Campaigns have a way of not working by logical principles or, perhaps we should say, Newtonian physics. But I think Roger Simon has the gist of where the GOP primary campaign is right now. Namely, 1st, 2nd and 3rd are equally wins for Mitt Romney tomorrow night. And a Santorum surge doesn’t matter all that much. Why? Because there are only two candidates in the race who have the wherewithal to seriously challenge Romney over the long haul: Gingrich and Perry. If they’re losers tomorrow night, they’re probably done. And Rick Santorum just doesn’t have the money or the organization or the staying power outside a state like Iowa to seriously challenge Romney.

Like I said, I resist these deductive reasoning approaches to campaign analysis. There are always emergent properties we can’t quite predict. But this analysis is pretty hard to find fault with.

Just a quick update: Since the weekend we’ve been having problems with our comments system. Our team is working as quickly as we can to get it resolved. Thanks for your patience. We’ll be updating you on our progress at our site status page.

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann will head straight from Iowa to South Carolina, bypassing New Hampshire.