Commenting on the Republican primary in Florida tonight Tom Brokaw used a poker analogy to describe Mike Huckabee's current position in the race -- "He's holding a pair of twos." In other words, he doesn't have a premium hand, especially compared to what the other players at the table are holding, but it's still a hand. What Brokaw was getting at was that Huckabee, by taking votes from Romney among "values voters" in the Southern states, could still affect the race in a decisive way and earn political capital in the process, specifically with John McCain, who might seriously consider Huckabee as a running mate.
That got me to thinking about what hole cards the other candidates are holding at present (thoughts that admittedly won't make much sense unless you know the game of Texas Hold-em.)
On the Republican side, of the three players still in the pot, Huckabee has his ducks (a pair of twos), McCain has cowboys (a pair of kings) and Romney has jack-ten suited -- or maybe jack-ten unsuited, or maybe jack-queen suited, or maybe . . . well, with Romney it's hard to be more precise -- apparently he has a bunch of mediocre cards up his sleeve which he can play at will. In any case, McCain has a made hand and Romney is on a draw. Romney has enough chips in front of him to call McCain down to the river but he's chasing.
On the democratic side, Hillary is holding big slick, ace-king, and Obama is holding little slick, ace-queen. If neither hand improves, Hillary wins. Obama has to catch a queen and Hillary has to miss catching another king. For Obama, a queen would be a last-minute surge next Tuesday that keeps the delegate count close and convinces the old-guard Democratic party hacks that he has an unstoppable momentum which it would be too costly to get in the way of.
We'll see the flop in both games on Tsunami Tuesday.
In the big game, the general election in November, it will be heads-up (probably). If it's Clinton against McCain, Hillary will be holding seven-two off-suit and John will still have his cowboys, his two kings. Only a miracle would give the pot to Clinton. If it's Obama against McCain, Obama will be holding two queens against McCain's two tens. Obama would have the edge, but McCain could still get lucky, catch another ten and take it down.
Either way, we've got some interesting poker up ahead.