It is unbelievable, though not surprising, that the media (a) is trying to convince the American people that the Michigan Republican primary today or the primary in both parties in Nevada and South Carolina next Saturday are a "must win" for any candidate, or (b) that its too late for any candidate. This is absurd stupidity.

It is so early in the process, and the process has been so biased toward liberal voters, that the MSM wants Americans, and particularly the Republican base, to believe that these early and proportionally trivially small votes are conclusive as to who is going to be nominated.

What is so absurd about this is that:

[1] the Iowa caucuses involve a very small group of people consisting of (a) people so involved in political campaigns, or (b) people with so little to do that they are willing to spend five hours one evening at a caucus debating with everyone else who shows up in the caucus--a population that has dramatically changed in the last few decades in Iowa to be a much more liberal population;

[2] the New Hampshire primary is (a) open to crossover voting, and even allows people from other states to vote by simply saying at the poll on primary day that they plan to move to NH some time in the future, and (b) had their polling places on primary day filled with buses and cars from Massachussets and other states bringing "moderates (liberals) to vote in the New Hampshire primary, biasing the Republican primary toward John McCain and Mike Huckabee;

[3] The Michigan Republican primary today only offers a total of 30 possible delegates that are divided up both by district and at large votes that are divided up proportionally to the number of votes for each candidate, so "the winner" does not receive a great advantage in the delegate race;

[4] Reality is that (a) the number of delegates decided so far has been only 112, with estimated rusults of Romney with 30, Huckabee with 21, McCain with 10, Fred Thompson with 6, Ron Paul with 2, Hunter with 2, and Ron Paul with 2, (b) only 30 delegates to be decided today, and they will be distributed both by district and at large votes to be distributed according to the popular vote, (c) only 182 Republican delegates to be decided from tomorrow through Jan 29th's so called "must win" Florida primary, (d) thus, only 142 delegates will have been decided by the end of today, and only a total of 324 by Super Tuesday on February 5; (d) On Super Tuesday alone, 1111 delegates will be decided! (e) Then 455 votes will be decided in the 22 state primaries that follow Super Tuesday, and (5) a grand total of 1900 Republican delegates will be elected, meaning that for any one candidate to win the Republican nomination, he must garner over 950 delegates.

[5] This means that prior to Super Tuesday, February 5, the number of delegates that will have been selected is less than 29.2% of the number that will be selected on Super Tuesday alone, and is only 17% of the total number of Republican delegates to the convention. So, if the race is still close, those elections after Super Tuesday could be the "must-win" elections who will decide the party's nominee. To call anything prior to Super Tuesday a "must win" election is to engage not only in sheer stupidity; is is the height of foolhardiness or total deception. I will leave it to you to decide which is the case for our MSM and our political pundits.

It is important to remember as we consider all of this that primary elections can turn on a dime. Reagan was not the projected nominee after New Hampshire in 1980. On the Democratic side, look at what happened to Howard Dean with one speech just prior to the New Hampshire primary. Until that speech and the MSM's distorted coverage of it (based on dictates from the Democrat hierarchy?) that blew up on Dean, he was the unquestioned front runner with all the momentum in the Democratic primary campaign. That was turning on a dime. But history's events can present not just dimes, but huge bombs.

The whole campaign could be altered entirely by a major gaff by a candidate, by a major revelation about some facet of a candidate's life or personal history, by a major attack by terrorists or North Korea on a NATO or Pacific nation or one of our naval vessels, or by China attacking Taiwan or making some hostile move with the massive naval force it has built up over the last twenty years. More likely, the entire campaign could drastically turn on some previously unforseen event that focusses the attention of the electorate onto some priority issue that suddenly overrdes all their previous appraisals concerning the basis upon which they should cast their vote. The one thing we know about history, including history's impact on elections, is that history will always surprise us.