After last nights dismal showing, Lieberman realized he had no chance and finally withdrew from the contest. Kucinich and Sharpton are evidently playing their own personal game of Democrat Survivor and I expect at least Sharpton to hang around for the entire contest for both the attention and the hopes of trading his delegates for future influence should it be a close contest.

So let's consider the top four candidates.

Howard Dean has yet to win a single contest. He is putting all of his hopes on winning Michigan. I doubt it will happen and even if it did, it would only slightly delay his withdrawal. Clark won Oklahoma and looked strong in many states, although he is definitely a distant third to Edwards so far. So let us just consider Kerry and Edwards.

Kerry clearly won three states with just over 50% of the vote (Missouri, North Dakota, and Delaware) and easily beat Edwards in Arizona and New Mexico. Edwards defeated Kerry in South Carolina and Oklahoma. The margin of victory in Kerry's victories is quite interesting. It would take the additional votes of both Dean and Clark supporters for Edwards to have defeated Kerry in Arizona and New Mexico. Is it probable for this to happen?

No. Dean's supporters consist of the irrational Left (who are upset with both Kerry and Edwards for even their limited support of the war) and those who incorrectly believed Dean was the Democrats best chance for defeating Bush in November. The latter have been abandoning the Dean camp in droves. From the limited market research I have seen, they do not appear to have a strong preference between Kerry and Edwards. More of them have ended up in Kerry's camp, but given his lead in the polls, they simply see him the most electable candidate. Should he start acting as self-destructive as Dean, his supporters would mostly jump to Edwards.

I rarely agree with the conventional wisdom, but at this point in time I do. The race for the Democratic nomination is now Kerry's to lose. If he avoids a Dean-like comedy of errors, Kerry will win the nomination. He will then have to shore up his Southern base with a VP candidate with Southern roots. Despite the suggestions of many pundits, I would be surprised if Kerry picked Edwards as a running mate. Other than his Southern roots, Edwards brings little to a Kerry ticket. Kerry would be better off selecting a former Southern Governor or someone else extremely popular in Florida (Bob Graham would have been an easy pick if Graham had not made Dean look sober in the early days of the race).

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