One down, one to go

John McCain's substantial victory in Florida Tuesday night essentially ends the Republican nomination process. Rudy Giuliani is expected to withdraw from the race tonight at the Reagan Library and endorse McCain. Most of Rudy's support will go to McCain in those most populated Super Tuesday states such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and Missouri. Many are "winner-takes-all" primaries like Florida was. The big one, California, is liable to go for the senator from Arizona as well, but it gives it's delegates out proportionally by congressional districts, so McCain's victory there will be less of an impact on the contest.

Why do I think it ends things? Because the Republican hierarchy is ready to call it. The other candidates have been working together to stop Romney and it is working. Huckabee has been drawing from the more conservative wing of the party. The voters that might be fertile votes for Romney in the south are going to Huckabee. That will give the former Arkansas governor some victories in Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and possibly Tennessee. That leaves Romney with table scraps.

At this point, Mitt has the choice of hanging in there as long as possible to pick up enough delegates to earn possible VP consideration, but that's about it. The GOP brass wants a ticket that will have a chance to unite the party to defeat Hillary this fall. McCain's choice of a VP will be key because of this stinging defeat of the conservative wing of the party there needs to be a peace offering to their most ardent campaign workers. McCain's age, his past battles with skin cancer, and his credibility problems with the right wingers means that his VP choice must be someone who could be president from day one. That choice will tell us a lot about how a President McCain would govern...

On the Democrat side, Hillary won a lopsided victory in a state that she promised she would not campaign in...and then, of course, she broke that promise. Will Democrat voters hold that against her? Probably not if she can return possession of the White House to them. The Democrats feared that McCain would end up being the Republican nominee. They were hoping for a GOP version of McGovern: a nominee from the far right wing like Huckabee, Thompson, or Romney. While McCain may need to throw a sop to the Limbaugh wing of the party with his Veep choice, in the end, the former POW carries the kind of maverick credentials and experience in government that will make him a possible choice for disaffected Democrats and independents come this November.

If the Clintons end up winning the nomination does that causes a large number of Obama supporters to cry out "we wuz robbed?" One would have to watch carefully to see if McCain will be considered close enough to the middle of the ideological spectrum to gain their votes and drag along other Republican congressional candidates to restore a Republican majority in the Congress. Republican gerrymandering over the last 8 years still makes the default tendency in the House of Representatives to be Republican. If freshman Democrat congressmen down south have to run in defense of Hillary and Nancy Pelosi, what are their chances for re-election? Will McCain at the top of the ticket be able to convince independents and Reagan Democrats to give the Republican party another chance at running Congress?

Who would have thought that the snarky Navy pilot could be the first domino in a possible realignment of our two political parties?

Coach