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.
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Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann will head straight from Iowa to South Carolina, bypassing New Hampshire.
What does the typical Iowa GOP caucus participant, with their outsized influence on the nominating process, look like?
He’s tapping into the darker fears about Obama more than you may realize.
A string of four firebombings — suspected to be bias crimes targeting Muslims — tonight in Queens.
Apparently no one was injured in the attacks, though two of the attacks seem to have triggered major fires.
Rupert Murdoch just got set up with a Twitter account over the weekend. And one of his first tweets seems to express at least some warm feelings if not quite an endorsement of Rick Santorum …
Good to see santorum surging in Iowa. Regardless of policies, all debates showed principles, consistency and humility like no other.
Thanks to TPM Reader BG for the tip.
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We’ve got yet another late poll out of Iowa tonight. This one from PPP.
The numbers aren’t dramatically out of line with the trend we’ve seen develop over the last week. But they heighten the drama.
And the results are: Paul 20%, Romney 19%, Santorum 18%, Gingrich 14%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 8%, Huntsman 4%, Roemer 2%.
Newly updated trend chart after the jump … Read More