We've already gone over how I expect the Democratic caucuses to shake out tonight. Now let's look at the Republicans.
I just don't see Mike Huckabee winning. Maybe because I just don't want to. I mean, changing your political party registration is a pain in the butt, and I'm not sure the Libertarians would take me back. So I'm going to go against the grain -- and the Intrade bettors -- and pick Mitt Romney as the big winner tonight. The rest of the field will, I think, look something like this:
Romney - 26%
Huckabee - 23%
McCain - 18%
Paul - 12%
Thompson - 10%
All others - 11%
Notice please that I don't think anybody will crack 30%. There's an invisible line there that, if nobody passes it, nobody can claim a solid victory. And the middle three (McCain, Paul, Thompson) are all interchangeable. I feel a lot more certain about the numbers than I do about which names will be attached to them.
Of course, I'm notoriously bad at this kind of thing.
UPDATE: Big roundup of blogger predictions here.
I like 21% myself.
However my fall back position is 19% and I'm sticking to it.
I must admit if things go really wrong 15% is a distinct possibility.
I can say for sure that we will not know until the convention if the conventional wisdom is correct. In that case I predict a lot of alcoholic beverages and imported hookers.
