News from Arizona's Congressional Delegation

As pointed out in my last post, one member is poised to be a major-party presidential nominee, but I thought I'd point out what else is going on with members of Congress.

In a case of giving credit where credit is due, I'll applaud my congressman (Harry Mitchell-D) for co-sponsoring (with Ron Paul) legilsation that would block Congressional pay raises.

Sen. Jon Kyl (aka our good senator) is voting against the ridiculous "stimulus" bill in Congress. While I will like the extra money (lousy government, taking too much of my money), it requires economic illiteracy to believe that this is an effective stimulant for the economy. It would be much better to cut tax rates.

My former congressman, Jeff Flake (R- AZ6), tried for a seat on the Appropriations Committee. He wouldn't fit in with many members of that committee, as he's strongly anti-pork and pro-small government.

Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ1) is retiring. His district is one of the more competitive in the state; he's never received 60% of the vote, and failed to even win 50% in his first election (which he won with the vote cplit about 49-46-5 R-D-L). Interesting side note: the twelve children he has with his wife Roberta are the most for any current member of congress, and their names all begin with R. On the plus side, in theory, with John McCain as the Republican presidential nominee, Republicans should have an easier time holding onto this seat and possible recapturing seats in districts 5 and 8. Of course, this is dependent on such things as actually recruiting candidates to run for those seats

And the Nominees Are ...

While it's hardly formal yet, we seem to be looking at a McCain-Clinton election. Barring something major, McCain has the Republican nomination wrapped up; there's simply no way Romney (or Huckabee, or Ron Paul) manage to recover and secure the nomination, barring events that would be bizarre even by the standards of this election cycle.

It's less clear that Clinton will be the nominee, but signs are certainly pointing in that direction. Edwards dropping out before Super Tuesday (which surprised me) does not help her, but seems unlikely to stop her. Florida seems like the most instructive state when looking ahead to Feb 5, and it saw Clinton pulling about 50% of the vote with Edwards still on the ticket. Yes, there was very little "campaigning" done by Democrats there, but I'm inclined to believe that campaigning tends to be overrated in such races (except when it comes to a (perceived) lack of campaigning when other candidates are campaigning), plus, with all the states voting next Tuesday, there's very little time for campaigning in any of them, let alone all of them. Hillary's other problem comes in the form of the party rule that assigns delegates from each state on a proportional basis. While McCain, on the back of several winner-take-all primaries on Tuesday, will deliver a knockout blow to Romney, Hillary is poised to win more delegates, but hardly in knockout fashion. It will turn into more a matter of how long Obama wants to drag things out. Assuming he doesn't drop out after Tuesday (which I don't currently think he will, but, well, I didn't think Edwards or Giuliani were going to be dropping out one day after Florida), the February 12 states look very favorable to him (Virginia, Maryland, and, it's not a state, but the District of Columbia votes as well), which likely translates into dragging this whole thing into March (at least March 4, when the big prizes of Ohio and Texas vote, along with the smaller prizes of Vermont and Rhode Island).

Obama could try to drag the whole thing to the convention. While I think Hillary will achieve a majority of all delegates by that point, I'll downplay that assumption and go along with this scenario. I do not see it going well for the Democrats. Michigan and Florida will try to seat their delegates, and, if they don't, it will be bad press for the party. The Republicans are on firmer ground here, as they penalized every state that selected delegates before February 5 (although this still allowed for the sham of Iowa, and, to a lesser extent, Nevada, holding caucuses but not being penalized because they didn't officially select any delegates). The Democrats, on the other hand, picked and choosed which states they would sanction and which they would not (they allowed the states that claim a traditional spot in the process to vote early, no matter how tenuous the tradition). Moreover, Republicans penalized states by halving their delegations, while Democrats did so by barring the entire delegation. Once again, bad news for the democrats. If they let the delegates in, it benefits Hillary enormously as she gains 192 delegates and Obama only gains 80 (there are also 55 "uncommitted" delegates, which I think will break in Obama's favor but are likely to be split). If they let in the delgates, Obama's people will complain, and if they don't, the Clintons will complain some, but mostly leave it to the press to make their case for them. As much as I like rules and order, the Clintons have the better case here, due to the boneheaded way the DNC handled the situation. Playing favorites with the states and an outright ban on seating the delegates for those states that were punished were both bad ideas. Howard Dean, if he has any sense (I said if), must be hoping for Clinton to put this thing away and he doesn't have to worry about this nightmare situation where he's stuck with two bad choices.

As for me, I'll be sitting out the 2008 Presidential election. Oh, sure, I might decide to write-in Fred Thompson or something, but I'm not voting for McCain and I'm certainly not voting for Hillary (or, should he actually get the nomination, Obama). I'll still be voting down-ballot; with any luck, we'll get Mitchell out, and there are always a slew of propositions, judicial retentions, state Congress, and other such races. One note on the judicial retentions -- please do not vote straight yes like some people do. Some of these guys actually deserve to be thrown out, but nobody ever is because of all the people who vote straight yes.

On Tuesday, I'll probably vote for Fred Thompson in the Republican primary. His name is almost certainly still on the ballot, and McCain's going to win in a landslide, so it doesn't matter much. Do look for Romney to have a "surprisingly strong" finish in Arizona; there's a large Mormon population here, and McCain has ticked off his share of Arizona Republicans.

Meanderings

In Britain, a marriage was annulled after the partners discovered they were twins seperated at birth. That would have to rate among the all-time most uncomfortable discoveries.

I'm a tad late to the story, but one woman in Mexico delivered her own baby -- by caesarian. There's only one word to describe that: wow.

Newsbusters has a write-up on a favorite "Republican" of the New York Times. He's managed to get an average of four letters a year published over the last five years by claiming to be a life-long Republican and then proceeding to bash Bush or make some other typical liberal point.

The Supreme Court will be ruling on the death penalty for child rape. It ruled that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual" for rape of an adult in 1977. The current court only has one member remaining from that time (Stevens). Given the current makeup of the Court, I don't think the death penalty will stand in this case. I mean, it looks like they're seriously considering whether lethal injection is "cruel and unusual" so it seems likely that, if the death penalty stands, they'll only allow a narrow group to be subject to it.

Star Trek geeks may remember Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine on the Voyager series. Well, she also played a role in the rise of Barack Obama. Now, I certainly won't hold this against her, given the details involved, and she wasn't the one who brought them into the 2004 campaign (as I recall from news broadcasts then, she played them down somewhat, and, if she wasn't supportive of her ex-husband's campaign, at least was not hostile to it). Still, it's just one of those interesting little things.

A voter being used as a poster-old-woman by opponents of the voter ID law in Indiana is registered in two states. She makes the point of the law's supporters for them.

Kucinich is asking for a recount in New Hampshire because he's apparently worried about the electoral integrity there. Someone has been drinking a bit too much of the Koolaid over the last eight years.

Algebraic surfaces.

One Last Note on Goose

Before the whole thing fades away, there's just one last thing I'd like to say about Goose Gossage, or, rather, the support for him -- okay, the words of at least one of his supporters. Jayson Stark has repeatedly said that Gossage "was routinely being asked to pitch 100 to 141 innings (yep, 141) a year" (emphasis in the original). This is misleading at best and dishonest at worst. Look at his career numbers, and 100-inning seasons were more the exception than the norm. Take 1976 out of the equation, when he was a starter, and you have a cluster of seasons of over 130 IP in '75, '77, and '78. In the entire rest of his career (which stretched form 1972 to 1994), he had only one other season of 100 IP, a 102.3 effort for the Padres in 1984, after which he never even pitched 80 innings in a season. If he was "routinely" being asked to pitch 100 or more innings a season, then he was "routinely" coming up short.

Thoughts on Hall of Fame Results

The Hall of Fame voting results were announced Tuesday. As expected, Goose Gossage got in, but nobody else did. Also as expected, Tim Raines was the only newly eligible player to meet the 5% threshold required to be on next year's ballot.

Jim Rice will probably make it into the Hall next year, which will be his last on the ballot either way, as it’s his fifteenth year. I researched the performance of players in their fifteenth year on the ballot going back to the 1991 election (who says bloggers never research?) and found that they tend to receive a boost of 3.2% on average, which increases to 4.3% for those who had received over 20% of the vote in the year before. It’s not a large sample size, only 19 in the 18 elections I surveyed, and I relied mostly on wikipedia to tell me which players were in their fifteenth election each year, which lacked Tony Oliva (I have since corrected the appropriate entry), so I may have missed one or two. Steve Garvey was the highest vote-getter in his fourteenth year to see his share of the vote drop in his final year on the ballot, dropping from 26% to 21.1%. On the other hand, there are candidates who have gotten closer to the 75% threshold without being elected by the BBWAA -- Jim Bunning received 74.2% in his twelfth year on the ballot, 1988, which seemed to be an abnormally good year for these players, as half of the sixteen who were on the ballot that year had their best performance. Five of the players had their best year in their last appearance on the ballot.

Prospects look considerably worse for Tommy John, who also will be in his fifteenth year on the ballot. He’s never received so much as 30% of the vote, though there’s only one year that saw him fail to get 20% of the vote. I get the impression the trend will continue next year.

Back to Rice, however; I can’t say that I’m sorry to see him disappear from the ballot. The “debate” over him has been … unproductive. There are plenty of people who are impressed by homerun and RBI totals without paying attention to things like park effects or lineup quality. I don’t mind paying attention to counting stats as long as other things are taken into effect. Instead, there seems to be a willful ignorance. Surfing the internet -- that bastion of high-minded dialogue between differing parties -- I come across comments stating that perhaps the reason behind Rice’s home-road splits are that he was just more comfortable at home, and that Fenway doesn’t magically make him better. Well, there’s nothing “magical” about it, really, but Fenway is a park that helps batters’ numbers. You might think that after more than a decade of baseball in Denver, people would start to realize that different ballparks have different effects on players’ stats.

Moreover, there’s a reaction to statistics like adjusted OPS+ that’s the equivalent of covering their ears and saying “nah nah nah I am not listening.” The “adjusted” portion means that it was ballpark adjusted, so equal batters will have equal numbers whether they’re batting in Coors or Petco. It even allows for better comparison between ages as OPS+ (as I’ll hereafter refer to it) is normalized each year, with the average hitter being 100, better hitters being higher, and worse hitters being less (ERA+ works the same way, should it later come up). Now, I realize that it has not been mainstreamed, and most people don’t immediately understand it, but you would think that, after it’s been explained, they would be able to accept it. Instead, it’s the ear covering business. They say it’s a different era, so we can’t compare Rice to modern players, but won’t listen to repeated statements that OPS+ compares players to their contemporaries and, as such, is comparable across eras (perhaps it’s not perfect, but it’s better than anything else). What modern players does Rice compare to? Well, his career 128 OPS+ is equal to those of Moises Alou and Ryan Klesko. If you’re looking for players more contemporary to Rice, there’s Keith Hernandez and Kent Hrbek. Joe Torre also had the same OPS+ from his playing days. Some people make cases for Hernandez and Torre (less for the others), but they don’t receive nearly the support that Rice does.

Rice is described as the most feared hitter during his career. At least one of my readers should remember George Brett, who was better for longer. But let’s just stick to the Red Sox. Dwight Evans (career OPS+ 127) shared most of those same Red Sox teams. Fred Lynn (129) spent the first half of his career there. The beginning of Rice’s career overlapped the end of Carl Yastrzemski’s (129). Plus, a fellow by the name of Wade Boggs (130) came along midway through Rice’s career. In short, Rice was rarely the best hitter on his team during a given season. In fact, there are only two in which he led his team in OPS+ -- 1977 and 1978 (he led the AL in the latter case). The doesn’t really jive with the “most feared” talk. I realize that advanced metrics weren’t around at the time, but I have a hard time believing that opposing teams were still utterly incapable of realizing who was getting on base, getting extra-base hits, and so forth.

Then there’s the argument that Rice led the league in certain categories over some arbitrary time frame. Well, sure, that proves he wasn’t horrible, but says a lot more about his peak seasons not coinciding with those of his contemporaries. From 1984 to 1995, a twelve year span, Joe Carter led all the major leagues in homers and RBI’s. What has that gotten him? One year on the ballot with 3.8% of the vote.

Moving away from Rice's qualifications (or lack thereof), I'm rather surprised at the jump in vote share that Gossage got, along with, to a lesser degree, those of Rice, Dawson, and Blyleven. Their vote share increased by 14.6, 8.7, 9.2, and 14.2, respectively. While the increase was similar between Gossage and Blyleven, I find Gossage's more impressive as it tends to be harder to find an extra 14% support when you already have 71% than when you have 48%. Anyway, I believe that someone is a Hall of Famer or they're not, whatever your standard may be, and the variablity in the voting makes no sense to me. I realize that the people voting changes from year to year, but not by that much. There are some legitimate reasons to vote for a player after not doing so previously. If a voter voted for the maximum of ten players, but thought an eleventh was also worthy, then it would be fine to name the eleventh the following year, when, presumably, at least one of the ten would no longer be on the ballot. I'll even, somewhat grudgingly, accept some voters' arguments about "first ballot Hall of Famers" because, rightly or wrongly, it's viewed as an extra distinction to be elected in the first year of eligiblity. Finally, of course, there are legitimate changes of opinion as to whether or not a player is qualified. When you look at these players, though, the "first ballot" argument has stopped applying, and the limit of ten players is not much of a factor, as nearly all the ballots I've seen could add Gwynn, Ripken, and Steve Garvey from last year without surpassing ten players (plus, I don't think any of the eight-player ballots I saw this year lacked Raines); even the two nine-player ballots I saw, which both included Raines, really only would have left one of the four off, at most, last year, so the player limit is not really an issue. This basically leaves the entire change in vote share to voters changing their mind, and I can't believe, that after each player has had at least six previous years on the ballot, you have this many voters legitimately changing their mind. There seems to be a fear about not electing anyone (which last occurred in 1996), and votes start flying every which direction when there's no obvious first-ballot inductee (compare the 2006 balloting).

For next year's election, Rickey Henderson should get in (and what a memorable acceptance speech that will be), and I imagine at least one other new player will break the 5% threshold.

Early Thoughts on Iowa Results

For the Democrats, I was surprised how far ahead Obama pulled as the results came in. An eight-point win was much larger than pretty much anyone was expecting. Edwards finished barely ahead of Hillary, though the number of delegates to the national convention should come out even, and it might be spun as a tie for second. Worth remembering is that for the Democrats in Iowa, raw vote totals are not reported, only the total number of county convention delegates selected, so results that close say very little about whether more voters supported Clinton or Edwards. Given the ability of supporters of minor candidates to switch their votes, it seems likely that Clinton had more supporters in the first round than Edwards. Also, contrary to what I posted previously, it seems the second choice for more of these minor candidate supporters ended up being Obama. I just pass along what I hear. I watched part of the results on FNC, and saw Bill Kristol say that Obama has a better than even shot at the nomination, though Clinton still has a shot, and Edwards has almost none. This seems like a sound verdict to me, especially given the margin he won by. Less sound were statements along the lines of "two-thirds of caucus-goers voted against Hillary"; saying that the same cold be said of Obama or Edwards is overly simplistic, as there was something to the "anti-Hillary" vote talk, but there are still supporters of Obama and Edwards for whom Hillary is their second choice.

On the Republican side, Huckabee blew out Romney, no question about it. This damages Romney in New Hampshire, where McCain is likely to win now. Essentially, I think Romney's campaign is going to sink like the Titanic, with Iowa as the iceberg. Many Ron Paul supporters said their support would show through in Iowa, and, well, it didn't. They did manage to win one county (Jefferson), though, the only candidate besides Romney and Huckabee to do so. The soft third-place finish for Thompson is not good. It's certainly better than the fourth place he could have fallen to (and some pre-caucus polls showed him in), but, still, not good. On the other hand, if you consider the good press McCain has been getting, and the lousy press Thompson has been getting (rarely substantive, mostly criticizing his campaigning, or late reports that he would drop out after Iowa, which tend to depress support and which his campaign vigorously denied). Looking at what has become a longshot campaign for Thompson, I have to think a knockout of Romney is better for him than a knockout of Huckabee, because while it's believed that the evangelicals that make up Huckabee's base are more likely to support Fred than any other candidate, Mitt has been trying to claim the conservative mantel in this race, and has built his support on being the "electable conservative" and Thompson is really the only other candidate who can claim to be a conservative (a more solid claim that Romney, based on track record), leaving the whole "electablity" issue, which I think he could conquer if he'd start reaching 20% finishes rather than low-teens. McCain is helped because Romney is hurt. Giuliani is hurt on the one hand because he's an afterthought of the newscycle, but helped on the other because Iowa and New Hampshire will almost certainly be split (and, although nobody's really paid attention to it, Wyoming could go to a third candidate (Romney is the only major candidate with real campaign organization in the state, and Fred Thompson is the only other major candidate to visit, although I haven't seen any recent polls, and results could be screwy as Duncan Hunter has been active there and Ron Paul supporters are running wild (though, once again, lacking in polls, I'm inclined to believe that they're louder than their numbers would indicate, as they are everywhere else))). Huckabee is obviously helped by winning the state, and winning it convincingly. So, there you go. A nifty map of Iowa GOP results by county is available here. The biggest news on the GOP side has to be the damage to the Romney campaign.

In other news, Chris Dodd has decided to drop out. Or, as Chevy Chase used to say on SNL, "In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

Thoughts on the Democrats' Primary

Due to party rules, every state in the Dem primary process (both primary and caucus states) assign delegates proportionally. I'm working off memory here, but this is done both on the congressional district and statewide level, with a 15% threshold. The party also has about twice as many delegates to their national convention (which is rather necessary for the proportional allocation system to work). In Iowa, there's another wrinkle of difference from the Republicans; they hold an initial vote and then allow the supporters of candidates who do not receive 15% support to switch their support to another candidate. This looks to benefit Edwards, as he's the overwhelming second choice of minor-candidate supporters according to a recent poll (between him, Obama, and Hillary, the breakdown was on the order of Edwards 60%, Hillary and Obama 20% each).

What each candidate needs to win the nomination:

Clinton: A win in Iowa would practically guarantee her the nomination. She's not out if she doesn't win, though. I think a third-place finish might actually benefit her more than a second-place finish, as it would keep two candidates viable as the "anti-Hillary" for later contests. If she does finish second, I think an Edwards win would benefit her more (or, hurt her less). She currently has sizable leads in Nevada and Florida, but early struggles could change that.

Obama: A win in Iowa is very important for him. He's running close to Hillary in New Hampshire (three of the four polls in the RCP average have him trailing by four points, while the fourth bizarrely has him trailing by 17), and a win in Iowa could give him the momentum to win in New Hampshire. Having these two wins under his belt would likely steer the nomination his way.

Edwards: Once again, a win in Iowa is very important. However, Edwards seems the least likely to turn an Iowa win into a nomination. He's not really competitive in New Hampshire, which will be a momentum killer. He's even polled poorly in South Carolina, which is supposed to be his home turf (it was certainly played up that way in 2004, when he won it), where Clinton and Obama each attract about a third of the electorate, while Edwards hovers around the threshold level. I have an easier time seeing any of the five major Republican candidates getting their party's nomination than Edwards getting his. That's fine, though, as Edwards's campaign does more to damage the country than any other. It's like having the negatives from all the candidates rolled into one.

Thoughts on the Republican Primary

I intend to get this, along with a similar post for the Democrats, up before the Iowa caucus. I also intend to put up a post on the primary process in general, but that might not be until after Iowa.

This primary is odd in that you could make a case for any of the five major candidates winning the nomination. I realize that the Dems had six "major" candidates in 2004 (working off the top of my head, Dean, Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman), but it was hard to make the case for all of them at the start of the new year (Lieberman because the party had turned strongly anti-war, and Gephardt because he was entirely invested in Iowa with no support anywhere else, other than his home state of Missouri (less well positioned for the domino effect than Kerry)). There were even some similarities as far as candidates putting their emphasis on Iowa or New Hampshire. However, I'll leave any further comparisons for another day.

Before going on to the candidates, I should add a few notes on how the delegates are selected. While the Democrats allocate delegates based on the proportion of the vote each candidate receives (more on how that's done in the post focusing on them), the Republicans have a few different methods of selecting delegates (and, if memory serves, do not use the proportional allocation anywhere). The first is the winner-take-all state primary/caucus; as the name implies, the statewide winner of this contest wins all the delegates for that state. The other popular method (which, if I recall correctly, is used in more states, but I'd have to look it up) is basically a winner-take-all election at the congressional district level; whoever wins in a congressional district gets all three delegates for that district (I believe the statewide winner gets three delegates as well). In this form of election, the final vote count isn't as important as where the votes come from. California, for instance, uses this system, and with 53 congressional districts, the results could be interesting. Some have noted that this could be Ron Paul's best chance for some delegates, as he could win the district with very few Republicans, like that of Nancy Pelosi. Also, under party rules, all the states selecting candidates in January forfeit half their delegates to the party convention. There's a possibility that the rule will be reversed and all the delegates admitted, and there's also the possibility that this could affect who wins the nomination (though the latter is unlikely).

First up, Romney: Actually, one further comparison to 2004 on the other side -- Romney is the candidate most likely to get a domino effect that turns a seemingly competitive primary into a runaway, like Kerry, and even comes from the same home state. Romney is the candidate most heavily invested in the "traditional" method of acquiring the nomination, competing hard in both Iowa and New Hampshire and then riding the strength of his early victories to the nomination. However, an early loss could derail his whole campaign. If he's any worse than a close second in Iowa, he's likely to lose New Hampshire, and with it, the nomination. It's not so much a matter of delegate count, as only three small states will have voted or caucused by then (Wyoming has a caucus on January 5 that has received very little attention; last I saw, Romney looked good in the polling, but will anyone care if he wins?). Romney needs the momentum from these early contests, and while other candidates can "win" without winning them, anything less than a win will definitely be a loss for Romney.

Second up, Huckabee: I'll make this simple: Huckabee needs to win Iowa. A close second might help him, but it's more likely to leave him as a hanger-on with no hope of winning the primary. Huck is not going to win New Hampshire, plain and simple, and essentially needs to build on an Iowa win to then win South Carolina, and hope that the momentum there carries the day in Florida and helps him on "Super-Duper Tuesday" on February 5, when nearly half of the Republican delegates are up for grabs. As far as New Hampshire goes for Huck, third place would probably constitute a "win" for him. I have a hard time seeing Huckabee win the nomination, as he seems more interested in talking to Iran than in talking to half the Republican base. He could garner enough support to result in a fun convention, though.

Giuliani: His campaign has been the antithesis of Romney's: forget the early states. Giuliani basically plans to bide his time until Florida and Feb 5, go for the big prizes, and ride them to the nomination. His campaign points out the good poll numbers he has in those states. However, I -- and I'm far from alone on this -- doubt that his support will hold in those states through the early contests. Giuliani is high partially on name recognition, which becomes less of a factor in each state as its primary nears. Moreover, all the buzz and momentum will be going to other candidates. While pretty much everyone concedes that he'll win New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut on February 5 (which are all statewide winner-take-all primaries), it's less certain how well he'll do in the other states where he currently leads (and even if he receives the most votes in California, he won't necessarily win the most delegates). Iowa is pretty much a non-factor for his campaign, though beating McCain would be a small plus, and finishing third would be an even bigger one (though I wouldn't bet on that). Editted to add: I've noticed that a few recent polls show him in sixth in Iowa; that's an embarassment that he'll want to avoid.

McCain: Iowa is also a non-factor for McCain, barring a surprise third-place finish. New Hampshire, however, is huge, and he pretty much needs to win there to have any hope of winning the nomination. Beyond New Hampshire, he hopes to do well in Michigan, carry the momentum into Florida, and emerge as a consensus candidate.

Thompson: Thompson's path to the nomination is a bit of a strange one. The earliest state he has any chance of winning is South Carolina. He pretty much needs a second, or possibly even a strong third, in Iowa, and then to pick up supporters of other candidates as they drop out (either officially or are just seen as no longer viable). Last I saw, Thompson is the second choice for the largest number of Republican primary voters. He really needs either Romney or Huckabee to receive a knockout blow in Iowa. While I haven't seen any breakdown as far as who supporters of each candidate rank as their number two, it seems likely that Romney and Huckabee voters are more likely to have Thompson as their number two than McCain or Giuliani supporters (Giuliani and Huckabee are pretty well polar opposites, so only a very small number of supporters for one would have the other as their second choice; Romney and Huckabee supporters in general seem to be less likely to support McCain or Giuliani, plus some bad blood seems to be brewing between the two campaigns, leaving Thompson as the beneficiary; McCain and Giuliani supporters seem more likely to support the other, but hardly seem likely to reject Thompson altogether). Essentially, Thompson would be the compromise candidate, the one backers of all the others could agree upon.

There remains a small chance that no candidate would receive the majority of delegates needed to win the nomination outright. Assuming that no candidate has, say, 49% of the delegates either, then a brokered convention is entirely possible. I think Thompson is most likely to emerge the winner in such a scenario, because, as stated above, he's the one candidate that everyone else can agree upon. Romney would be the second-most likely to win in this scenario. Of course, should Romney have 40% of the delegates going into the convention, the math changes, and he becomes most likely to emerge as the candidate.

Currently, it's much easier to make a case for why each candidate will not win the nomination than why they will. Iowa will clear things up a bit, and New Hampshire will clarify them more. After Feb 5, I should be able to make a more confident prediction of who the nominee will be.

Editted to add: Rich Lowry throws out some numbers on what would be good finishes for each of the major candidates in Iowa.