Bombs away. The ad bombs begin.

[beagledave]

From Mittens' SuperPAC

From Santorum, ready to pre-empt Mittens.

I kind of like Frothy's. When was the last time we had a fake candidate running around with a mud machine gun? Too long, I say!

[Grace62]

The mud gun ad is pretty funny. Michigan is going to be wild.

Did you see Romney's editorial for the Detroit News? He has to explain to Michigan why in 2008 he wanted to let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt. He's still claiming that would have been a better approach. The main problem with his argument is that their were no private investors who wanted to bail out those companies. That's why the federal gov't had to step in as a last resort.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120.../202140336


Santorum was in Olympia, WA earlier this week, ironically at the same moment our governor was signing the gay marriage bill into law. He met with a group of conservative pastors and promised that this bill would "not be the last word." That's all I heard about his visit to the state.

Hey thanks for stopping by Rick.

[bazookaman]

[beagledave]

Grace62 wrote:
The mud gun ad is pretty funny. Michigan is going to be wild.

Nate Silver, as usual, has a good analysis of the challenge that Romney has.

I don't think that anyone believes that Santorum really has a 15 point lead in Michigan, but Romney still has the problem that a lot of his support comes from "marginal" voters.

AND, he has to decide just how negative to go. If Santorum doesn't thud on his own (like other candidates have done), Romney has to decide just how negative to get. Getting really negative now is counter productive to his long term strategy.

[Grace62]

The other problem for Romney is fundraising, believe it or not. He has relied on a small handful of very wealthy donors who each give the maximum $2,500. He's running out of people to ask for money, and word is that wealthy people don't like being asked for money by somebody as individually wealthy as Mitt Romney. They also don't want to throw good money into something that starts to look uncertain, which will be the case if Romney somehow loses his "home state" of Michigan. There is super PAC money, but that money can't be spent directly by the campaign; Romney's fundraising numbers will be made public.

Sure he could self-fund, to some extent, but that looks really bad to most voters. Donations aren't just money, they are messages of voter confidence and support.

As Nate Silver mentions, Romney has focused less on retail politics and he's not as good at that as Rick Santorum. And Romney doesn't seem to have the electability issue on his side any longer now that his poll numbers have fallen against the President, that was about all he had going for him, that plus lots of money.
I do think the disdain Romney has shown both for union workers and for the auto industry in general is going to bite him; if Santorum can pivot away from the social issues stuff and focus on his connection with blue collar workers, he might pull if off.