Thursday 31 January 2008

More dropouts during election season

Yesterday we found out that both Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards dropped out of the race to be the nomination for their respective parties. I wasn't particularly surprised about Rudy going - as I mentioned in my last post, he put an awful lot of work into winning Florida and he only finished third. That and he has failed to win any primaries or caucuses so far.

Here is a list of Giuliani's performance in all the primaries and caucuses that have happened so far:
StateVote %Delegates
Iowa40
Wyoming00
New Hampshire90
Michigan30
Nevada41
South Carolina20
Florida150
After deciding to drop out, he announced that he is going to be supporting John McCain, who recently went ahead of Mitt Romney in terms of delegates:
"John McCain is the most qualified candidate to be the next commander in chief of the United States"
In response to Giuliani's speech, McCain said:
"I want to thank my dear friend, my dear friend Rudy Giuliani, who invested his heart and soul in this primary and who conducted himself with all the qualities of the exceptional American leader he truly is"
After the mutual back-slapping was over with, they shook hands. Now that McCain has been endorsed by Giuliani, it must give McCain even more momentum and could influence the way a lot of people vote on Super Tuesday.
McCain and Giuliani
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

John Edwards leaving was more of a surprise. Although he hadn't got as many delegates as Obama and Clinton, he still had a few and with Super Tuesday coming up there was still an outside chance. Even though it wasn't a certainty that he'd get the most delegates, I thought he'd stay until all the states have finished voting.

Here's Edwards's performance in the primaries and caucuses:

StateVote %Delegates
Iowa3014
New Hampshire174
Nevada40
South Carolina188
Florida140
Remember that Wyoming hasn't happened yet for the Democrats and Edwards boycotted Michigan because of the controversy over there.
"With our convictions and a little backbone, we will take back the White House in November"
So, even though he's out of the race, he still makes an appeal to the nation in an attempt to get the Democrats back into the Whitehouse.

It will be interesting to see who Edwards endorses. As he has built up quite a following, whoever he decides to support will have a massive advantage. He might also be a viable vice-presidential pick - he'll definitely be in a better situation than he was with John Kerry in 2004. If he doesn't get picked I can see him campaigning to make a return to the Senate - he's young enough to be able to do that and stay there for a few years.

Alfred Thompson made this comment on my blog entry about South Carolina:
"If he is elected VP there is time for him to still be president some day. And I think he'd be a good one."
So, I'm not the only one who thinks he'd be a good VP pick! I'm not sure whether he'd go for President again though. I guess nobody will know for sure until the next President's term in office is over.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama congratulated him for a well-run campaign and thanked him for the hard work that he's done highlighting poverty, which was his central campaign issue. They obviously want to be really nice to him because they realise how important his support could be.

Apparently he is able to 'release' the delegates who supported him, so they would be free to vote for whoever they wanted. If they are released, it would make the convention even more interesting.

So, what do you think?

Technorati tags: John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, USA, Election, Politics

1 comments:

Alfred Thompson said...

I really expected Edwards to stay in at least through Feb 5th. His dropping out was a real surprise to me. I don't think that either Obama or Clinton will select the other to be their running mate. There is just too much friction between them. Edwards is a logical choice though. Time will tell.
I'm not as surprised that Guilani dropped out. He is very pragmatic and it was clear he wasn't going to be able to turn things around. I can't see him endorsing anyone other than McCain either so that was a logical step. It is a huge boost for McCain; especially in New York which is an important state. I could be wrong but it is really starting to look like McCain is on an unstoppable role. He could be hard to beat in November as well. A Republican may just win after all.