Cafferty even goes so far to ask what would have happened if McCain had selected someone like Romney.  And the best he can come up with is that Mitt wouldn’t have to have had the RNC buy him clothes and could name a paper that he reads.  Is that really all that Romney has over Palin?  Then why on earth would we care whether McCain picked Romney or Palin?

Or how about Tom Ridge, he asks.  What?  Are you serious?  Do you honestly think that two “good ol’ boys” would stand a chance in a very hot place in this race?  If anything, the race would be an even greater slide for Obama.  Something that I would bet Mr. Cafferty would like.

But in the end, this is my site, and it only matters what I think.  Was Palin a mistake?  Hell no.  In fact, I would add that the race would be a landslide for Obama if Palin weren’t in it.  With some friendly help from folks like Joe the Plumber, Joe Six Pack, and now Tito the Builder, the McCain/Palin ticket seems to be holding on by a string.  I would argue that it is because of Palin, not in spite of, that the race stands that way.  Her “downhome” attitude and lack of Play-By-The-Rules-edness have truly endeared her to many of the core constituents around the country.

It’s McCain’s downfall that has caused the current state of affairs.  As I alluded to at the beginning of this article, McCain used to be considered a fiscal conservative.  Or at least what passed for one.  In recent years, and most noticably, in recent months, we’ve seen a shift of dynamic towards what we would consider a “same ol’, same ol’” conservative.  That is, as my friend Jake likes to say, a “Liberal Light”.  All the fiscal policies of a Liberal, less socialist calories.

So, if you want to blame someone for the sorry state of affairs in the right wings, blame McCain.  He’s bowed far enough to the whims of his compatriots in the Republican party (and still not appeased them) that he’s made most of his more avid followers quite upset with him.  It should make for a pretty interesting night on the 4th.  I think the result is pretty evident at this point, but I truly think it could have been otherwise.  Now, I just need to decide if either would have been all that great…

The question is, did Romney do it to make a play for VP.  After Tuesday, he’s a distant second to McCain and if things proceed as they already have, he’ll stay there.  So, rather than spend the money and make a little bit of a speed bump for McCain, he drops out.  What if he then begins talks with McCain to become the VP on the ticket.  If it’s obvious that he isn’t going to win the presidential nomination, why not save your money for a national campaign against your true competition, the Democrats.

He even mentions a “national campaign” when he drops his bid.  Not in a personal sense, but he does mention it.  I really think that there is a play here for VP.  Huckabee, if he sticks in the race, (or not really) is running out of money.  He isn’t a truly wealthy man like Romney.  He has less monetarily to bring to the table as the VP candidate.  Of course, the fighting amongst the McCain and Romney campaigns in the last few weeks would tend to say that it won’t happen, but worse enemies have become allies before.

Should be interesting to see if this plays out.

Huckabee seems to have pulled a bit of a surprise on everyone and won a fair bit of the races.  Not nearly enough to get himself into the running full time, but close enough for it to be conceivable that he might take second place from Romney before it’s all said and done.  Which brings us to good ol’ Mitt.  Besides resounding victories in Massachusetts and Utah, his campaign suffered greatly last night.  Not nearly the result that they expected, to be sure.

Where does that leave all of us?  Well, if you’re a Dem, you’ve still got to make a choice.  If you’re a Republican, everyone would like you to think that the choice has been made for you, but in reality, the choice is still yours.  There are still several states left to vote, so it really could be anyones race in the end.

Super Tuesday decided nothing.

Jered was kind enough to point out that the win was partially due to some supporters of McCain switching sides so that Romney wouldn’t win.  Fair enough.  The part missing there is that McCain didn’t get much of the vote to begin with and Romney didn’t get enough to call it a majority and a win.  So, the McCain voters swapped in the second vote and gave enough extra votes to Huckabee to win the vote.  Not exactly the way it’s being portrayed.  According to most MSM sources, Huckabee won only because the McCain voters switched.  Not exactly true.  If he hadn’t had a pretty big supply of  voters to begin with, it wouldn’t have been a possibility in the first place.

Romney’s campaign is understandably upset with the loss and have gone so far as to call the McCain campaign out as “underhanded.”  Well, again, if Romney would have had the votes in the first place, it wouldn’t be an issue.  Maybe they should spend less time worrying about how the McCain campaign turned some lemons into lemonade and more time figuring out why a state that was supposed to be a “sure thing” for Romney turned into a count off with a second vote.

Finally, as a Huckabee supporter, I feel it my responsibility to say that I think there are a few more surprises up Mike’s sleeve.  At the moment, he’s a little behind, but with this win in WV, I think he could gain a little more momentum in the south.  And of course, my conspiracy theory radar just went off and thinks that the MSM is playing up the McCain voter migration in order to offset some of that momentum.  Or as a last ditch effort to head off what could end up being a very good day for Huckabee.

CNN gave very little detail from the calls only mentioning that they sometimes start mid sentence and some have ended with the caller laughing as they hung up.  I’m guessing that’s how they decided that they were prank calls.  How they connected the calls to an organization that is supporting the McCain campaign is beyond me.  Caller ID perhaps.

Seriously, though.  At this late date, is there really any changing the results of the caucus results in North Dakota?  I really don’t think there is.  I’m sure there are a few undecideds out there, but really not enough to swing the vote one way or another.  It’s obviously a campaign to make Romney look stupid and they came back to make McCain look stupid.  Maybe it’ll have the sum effect of helping out Huckabee.