Huckabee is running a distant thrid in Michigan in all polls and not doing well even with registered Republicans. McCain is even or up in all of the recent polls.

About the only way Rommney wins is if the Dems can get enough people out to try and stop McCain as has been written about recently. McCain is back to polling what he was before everyone though he died. The Dems want to keep up the confusion, like the GOP needs their help!

A vote for McCain is just as valid a choice as one for Romney and if you are a Republican I don't see any need to keep Mit alive another week. If you want to make sure to kill of the Huckster, eliminate Romney is his must win state, he's pulled out of SC for now, then you have a better shot at Huckabee. With a large field he will stay in as long as he comes in 3rd, cliaming their are three tickets our of each State. Open primaries are much more difficult to control than caucus events.

The GOP "faithful" will never elect a trangulator like Mit, he's dead.

Just one person's opinion,


D$D

-Dont discount McCain in Michigan, he did well there in 00. Huckabee didnt fight
it very hard though he is a trade sellout douchebag and Michigan likes welfare protectionism. He could have done better by really campaigning there.

-Heres the thing about Huckabee in SC. As a Southern Baptist by birth and still keeping an eye on them, they aren't backing him at all. Bob Jones U hasnt come off the Romney endorsement, and they are still holding onto the Fred Thompson is a candidate thing. What baffles my gd mind is why the media makes SC soooooooo important. Small population. Michigan should have more focus for the Republican field. It is not at all typical of a southern state. Its overly poor, overly black, and overly mainline protestant vs charim/evangelical. They dont even have any Mexicans. NC and Georgia and
Alabama all have many multipes more Hispanic voters. I honestly expect McCain to take it with 32%. Getting kicked out of the SBC is coming back to haunt Huckabee. Ron Paul really hurts him as most of the fair tax cultists support Paul over him, and that drags him down from a crippling 38-40% vote count. I really think we bury Huckabee this week and it comes down to Giuliani vs McCain in the big states that are winner take all delegates like NY and FL.

Honest I was wrong every time on the Dems, so I wont give an opinion. The polls say Hillary but I think Obama still has mo.

I wrote my opinion prior to checking today's polls (I was using two-day old polls...voters sure are fickle). Yes, McCain has pulled ahead for now. I hope it holds up until the actual primary.

Huckabee being in third is great for us, as pro-poker voters can vote for either McCain or Romney. I still think Romney has a great shot at MI (favorite son plus the DailyKos urging of Dems to vote for him), but the difference probably doesn't matter so much to us in terms of strategy. Getting Romney out is good. Keeping McCain well ahead of Huckabee is also good (Getting Romney out is better, of course). Letting Huckabee get ahead of either one of them by not voting is bad.

Seems the Dems may have helped us a lot by stripping Michigan of their delegates, as it's unlikely many Dems will be voting for Huckabee.

I just hope every poker player Michigan will vote in the GOP primary.

Michigan is still a gritty blue collar state with a big redneck population. Romney is a pretty boy who made millions while they lost their jobs. Total disconnect. I think Romney is a case in point of just how far having only looks and money can get you in politics.

That's why DailyKos is pushing progressives to vote for him. They're voting for him precisely because they DON'T like him. They hope to stir up problems in the GOP.

imho, i'm starting to be frightened more by fundamentalist christians more than
i am from fundamentalist muslims.

IMO, the more the economy goes in the crapper, Mitt Romney's chances increase.

Perhaps for the GOP nomination, but not for the general election.

If the economy continues to decline (either a real decline or more importantly a perceived one), the GOP may well suffer heavily.

I assume youre commenting on the cable coverage post-Michigan and the "theory" that Mitt connected on the economy and that he is seen as some kind of good steward candidate...............I find it ludicrous. I think its more related to McCain being the only candidate brave enough to tout free trade and stand up to a bunch of ill-educated lazy unionized laborers suprised no one wants to buy the ****ty cars so they can get $120/hr remuneration packages. I've been fence sitting on McCain but I think he has my support now simply for that. Michigan voters hate free trade and Romney splurted out some kind of slogan about standing up for every American industry. McCain told them the truth, It aint coming back. That was the election there combined with bad weather, poor turnout, and dems registering protest votes. Who gets the blame for a bad economy I don't know, I don't think the economy is that bad. Even the subprime crisis is a localized phenomenon, though when all the rates have reset we shall see. I THINK you were watching MSNBC , i was flipping all 3 but I think
I heard that line there about Mitt being the "economy" choice. That and Jack Welch is giving him insane love. I find it laughable. Mitt is proposing keeping all the taxcuts AND covering every American's health coverage(not sure he meant what he said, but he said it). Its a desperation play that won't work in SC where most of the Republicans are ChristaNazi, rich, or military.

Well the exit polling and cross tabs do seem to show that in MI the economic message used by Mitt were effective against McCain. But they also show that Mitt was actuatly helped more by "favorite son" status, and the fact that in part because of the weather Mitt won among more hard core GOPers, as McCains independents didn't show as well as needed.

Mitt faces the major problem of seen as being inconsistent, so SC and beyond will be more important than they were before. Mitt had to win in MI and devoted almost all of his effort there. As he was expected to win, the question was by how much, the polling tomorrow will begin to show if he gets any kind of bump.

The GOP race is pretty open at the moment. Super Tuesday will begin to show how well the candidates are prepared to run multi-state efforts. Keep in mind the GOP primaries have a mix of rules on delegates. Some are proportinate, some CD, and some are winner take all.

The DEM rules are interesting as well, super delegates, open or closed primaries, among others make it harder for the non-establishment candidate to win. The endorsements you read about are more important as many elected officals are super delegates, non-committed delegates to the convention. The super delegates make up almost a 1/3 of the number of delegates needed to win.

Depending on Feb. 5th we may have the most interesting election year on bothsides in many years.


D$D

A HUGE question will be on the Dem side if Barak wins the popular vote for the nomination, BUT Hillary wins the nomination because she was a greedy bitch with Michigan AND she has a lot of the super delegates. I will so rub that in the face of every unreconstructed holier than thou Gore should be President because he won in 2000 if the Democrat rank and file would accept that outcome. I can foree that happening if California breaks to Barak but California has a very racist electorate on the Dem side as does Florida and Texas.
I think if Rudy wins 2-3 big winner takealls for the Republicans, the convention could be horsetraded. They may be worth covering. Im reallllllly scared about what will go in the Republican platform as gambling enforcement/UIGEA support could be pushed. Im not sure what lobbying interest will do for that part of the Dem platform. Really sucks to not have a poker advocacy group working on platofrom planks. Would have been great to have people actively pursuing being delegates to the convention friendly to poker and poker players as a lot of normal people go and you can actually have some sway if **** hits the fan.

I agree about the GOP platform. This was in the last GOP platform. In fact, I put writing to the candidates in the last Fight for Online Poker Action Plan, at http://webringamerica.com/4/pokerpla...pic.php?t=2018. I hope everyone will take a look.

Also, the PPA is sending its membership a voters guide, at www.pokerplayersalliance.org/news/newsandarticles_article.php?DID=450, to its membership.

From an earlier post:

This week and next, many of your fellow poker players are writing to the presidential candidates to let them know we support our freedom to play online poker. Not only will this help in letting the candidates know that we believe in our freedoms, but it will also help us to keep calls for further action against our right to play out of party platforms (in 2004, when we were silent while our opponents were very active, the GOP added a call for an outright ban on all Internet gaming into their party platform).

Hillary Clinton:
www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact

John Edwards:
www.johnedwards.com/about/contact/form

Barack Obama:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/contact

Rudy Giuliani:
www.joinrudy2008.com/contact

Mike Huckabee:
information@explorehuckabee.com

John McCain:
www.johnmccain.com/Contact

Ron Paul:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/contact/form

Mitt Romney:
www.mittromney.com/ContactUs

Fred Thompson:
www.fred08.com/Contact/Contact.aspx