Primary Math

McCain is losing tonight in a caucuses in Kansas, Washington, and LA.

The math going forward is pretty clear: he needs to win in Virginia and Maryland on Tuesday, then Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio by March 4th. This will put him about 60 votes short of the nomination.

Early March is crucial because both parties intentionally put a "Dead Zone" into the race: there are NO primaries between March 11th in Mississippi, and April 22 in Pennsylvania. There intention was to give the nominees--who were supposed to have been picked last Tuesday--the chance to decompress, raise money, and gear up for the general election. Instead, it's going to be a five week version for politics what the "off" week is before the Super Bowl: a chance for the entire Washington press corps to go absolutely bonkers. No news will be able to move the central narrative on the Democratic side---who's up or down in the delegate horserace--so it's going to be five solid weeks of hyperventilated non-story stories. McCain's going to want to be in the clear before this happens, and the press would like nothing better than to drag the Republicans into the uncertain nomination story, if only to give it more dimensions.