Does it all come down to Michigan? (and maybe Ohio)

[beagledave]

Heh.

Whoulda thunk that Mitt's future might be decided in the Mitten state.

[cbelt3]

Mitt ? Future ? *cough* key point... whomever the Republicans nominate has to defeat Obama in order to *have* a future. Don't see it.

[Rick-o]

beagledave wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
Ouch!

Public Policy Polling (PDF). February 10-12. Likely Michigan Republican primary voters. ±4.9%. No trends.

Rick Santorum: 39
Mitt Romney: 24
Ron Paul: 12
Newt Gingrich: 11


"Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP's newest national poll. He's at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul."
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/

Time to Super PAC ad bomb Frothy back to the stone age.

https://twitter.com/#!/ppppolls/statuses...4124320769

If I was a tv ad exec in Michigan, I would be rubbing my hands with glee right now.
I'm seriously considering selling all of my tvs. I may have to disconnect my landline while I'm at it.

Political commercials...Ick!!

[mattkime]

beagledave wrote:
Heh.

Whoulda thunk that Mitt's future might be decided in the Mitten state.

:agree:

[beagledave]

This could be kind of interesting to watch.

Will Drudge devote a whole news cycle to unleashing stories about Santorum?

Will Ann Coulter be put in a position of having to publicly smack down Frothy?


Gingrich is a genuinely irritating and arrogant person for even those who might agree with some of his politics. So I don't think it was hard for many GOP-ers to line up to bash him hard.

My impression of Santorum is that he doesn't seem as personally annoying and arrogant to people who might agree with some of his politics. Will that make it harder to run the kind of scorched earth attack ads that were run in Florida?

[$tevie]

Santorum has 44 delegates. Romney has 98. If Santorum gets ALL of Michigan's delegates he'll have 74. How could this possibly mean a race which requires 1,144 delegates is over?

[beagledave]

$tevie wrote:
Santorum has 44 delegates. Romney has 98. If Santorum gets ALL of Michigan's delegates he'll have 74. How could this possibly mean a race which requires 1,144 delegates is over?

I'm saying that if Romney wins Michigan and Ohio, I don't see a legitimate path for Santorum (or anyone else) to defeat him over the course of the process.

If Santorum wins, especially Michigan, things become more interesting in terms of the feeling of inevitability about Romney.

I think that Romney is still regarded as more "electable" by most movers and shakers in the GOP (see Grace's RedState bit as an example)

But if Romney loses Michigan and Ohio, things get more interesting.

[mrbigstuff]

[Grace62]

beagledave wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
Santorum has 44 delegates. Romney has 98. If Santorum gets ALL of Michigan's delegates he'll have 74. How could this possibly mean a race which requires 1,144 delegates is over?

I'm saying that if Romney wins Michigan and Ohio, I don't see a legitimate path for Santorum (or anyone else) to defeat him over the course of the process.

If Santorum wins, especially Michigan, things become more interesting in terms of the feeling of inevitability about Romney.

I think that Romney is still regarded as more "electable" by most movers and shakers in the GOP (see Grace's RedState bit as an example)

But if Romney loses Michigan and Ohio, things get more interesting.
Most definitely - because if that happens, and it's already happening to some extent, the money will move away from Romney. Santorum was able to pull in $3 million in just a couple of days after his triple header last week. This is a guy who had $180.42 in the bank when Romney had $19 million, and yet still beat him.
I find it incredible, but Santorum has now pulled ahead in national polling, with 4 major polls averaged:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/...-1452.html

Yes other "not Romneys" had their moments in the sun, but not while people were actually voting. This is different. Gingrich was easy to attack after South Carolina because all you have to do is talk about his own history and his own behavior and personality. It's not quite so easy with Santorum, who is doing a good job of turning this into David v. Goliath. And it's weird to have a vanilla frontrunner like Romney who does not excite people v. an extremist whiner who is somehow likeable. Weird!

[Dennis S]

I think this race will lurch back and forth harder and harder as it goes on.