It's Just the End of February. The Convention Starts on July 13!

[MineralMan]

We have had exactly two (2) primary events so far. That's it. We'll have a couple of more over the next week. Then, on March 3, primary voters in 14 states will give us their opinions about who the nominee should be. On March 4, the delegate count will jump from just a few percent of delegates to about a quarter of all delegates, thanks to California, Texas and the other 12 states.

The Convention is not until the middle of July. Between March 4 and the Convention, the rest of the states will weigh in.

Right now, all we're doing is speculating without enough information to do that intelligently, quite frankly.

We have no accurate idea of which candidates will really be in play at the Convention. We don't know which candidates will drop out of the race after March 4. We don't know if there will be two or three or four candidates making speeches at the Convention.

Frankly, we know almost nothing. We even have a candidate who has not yet been on a ballot, and that candidate is now rising in the polls.

All discussion about a "contested" or "brokered" Convention is way, way too premature. We are making too many assumptions, with far too little information, really.

The first four primary events will be dwarfed by the results of Super Tuesday, and what will happen on that primary election day is still impossible to predict. There aren't even recent, reliable polls from those 14 states yet. Everyone has been so focused on the four early primaries and paying little to no attention to what comes next.

So, I suggest that we all calm down for a couple more weeks, and wait to see what things look like on March 4. Then, we can look at the estimated delegate counts and reconsider things.

I know we won't do that, but it would be smart if we did, I think.

[left-of-center2012]

1. "see what things look like on March 4"

Agreed.
I suspect some of the candidates will drop out after Super Tuesday.

[MineralMan]

2. Yes. The active field will be down to 3 or 4 after that.

Then, we can begin sorting things out. More importantly, the polls taken after that will look different, I'm sure.

I guess we just can't stand the suspense or something.