Oregon will matter to the Republicans at least

Unless John Edwards can start showing better results, the Democrats may have decided their nomination by May when Oregon has its primary. But with Romney's win in Michigan, the Republicans have set themselves on course for a convention showdown in Minneapolis. Romney, in his native state, spending hugely and getting no real participation from Giuliani, "won" with 39% of the vote.

Giuliani's swan dive has probably been too severe for him to reverse, and the new polls from South Carolina and Florida suggest that he can't hold the line in Florida, which was crucial to his strategy. But get this. McCain is leading in Florida with 22% of Republican support.

We are getting not yet getting any contests in which all candidates are both viable to local voters and committed in terms of money and organization. We've had Romney vs Huckabee in Iowa, Romney vs McCain in New Hampshire and Michigan. Next we'll have McCain versus Huckabee in South Carolina. Florida will have everyone's attention and somebody may get 100% of the delegates available (not all delegates because the RNC has penalized the state for its early timing) for a quarter of the popular vote.

This actually raises another question about Democracy in America. Those states that have winner-take-all formulas will disproportionately award the winners there compared with states like California that will disperse the results through the state. Since Giuliani is well positioned in several of these, he may get to Minneapolis with a large enough bloc to prevent any other candidate winning on the first ballot, but one which he will not be able to build on because of low national poll numbers.

Bringing us back to Oregon. In May, the modest number of delegates available will look a lot more compelling. I wouldn't want to predict a winner, and it may not matter, because the important point is that the second choices of the delegates will not be visible on the ballot and after the first round, that's what will matter.

I think there's only one news organization in Oregon large enough to investigate and report on this, and that's the Oregonian in Portland. I hope they take this issue on and tell us about the real people who will be running for delegates.