An interesting night in Florida has brought some much needed clarity to the Republican primary. Lets examine the implications...

First, McCain is now the strong favourite to win the nomination, and has finally shown that he can win without independents. He has not yet shown that he can without Mike Huckabee taking votes away from Mitt Romney, but he may not have to. Huckabee is clearly angling for the vice presidency (Vice President to a 72 year old President is a pretty appealing post for those with ambitions of the Presidency) and is likely to court favour with McCain and additional publicity by staying in the race.

Second, Giuliani's entire campaign strategy must go down as a collosal miscalculation. Funding shortfalls and a one-tone campaign message that involved referring to 9/11 whenever and wherever possible played their part in his demise. But the crucial problem was that his decision to sit out the first round of votes starved him of media coverage and . This inevitably started to erode his poll ratings in states such as Florida where he was once the front-runner. His declaration that the winner of Florida would win the nomination left him no alternative but to pull out after a humiliating third place.

Third, Mitt Romney is still a threat, and a well-funded threat, to John McCain. But, while Mike Huckabee stays in the race, he takes away socially conservative voters from McCain and complicates Romney's efforts to win. This is shown in the Florida exit polls - McCain won among those who seldom or never attend church, Romney won among those who attend monthly or weekly. However, among the 17% of the electorate who attend church more than once a week - Huckabee won - handing McCain a victory at Romney's expense.

On the democratic side, although Florida's delegates will not be seated at the convention, and neither candidate expended significant resources in the state, Hillary Clinton gained a boost from her win in Florida. Her victory speech gained good television coverage and, despite Barack Obama's best efforts, most voters are likely unaware that no delegates were at stake.

And with that, on to Super Tuesday!