It’s unfortunate that we will never get a true head-to-head debate between John McCain and Mitt Romney even though they are truly the only two Republican candidates with any shot at the nomination at this point. But tonight, we finally get a head-to-head primary debate between Hillary and Barack Obama, something I think we always wanted to see from the start. No John Edwards to whine about how nobody is paying attention to him or Dennis Kucinich to tell us..well..whatever he tells us….

Debate starts at 8:00pm on CNN. Heck, I might even watch it myself….

Insider Advantage leads us off with new polls out of Tennessee and Georgia showing that it is Mike Huckabee giving John McCain a bigger challenge than Mitt Romney. And we get split results on the Democratic side.

PRESIDENT – TENNESSEE – PRIMARIES

McCain 33% Huckabee 25% Romney 18% Paul 9%

Hillary 59% Obama 26%

PRESIDENT – GEORGIA – PRIMARIES

McCain 35% Huckabee 24% Romney 24% Paul 5%

Obama 52% Hillary 36%

These polls were done January 30th among 375 Republicans and 463 Democrats in TN and 362 Republicans and 301 Democrats. Another poll from Georgia from Public Policy Polling, who also has a new poll from New York.

PRESIDENT – GEORGIA – PRIMARIES

Romney 32% McCain 31% Huckabee 24% Paul 3%

Obama 51% Hillary 41%

PRESIDENT – NEW YORK – PRIMARIES

McCain 34% Giuliani 20% Romney 19% Huckabee 10% Paul 4%

Hillary 45% Obama 33% Edwards 10%

The GA poll was done January 30th among 862 Republicans and 457 Democrats. The NY poll was done January 29th among 1125 Republcains and 837 Democrats. In the state of Minnesota, Minnesota Public Radio gives McCain and Hillary the lead.

PRESIDENT – MINNESOTA – PRIMARIES

McCain 41% Romney 22% Huckabee 17% Giuliani 6% Paul 5%

Hillary 40% Obama 33% Edwards 12%

The article also includes this tidbit.

“Obama and Clinton have opened up sizeable double-digit leads over all the Republican candidates,” Jacobs said. “Obama is ahead of McCain by 13 points. Clinton has got a 10-point advantage over McCain. And then when you turn to the Huckabee and Romney and Giuliani matchups, the leads are substantially larger.”

This poll was done January 18-27 among 317 Republicans and 478 Democrats. In Illinois, Scott Rasmussen says John McCain holds an 8% lead.

PRESIDENT – ILLINOIS – GOP PRIMARY
McCain 34%
Romney 26%
Huckabee 16%
Paul 10%

This poll was done January 29th among 504 likely voters. New polls out of Massachusetts from Survey USA (R/D) give Hillary and Romney huge leads.

PRESIDENT – MASSACHUSETTS – PRIMARIES

Romney 57% McCain 34% Paul 3% Huckabee 3%

Hillary 57% Obama 33%

This poll was done January 30th among 575 Democrats and 297 Republicans. Apparently Uncle Ted doesn’t have as much sway as he thinks he does….

Some of these new polls are going to be a little tainted since Giuliani and Edwards are no longer active candidates, but what else do we have to completely overanalyze. The latest numbers from Connecticut and Scott Rasmussen.

PRESIDENT – CONNECTICUT – GOP PRIMARY
McCain 42%
Romney 26%
Giuliani 12%
Huckabee 8%
Paul 4%

This poll was done January 27 among 492 likely voters. In Massachusetts, Hillary holds a small lead over Obama according to Rasmussen.

PRESIDENT – MASSACHUSETTS – DEM PRIMARY
Hillary 43%
Obama 37%
Edwards 11%

This poll was done January 28th among 1023 likely voters. And in California, the race is now close on both sides (R/D).

PRESIDENT – CALIFORNIA – PRIMARIES

McCain 32% Romney 28% Giuliani 14% Huckabee 11% Paul 5%

Hillary 43% Obama 40% Edwards 9%

These polls were done January 29th among 807 Democrats and 652 Republicans.

Just for the record, John McCain has taken the lead in the popular vote in the January primary season. I never did find any raw numbers for the caucuses in Wyoming, but that wouldn’t have a large effect on McCain’s overall lead.

STATE	McCain	Romney	Huckabee
IA	15,559	29,949	40,841
NH	88,571	75,546	26,859
MI	257,462	337,666	139,545
NV	5,650	22,646	3,616
SC	143,224	64,970	128,908
FL	693,508	595,830	259,598
TOTAL	1,208,483	1,129,894	603,449

Of course, as has been said over and over again, McCain has won many more Independents than Romney while Romney has won more Republicans. Next week, when more of the primaries are “closed primaries”, Romney would seem to have an advantage.

Looks like McCain’s exceedingly expected nomination has really stirred up a lot of debate. For those who say he can’t win in November, Scott Rasmussen says otherwise.

PRESIDENT – NATIONAL
John McCain 48%
Hillary 40%

John McCain 47%
Barack Obama 41%

This poll was done January 25-27 among 1200 likely voters.

Also, don’t forget about tonight’s Republican debate on CNN at 8pm. My only wish is that it will include Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, two people who have absolutely no chance of getting the nomination. I would love to see a straight up McCain-Romney debate, but that is probably not going to happen at this point.

Oh, and Ralph Nader, the man who saved the country from Al Gore, is joining the race….

You know, it is starting to dawn on me that for the next nine months, our only real choice to be the next President will either be John McCain or Hillary. After all of this primary process, we are going to end up with the two oldest candidates and two candidates from inside the Beltway on either side despite the wish for someone younger and someone from outside Washington! Where’s this “Change” that we keep being told we Americans want? No, we end up with two of the most scripted people imaginable. Just think – Nine months of listening to John McCain call us “my friends”….

Depressing…discuss….

UPDATE (9:31am): Getting a little less depressing – John Edwards is dropping out…..

The numbers from Public Policy Polling in the state of Tennessee.

PRESIDENT – TENNESSEE – PRIMARIES

Huckabee 30% McCain 26% Romney 22% Paul 6% Giuliani 4%

Hillary 43% Obama 32% Edwards 16%

This poll was done January 28th among 758 likely Democratic and 1053 likely Republican voters.

In the state of Connecticut, Scott Rasmussen puts Hillary and Barack Obama in a dead tie.

PRESIDENT – CONNECTICUT – DEM PRIMARY
Barack Obama 40%
Hillary 40%
John Edwards 11%

This poll was done January 27th among 899 likely voters.

It’s been rumored all night, MSNBC is now reporting Rudy Giuliani will in fact drop out and endorse John McCain tomorrow.

Here’s David Freddoso’s take on the nomination fight from here over at The Corner.

In my opinion, the nomination is now his to lose. He now has an estimated 97 delegates (per CNN). Next Tuesday, he’ll win New York (101), New Jersey (52), Connecticut (30), and Arizona (53). He’ll probably also win Oklahoma (58) and Missouri (41).

These are — off the top of my head — all of the winner-take-all states on Super Tuesday. They’ll leave McCain with a total of 432 delegates. That’s before any of the California delegates, of which he’s sure to take several. He’ll get some in Illinois and some in the proportional states in the South (where Romney won’t do well anyway), and some in the caucus states. My guess is he’ll finish Super Tuesday with no fewer than 700 delegates, and perhaps as many as 900.

Romney will probably have about 250 at that point, maybe something like 400 if he does unexpectedly well in the caucus states. The threshold for victory is 1,191.

Hard to argue with it. The striking thing from his analysis is that McCain seems to be strongest in states where the states are winner take all, which means no matter how close Romney finishes in second place, McCain would still get all the delegates. And where Romney might be stronger than McCain, he will end up splitting delegates with McCain.

Is this race basically over?

The results from the State of Florida will be posted here (R) and here (D). Don’t know how often they will be updated.

The polls in the Eastern time zone close at 7:00 EST while the entire state is finished voting by 8:00 EST. But you knew that already…the fun begins soon….

UPDATE (9:13pm): Just about everyone is calling the race for John McCain.