Of Miracles and Math

Governor Huckabee quipped on Meet the Press last Sunday that he didn't major in math, but in miracles. He was, of course, talking about his delegate prospects. I quipped, before last Saturday's wins in Kansas and Louisiana, that Mike had "about as much of a chance as David had against Goliath." I almost majored in math, but i believe in miracles, too. The boy-with-slingshot miracles, though, not the next-time-i-play-basketball-this-5foot-10inch-white-guy-will-be-able-to-dunk kind of miracles. So which type of miracle does Governor Huckabee need, now that he lost all 3 Potomac primaries this week?

As many have already pointed out, the media's proclamation that Huckabee has no mathematical chance is pure bunk. CNN, which has been quite a solid source this election season, even played around with their fancy computer screens, and said that even if Huckabee wins the remaining primaries, that John McCain will still get enough delegates to clinch. I could only surmise that they failed to actually read the rules about how delegates are awarded in the remaining states. I did (at green papers). Heck, they only had to look at a state like Georgia, where Governor Huckabee got only 34% of the primary vote, enough to lead the way but only a few points ahead of McCain's 32% and Romney's 30%. A squeaker win, but one that delivered 45 delegates to Huckabee to only 3 to McCain. So, a 2 point victory led to garnering over 90% of the delegates. Other states – not all, but some – work in a similar fashion. That's just sloppy journalism to not consider all this.

So this is an exercise worth looking into, particularly for the true believers. What do i find?

Likely Case

In this scenario, i went through each remaining state and allocated delegates based on each state's rule and my reasonable expectations for primary voting outcomes. This was mostly based on the type of results we've seen from Super Tuesday forward. McCain does well in so-called blue states, and Huckabee does well in so-called red states. The result is not miracle-friendly. McCain gets enough delegates for an outright majority, even before awarding any super-delegates or counting the delegates from US territories. McCain just basically needs to hold serve and cruise on to the nomination. This is, by far, the likely outcome. Neither i, nor the Huckabee campaign, have any delusions otherwise.

Best Case

In this scenario, we reallocated future delegates assuming that Governor Huckabee starts to dominate in most states. Two of the next primaries (WI and OH), for example, are winner-take-all by a combination of congressional district and statewide votes. If Huckabee can beat McCain in each district, even if by a fraction, then he could take all 128 delegates from these two states. Let's look at all the states…

• Wisconsin – WTA by congressional district (CD) and statewide – 40 delegates – all to Huckabee
  
• Ohio – WTA by CD and statewide – 88 delegates – all to Huckabee
  
• Rhode Island – proportional – 20 – McCain wins 45-40
  
• Texas – funky mix by CD and statewide – 140 – Huckabee needs to win 50%+ statewide and in most CDs, delivering 123 of the 140 delegates
  
• Vermont – WTA – 17 – all to McCain
  
• Mississippi – WTA by CD and statewide, if get at least 50% - 39 – another state where we need at least 50% of the vote
  
• Pennsylvania – very strange rules, essentially rendering delegates unpledged – 74 – if get these other groundswells, could take 2/3 here
  
• Indiana – another odd mix of CD and convention – 57 – win outright with 50%+ and get 50 of the delegates (just an estimate)
  
• North Carolina – proportion – 69 – presume MH gets 60% of the vote here and the rest of the proportional states
  
• Nebraska – primary vote is advisory only, delegates picked at convention – 33 – need 2/3 of these
  
• Hawaii – convention – 20 – only get 6 in this McCain state
  
• Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota – all proportional – total of 166 – as stated above, assume MH gets 60% of the vote
  

Best Case Outcome

This scenario leaves John McCain with just under 1000 delegates, and Mike Huckabee with just over 800 delegates, enough to broker the convention. But even at that point, we'd still need something close to a miracle. He'd need to secure the delegates from all the other candidates other than McCain. He'd need to ensure that the super delegates don't just groundswell over to McCain too early. It's hard for me to imagine what sort of deal that Huckabee could make with Romney to get his delegates once they are unbound. Paul's delegates are likely to be intransigent.

It's hard to see the light at the end of this tunnel, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. I'll expound on that in a future post.