california: California has 170 delegate and Texas has 130. That would make the first 2 contests way more important. 300 delegates. Now that i think of it, Even if a candidate only wins California and Texas later on, They have quite a bit of power at the national convention.|||The G0P save the best for last. It will interesting who they vote for. I am banking that Perry won't even win his own state and Ron Paul will win California.|||California leans left so it has little value to Republicans. Texas always votes Conservatively or Republican so they can be ignored by the GOP and still win there.|||The truth is that the small state are only important in the election when the are the first states to have a vote.|||Same reason they drag out the Superbowl to 4 hours: mo' money! mo' money! mo' money!