Michigan

Michigan is competing with Florida for the Most Confusing Primary award. Both state parties moved their primaries forward to before Super Tuesday (for which they will presumably rot in hell) and have been punished by their national superiors.

On the Democrat side, the state has been stripped of all its 156 delegates and Obama and Edwards have pulled their names from the ballot. State officials expect their delegates to eventually be reinstated so the result here may ultimately count towards the final tally. Support Edwards or Obama? You can’t write in their names, because state officials have declared write-ins invalid and will throw out your ballot. If at least 15% of voters vote for “Uncommitted” in any district, they’ll  be represented by an unpledged delegate if the delegates are reinstated. Clinton will win this one by a long way, but look for Kucinich to pick up a slice of the anti-Hillary pie, since his is the only other high profile name on the ballot (unless you count Gravel).

Another option bandied about is for Democrats to vote in the open Republican primary for Mitt Romney (supposedly the weakest viable Republican). Up for grabs for the Republicans are 30 delegates (which will increase to 60 if the RNC rescind their punishment), which are allocated in the sort of overcomplicated way that characterizes this strange process. Although polling is very volatile – five candidates have led in different polls since August – the most recent show Romney and McCain duking it out for top honors with Huckabee close behind:

	Romney	McCain	Huckabee	Paul	Giuliani	Thompson	Unknown/Other
RCP Average	26%	25%	16%	6%	6%	5%	15%
Dec-Jan Average	23%	22%	17%	6%	9%	5%	19%

It’s a tough one to call, but I expect McCain will pick up more independents and pip Romney at the post.