Clinton and McCain set the pace

Ladbrokes has cut Hillary's odds, but she's still in the lead. McCain now cut from 4/5 to 1/5 to win GOP nomination.  Here is the latest...

Next U.S. President

Hilary Clinton --- 11/8
John McCain --- 2/1
Barack Obama --- 5/2
Mitt Romney --- 12/1
Michael Bloomberg --- 16/1
Mike Huckabee ---  66/1
John Edwards --- 150/1
Ron Paul --- 150/1

Winning Party

Democrats --- 1/2
Republican ---  6/4

Who will be the Democratic Candidate?

Hilary Clinton --- 1/2
Barack Obama --- 6/4
John Edwards --- 100/1

Who will be the Republican Candidate?

John McCain --- 1/5
Mitt Romney --- 7/2
Mike Huckabee --- 20/1
Ron Paul --- 100/1

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McCain within touching distance of winning the Republican nomination

John McCain’s victory in Florida combined with the coming endorsement of him from Rudy Giuliani makes McCain the overwhelming favourite to win the Republican nomination. With Giuliani out of the race, McCain should easily win the winner takes all primaries in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as well in his home state of Arizona. He also should do well in California, especially as with Rudy gone he is likely to receive the backing of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  While Mitt Romney will find Mike Huckabee’s continuing presence in the race makes it...

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CNN calls Florida for McCain

Combine this victory with the expected Rudy endorsement and it is hard to see how McCain is stopped.

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Rudy endorsement for McCain coming soon, reports

The word is that Rudy Giuliani will throw his weight behind his friend and fellow national security Republican John McCain within the next day or two. Mark Halperin is reporting that the endorsement will happen in California tomorrow.

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Fox exits has McCain up 34 to 31

But no one is anywhere near ready to call this. One thing worth noting is that Rudy is going to come in an embarrassingly distant third.

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Early exits have McCain slightly ahead according to National Review

The Campaign Spot reports that McCain is ahead of Romney by 1.7 points in the early exits with Rudy in a distant third.

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Here comes the beef

If Barack Obama is to win the Democratic nomination he is going to have to add some beef to his fine words and in a speech today in his grandparent’s town in Kansas began to do this. Here are the specifics in the speech, which should help him appeal to lower income voters:

“I’ll put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working families.  This tax cut will be worth up to $1000 for a working family.  We’ll provide struggling homeowners some relief by giving them a tax credit that would

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Has The Simpsons destroyed the Kennedy mystique?

Watching Ted Kennedy endorse Barack Obama, I couldn’t help thinking of Mayor Quimby in the Simpsons who does such a brilliant impression of both the Kennedy voice and its language. Having said that, there is still something stirring about both the Kennedy cadence and the rhetoric of new frontier liberalism. This isn’t a partisan point but rather one about good speech writing and delivery. Indeed, if you listen to many of Bush’s finest speeches you’ll find echoes of JFK’s rhetoric. While David Cameron's masterful 2005 conference speech, which propelled him to the leadership, drew much of its stylistic inspiration from Kennedy school of speech making.

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Obama needs to be nice enough

If one was looking for a moment when the tide began to turn in Hillary’s favour in New Hampshire, Barack Obama telling her cuttingly at the debate there that she was “likeable enough” would have to be right up there. It was mean-spirited and fostered the impression that Hillary was not just being defeated but humiliated which made people—especially women—so sympathetic to her when she choked up under the stress of the campaign a couple of days later. Obama, though, doesn’t seem to have realised how important it is to appear nice...

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What will Rudy do next?

When news filtered through to the reporters covering McCain that Rudy Giuliani’s travelling press corps had been given signed baseballs by the candidate it was seen as the strongest hint yet that he will drop out after the results are declared tonight. The conversation has now moved to what will Rudy do once he has dropped out—will he simply retreat from the public gaze or will he quickly endorse?

There is no doubt that Giuliani pulling out helps McCain as the two candidates both appeal to similar groups of voter: national...

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