Romney Wins Michigan!

The Republican race continues to be without a clear front-runner, and the number of viable contenders has increased by one - Mitt Romney is back in the game. For all the money he has spent in this contest as a whole it seemed inevitable that he would win something. He couldn't be so unappealing that after millions and millions of dollars invested he wasn't going to win anything but...well, you know that anything I write about Romney now is not going to be impartial, right? Because it isn't. I don't like him. I still don't like him. And I'm somewhat annoyed he's still in the race and now back in contention again.

Why did Romney win in Michigan? Because he offered the easy message. The dishonest one. He told the people of Michigan he would rebuild the auto-industry and take Michigan back to the good old days. It's a comforting thing to tell people, that you can reverse time and make them prosperous again. It's also a lie. McCain lost because he told the *truth* to the people of Michigan, for whom the economy was overwhelmingly the biggest factor in deciding their vote. McCain told them a harder story, that you can't go home again and the jobs were lost, but that he would support Michigan in building itself back up by going down the harder but realistic route - constructing new industries in Michigan based off of clean energy technology to become the world's centre for green tech, in the same way Michigan was the world's centre for the auto-industry fifty years ago.

I think Romney's win is based upon extreme dishonesty, which doesn't help my image of him one little bit. But he did win quite convincingly, so congratulations to him for that. I just hope the people of later states hand him his things and ask him to go home.

Giuliani has got to be happy about the situation, though not his personal showing. For all the feigned lack of concern over his extremely poor showing I put forward this thought - if he was a compelling national front-runner whose appeal transcended his need to campaign (which he's relying on for Super Tuesday states to sweep for him) why isn't he doing better in states he's not campaigning in? If Rudy's not there leading the people by the hand to the polling station, Rudy does *badly* at the polls. What prospect does this create for his nomination? I think he could pull it off in Florida (though latest polls say that, despite having the state all to himself he's in a tie with the other front-runners) but we should be cautious about projecting his potential beyond the state to which he seems to have permanently moved.

Let me spin a hypothetical. It's unlikely, but something close it to is certainly possible. Huckabee took Iowa, Romney took Wyoming (but noone cared), McCain took New Hampshire, Romney took Michigan (and this time they did care.) So essentially it's one win for Romney, Huckabee and McCain. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Giuliani wins in Florida - after all, he's spent enough time campaigning there! The slightly crazy part is if Thompson wins South Carolina, which he's banking on to stay in the race but is rather unlikely. Going into Super Tuesday you have the potential of having literally no clear front-runner. If the Super-Duper Tuesday nations split for different candidates then the later calender gets to play a role in the nomination and it could go all the way to the convention. Fun stuff!