You have to hand it to the Republicans… they’re efficient.

With Mitt Romney out of the race, the Republicans have their man. John McCain will be the Republican candidate for president. Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul remain in the race in name only, and I would be very surprised if they’re around a week from now.

So while the Republican field is pretty much set, the Democrats don’t have a clue.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are virtually tied with a long fight ahead. And even with Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania still out there, along with some smaller states, it’s entirely possible the Democrats won’t decide their nominee until their August convention.

One of the reasons the two parties find themselves in such different positions is this: in many states, Republicans use the winner-take-all system for delegates. The whole thing goes much faster that way. The Democrats, on the other hand, divide their delegates proportionally making it much harder for one candidate to get enough delegates to win.

This enables the Republicans to set about unifying the party, and plotting their strategy and message for November.

While they’re doing that, Clinton and Obama fight on – spending millions of dollars trying to take each other out – money that could be used to fight John McCain in the fall instead of each other now.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/07/does-gop-have-an-edge-over-democrats/