For those who are thinking that the Republican Primaries will be all but over after the first few weeks, think again. I took a look at the primary process and delegate allocations and we may be in for a long haul. First, the schedule itself is six months, from the January 3, 2012 Iowa caucus to the June 26 Utah primary.
Second, all states holding their primary before April 1, 2012, must allocate their delegates proportionally. That's a majority, 29 states plus the Virgin Islands. That means states like Texas and Georgia, with very large delgatations (see fourth point below), will have to spilt their votes based on the percentage each candidate earned, not on a winner take all basis.
Third, states who have moved up their primary before February 6 wiil (supposedly) be penalized by 50% of their delegates. This affects the following states:
Arizona- 58 delgates
Florida- 99 delgates
Iowa- 28 delegates
Michican- 59 delegates
New Hampshire-23 delegates
South Carolina- 50 delegates
So in addtion to losing half of those delegates, these states will have to award the remaining 50% proportionally. To give you some idea, examine this scenario with the Iowa caucus (14 delegates if penalty is enforced):
Gingrich: 30% = 4 delegates
Cain 20% = 3 delegates
Rommney 20% = 3 delegates
Perry 15% = 2 delegates
Bachman 15% = 2 delegates
Consider also, New Hampshire (13 delegates if penalized), which will follow Iowa the next week:
Romney 40% = 5 delegates
Gingrich 30% = 4 delegates
Cain 18% = 2 delegates
Huntsman 12% = 2 delegates
I could go on, but you get the idea, lots of media attention and fluff, very little in the way of actual delegates, as the total number of delegates (assuming penalties are imposed) is 2287.
Fourth, delegates are awarded based on how conservative a state is. Bonus delegates are awarded for things like a Governer of Senator elected recently, or the composistion of your state legislature. To give you some idea of how absurd this makes the process, and how it tilts the selection process to the right consider the extremes, Massachusets and Utah. Massachusets has almost three times the population of Utah; 6.35 to 2.23 million. Yet Massachusets gets 41 delegates (bonus delegate for Scott Brown, yea) while Utah gets 40 (15 bonus delegates). For another example, Illinois gets 6 bonus delegates, Louisiana 15.
My take on all of this; those first six states are not going to be decisive, given that only 159 delegates are at stake if the penalty is enforced. And in fact, Super Tuesday, which will be on March 6, and features 10 states (8 of them conservative) may not be decisive if there are 4 or 5 canidates still standing. However, even though the allocation of delegates skews towards right leaning candidates, if Romney can hang on until after April 1, his chances improve greatly with the first 5 winner take all states, which are:
Connecticut (primary)
Delaware (primary)
New York (primary)
Pennsylvania (primary)
Rhode Island (primary)
Note that these are all liberal or liberal leaning states, with a total of 241 delegates. If Romney can win 3 or 4 of these contests it should propel him to the nomination. Bottom line, this could very well be a long rut filled road, especially if 4 or 5 candidates hang in until April 1.
