| TheSource said: By the way, Duncan Hunter won a county too....strange. We'll have to wait and see with this election. If Ron Paul keeps beating one to three 'Republican mainstream candidates' per caucus/primary, he might as well run as a third party guy, simply because he'll have enough power to stop a mainstream Republican victory. In New Hampshire, he is probably going to beat Guiliani again rather handidly, and I suspect he can beat Thompson too. He'll probably come in fourth after McCain, Romney, and Huckabee with about 8-12% of the vote. In the South he may get alot of racist support simply because he advocates states rights, despite the fact that he isn't racist, and despite the fact that he polls best with Blacks and Asians among the republican candidates. The other factor is Bloomberg, who could run as a Centrist, and has billions to invest. He has succeeded at everything he has tried, and unlike Guliani his positions and family life don't make him appalling for midwestern voters. He is Jewish, but the popular vote in 2000 picked Lieberman (also Jewish) as Gore's Vice President, so I think he could get also be a significant factor if he runs, picking votes off from both sides. My dream election would be Ron Paul vs Huckabee vs. Bloomberg vs. Obama (Libertarian) (Republican) (Centrist) (Democrat) You'd have something like an 8%-35%-22%-45% popular split I think, with Bloomberg (he'd take some of the North East) and Paul (take one or two midwestern states) probably strong enough to horde ~40-60 electoral votes to force Obama to listen to some of their issues after taking the popular vote. |
Even were those candidates the ones to run, with the split as you say, it would not have much impact on the electoral college. 8% would gain Paul nothing electorally, and 22% for Bloomberg is slightly better than Ross Perot's 1992 vote, which again netted him not a single electoral vote. Moreover, if none of the 4 candidates get an electoral majority, there is no horse trading of electoral votes Since congress is liklely still going to be Democratic when they vote (I believe the vote comes after the new members are sworn in in January), Obama would be our next president, and he wouldn't have to listen to one idea from either Paul or Bloomberg.
