McCain Gaining

McCain seems to be gaining. He's shot up in the national polls since Florida (from 27% to 43%). National Review has this update:

In the McCain pile, he keeps all of his big winner-take-all states (Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) and while I'm taking some out of his previous total in California, he's doing much better in the South (Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee). In this count, the polls hold, and he wins the winner-take-all battleground of Missouri. In addition, he should get the most delegates out of Illinois, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.

Before I put McCain somewhere north of 400 delegates; now I'm calculating out to 500 and change.I'd give Ron Paul a majority of Alaska's 29 delegates, and a few here, a few there in states without the 15 percent threshold. He may break 50 delegates for the day.

That would put things at about McCain at 600+ total delegates, (needing 1,191 to be the nominee), Romney a bit under 400 total delegates, Huckabee at 150 delegates or so.

Under this scenario, the race won't be over, but McCain will have a clear lead, and time will be running low for Romney to close the gap.

Meanwhile Romney and Huckabee are bickering. Huckabee had harsh, harsh criticism of Romney. This is understandable on Huckabee's end. Romney's making the "A Vote For Huckabee is a Vote for McCain" argument, which is very persuasive to conservative voters wanting to vote for a winner. Huckabee knows he has to counter this. But his harsh criticism undercuts his nice-guy image. His venom against Romney and love-fest with McCain underscores just the point Romney's making.

Huckabee is likewise undercut by his continued appeal to evangelicals. His inability to broaden past this base was the strategic mistake of his candidacy starting in December 2007.

A note from Time: The night of the Iowa caucuses McCain called Huckabee to congratulate him, and Huckabee told McCain, according to aides: "Now it's your turn to kick his butt," "his" referring to Romney.