full of delegates. That's real and that matters. Still, as a test of strength Rudy's ability to secure 21.7 percent of the vote against a badly divided field wouldn't be particular impressive. Similarly, if Rudy's slide continues and McCain gets a boost and he wins with 22-23 percent, that wouldn't be particularly impressive. The very depth of the field makes it all-but-certain that the winner will be pulling in a pretty pathetic plurality which, in turn, makes it hard to see this as a decisive test. Simply put, there are too many candidates in the race.
Photo by Flickr user Bryan Sereny used under a Creative Commons license
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Heads in the Sand
Sure, it will still be a plurality race, but you're not addressing Balz's main point: we now have a 10-day race, where all the candidates are putting in their best effort, in a large swing state with diversity reasonably comparable to the US as a whole (or as close as you can get in one state).
While obviously who the winner is won't tell us much about how the various factions will coalesce around one or two front-runners, it will give us a very clear sense of who has the strongest hand going in to Super Tuesday.
Posted by right | January 21, 2008 11:50 AM