Not Likely To Help Much

John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are pretty much tied for second place in the Republican primary for New Hampshire. Which is about the only place in the country that I see McCain's newest endorsement possibly being a "plus" for him -- and even there, it isn't all that much of a help anyway.

To begin with, I have some difficulty with the "momentum" concept these days. As a California voter, I really don't care that much how South Carolina votes in its primary. I am still provisionally most attracted to Rudy Giuliani and if he comes in fourth place in Iowa and third place in New Hampshire, that doesn't change the fact that despite some serious flaws, he's still the closest to my way of thinking on most policy issues and appears to possess ten times the leadership skills of the rest of the Republican candidates put together. As a big-state voter for most of my adult life, I look at the farm-subsidy concerns of Iowa as strictly parochial; my state's concerns are issues of national importance, because California is a state that is a microcosm of the whole nation.

So momentum may not change anyone's mind about their preferences, but it may change things like free media, ability to claim "winner" status, and most of all, fundraising prowess. That may change the way some people vote, and it may change the ability of a candidate to campaign beyond a certain point. If Rudy drops out of the race before the California primary, my vote will in all likelihood wind up going elsewhere.

And if momentum matters at all, then to remain viable, McCain must come in at least second place in New Hampshire.

To the extent that results in the early states do still matter, though, getting his friend Joe Lieberman's endorsement will give John McCain a little bit of extra luster in New Hampshire. Let's go to the rulebook: New Hampshire has a modified-open proportional primary. It has set its primary before the earliest date allowed for it under the RNC rules, so it has sacrificed half of its delegates for the privilege of having the first primary in the nation. So, assuming that the national GOP actually enforces this rule, there will be 12 delegates at stake in New Hampshire, and a candidate needs to get more than 10% of the vote to get delegates, and the overall winner gets any delegates unallocated by the proportional distribution of the vote.

Using the latest RCP polling averages, we see Romney at 32%, McCain at 18.5%, Giuliani at 16.5%, and Huckabee at 11%. No other Republican is polling above the delegate-award threshold. If these were the actual results of the New Hampshire Republican primary, that would result in Romney getting 7 delegates, McCain and Giuliani getting 2 each, and Huckabee getting 1. A big win for Romney, a disappointment for McCain, and a "third-place-as-expected" for Giuliani.

But, anyone who is a registered Republican or not affiliated with any party can vote in the Republican primary. So the Lieberman endorsement is an outreach to those non-Republicans to vote in the Republican rather than the Democratic primary, and to pick McCain over the other candidates with cross-party appeal (Giuliani and maybe Ron Paul, who is floating around at about 7%). That may switch over -- what? One delegate from Romney to McCain?

To win the Republican primaries, a candidate has to appeal to Republicans. That's why Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani are all running to the right. In my opinion, Giuliani has run farther to the right than is necessary to maintain general-election viability; he has run farther to the right than he needed to in order to earn a plurality of votes overall. But that may be the lensing effect of very early primaries in states with very distinctive economic and social concerns like Iowa and New Hampshire, as opposed to states with more generalized populations like Ohio and Texas.

So we'll see. I don't think Lieberman's vote is going to change McCain's dynamic very much. It may be a bigger help to Lieberman than to McCain.