*heavy sigh* Romney will win Michigan
I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s looking like Mitt Romney’s hail-mary pass in Michigan is going to be completed.
The latest polling data is here. People who’ve been watching the polls carefully during this election cycle will have realized two things.
First: Rasmussen is having an almost scary-good year in terms of anticipating trends that are revealed later in other polls. In particular, Rasmussen was WAY out in front in terms of both the Huckabee and Obama surges. In Michigan, Rasmussen was the first pollster to detect a narrow lead for Romney; now the local pollsters are falling into line.
Second: the only thing that is holding the average down for Romney is the ARG poll. ARG is running just ahead of Fox News where the booby prize is concerned this election cycle; they also boofed things memorably in 2004. It is amazing to me that they can continue to exist in a competitive polling environment.
Romney’s people actually did some very smart positioning for their man in the late stages of the New Hampshire process; he began positioning himself as the candidate of choice for people concerned about America’s economic competitiveness. It didn’t seem to make much sense then. With Michigan a few days away, it makes a lot more sense now.
Romney’s Michigan stock is trading at about 3:1 on most exchanges. The market is focusing on polling averages and on past performances. Buy Romney-MI now, and thank me later. And we’ll all suffer together when the media overreacts by declaring his campaign “viable” again and by overreacting to a mythical “McCain catastrophe”.
Out of all the “other” candidates I like Fred the best (or dislike the least).
I thinking a brawl maybe just what the party needs.
Comment by daveg — 1/14/2008 @ 6:10 am
A brawl is exactly what Rudolph Giuliani is praying for, anyhow.
Comment by Adam — 1/14/2008 @ 9:07 am
ya think?
Seem to me that the more people see of Rudy the less they like.
But, the “powers that be” might be able to shove Rudy down the throats of the unsuspecting Republican grunt. I agree that there is a risk there.
Comment by daveg — 1/14/2008 @ 10:20 am
Giuliani needs a brawl for his strategy to work; if there’s a putative winner before Florida comes around, Rudy’s toast, so he needs the wins in the earlier states he’s not contesting to be spread around the field. His ideal situation is probably a Romney victory in New Hampshire and a narrow Thompson victory in South Carolina (or, failing that, a narrow Huckabee victory in South Carolina). The very last thing he wants is McCain coming out of Michigan and South Carolina with victories, in any case (which I don’t expect to happen, myself, incidentally).
Comment by Adam — 1/14/2008 @ 1:19 pm
Still, hard to see where Romney goes from Michigan.
Comment by Brad — 1/14/2008 @ 1:58 pm
I guess that he hopes to take McCain out and become the guy that the GOP establishment rally around as the anti-Huck (not entirely dissimilar to McCain’s plan, I guess, but with the names swapped).
Comment by Adam — 1/14/2008 @ 2:57 pm
Of course, as far as Rudy is concerned, he has to actually win Florida for his play to make a lick of sense, which seems to me, at this point, unlikely.
If Thompson is the anti-Huckabee, and Huckabee is the anti-Romney, and Romney is the anti-McCain, who the hell is Rudy Giuliani again?
As far as Romney is concerned, McCain’s win and current resurgence takes him at least through February 5th, where he’ll be perfectly competitive, but Romney may well not. I just don’t see how Romney can take him out in time at this point.
Comment by Brad — 1/14/2008 @ 3:16 pm