And then there were three…

Mitt Romney withdrew from the race for the Republican nomination this afternoon, and that leaves McCain, Huckabee, and Paul.  And McCain has the lead in delegates.

Where Romney’s delegates go, I’m not sure.  But even if they were split evenly among the remaining contenders or given to a candidate other than McCain, I don’t think it would make a difference – McCain has the momentum to gather up the rest of the delegates, and Huckabee’s star is starting to wane.  Paul is so far back that there is no way he would ever be able to catch up unless everyone else dropped out.

It will be interesting to see what happens on the Democratic side in the next few weeks -  no clear leader, and the DNC leadership is going to go through hell trying to figure out how to determine their candidate.  On the one hand, there is their favorite son’s wife, on the other, a charismatic minority.  The DNC can’t make the choice without alienating their base – after all, they keep touting their party as the “party of choice.”  And the super-delegates will only make it worse, especially if they vote on the basis of political payback and favoritism.

Yes, it has been an interesting year in politics thus far, and will prove to be more interesting in the year to come.