Chaos Theory

I just got back from Michigan and South Carolina, so I'm prepared to share my insights on how the Republican race is going.

It seems that John McCain's New Hampshire bounce dissipated in Michigan. Except Michigan didn't really count because Mitt Romney lived there, oh, 35 years ago. Romney's Michigan bounce convinced him to skip South Carolina. Fred Thompson should do well in South Carolina, a state tailor-made for him, except he isn't. Mike Huckabee never got much of an Iowa bump but is competitive in South Carolina, where there are plenty of evangelicals, but also plenty of veterans who might gravitate toward McCain. And Rudy Giuliani is sunning himself in Florida.

Therefore, if you take the Republican winner tomorrow in South Carolina, add 3 points for past victories, subtract 2 points if the person also loses the Nevada caucuses, which seem mainly to be taking place near casino tables, you will have clear, incontrovertible evidence that whoever wins Florida will have enough momentum going into Super Tuesday that the nomination battle should be settled by . . . June. Or not.

I can make a case for why every one of these guys can't win. It's a little harder to divine who will be the last man standing.

But with a race this exciting, why don't reporters just sit back and enjoy it? Instead, there's this undercurrent of angst: The race is insane. Three contests, three winners. It's a deep, dark mystery. This has never happened before in recorded history. How can this not be over by Feb. 5 so we can all go on vacation? The party is in crisis, maybe even in therapy. How can there not be a front-runner???

And I think Salon's Walter Shapiro put his experienced finger on it: "There is the irresistible human temptation to impose rationality on chaos."

That's it! Journalists are ticked off because the Republican race is defying our attempts to wrap it into a nice, neat narrative. This is what we do for a living. And if we can't say what's going on, who needs us? You could get just as good a take from your Uncle Harry.

As the Carpetbagger noted, look at these takes, beginning with Adam Nagourney's post-Michigan analysis in the NYT:

"The convincing victory by Mitt Romney in the Michigan primary on Tuesday means three very different states -- with dissimilar electorates driven by distinctive sets of priorities -- have embraced three separate candidates in search of someone who can lead the party into a tough election and beyond President Bush."

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder sees bad news for the GOP:

"Four primaries and three winners have exposed, according to the dominant media, a Republican party that is listless, demoralized and casting about for unity.

"There aren't many Republicans who would disagree . . .