As Rick Santorum has risen in the polls, and is has taken the number 2 spot in the GOP Primary, he’s changed his tone quite dramatically regarding the former Governor and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  Among few others who endorsed Romney in 2008 then flip flipped, Santorums flip flop is more particularly disturbing, given that Governor Romney is now his competitor and stands between Santorum and the nomination.  In 2008, Santorum had this to say about Governor Romney:

“”a guy who has gone through that pressure cooker, who has developed a passion, who understands why he’s a conservative and understands the issues, how they weave together.”

“I made, I hate to say it, a calculated political decision that Romney was the stronger horse and had a better chance to win Super Tuesday with the resources he had,” Santorum said. “I like him. The time I spent with him, he was a gentleman. He’s very sincere.”

Wow, and people think that the ads that were run by Romney were bad?  Ron Paul is nailing them to the wall mercilessly!  He hits Santorum accusing him of “taking the most lobbyist cash in Washington”.  This ad is airing in South Carolina.

As has been the case with all the Flavor of The Month candidates this season, the Tea Party and Anybody But Romney crowd has done it again.  They have rallied to Rick Santorum in hopes that he would be their next standard bearer while failing to look closely at his record and his remarks.  Most of us have become aware, as of late, that Santorum is an Earmark Specialist, but what has he really said about the Tea Party that he has so eagerly courted?  Well, see the video below and you’ll find out.  If you are a Tea Party person, I can promise you this won’t make you happy about a Santorum nomination.  By the way, Romney has never said anything like this about the Tea Party

Last night, Iowa was the first state to vote for who they think should be the nominee to go up against Barack Obama. The people spoke and Mitt Romney won Iowa with 30,015 (25%) votes and Santorum placed a close second with 30,007 (also 25%).  The rest of the pack, including Ron Paul, was a ways behind them. Michelle Bachmann did poorly enough that she decided to halt her presidential run. But what’s next? What does this all mean for the rest of the nomination process?

This is what I think we’ll be likely to see:

Santorum will see a slight boost out of Iowa, and honestly, he deserves it. He worked hard in Iowa (visiting all 99 counties and doing over 300 events there) and deserves a chance in the spotlight to be fairly looked at by the public. However, I don’t think he’ll see anywhere near the increase in support that the other surges saw. Intrade seems to agree with me, with Santorum sitting at only 4% to receive the GOP nomination. He doesn’t really stand any chance in New Hampshire (although he has stated that he intends to contest the primary there, which will keep him in the news for the next week), so if he’s going to make a stand, it’ll be in South Carolina. Conveniently, this is also the place where Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry will also be making their last stands. As a result, it seems unlikely that Santorum will finish in first in South Carolina because the other two will splinter the vote between the three of them, allowing Mitt (who already has pretty strong support there) a solid chance at winning the state. If Santorum doesn’t win or place second in South Carolina, he will be out of the race. If he does win, he will hope to carry his momentum into Florida, but I don’t see a likely scenario where he is able to pull that off, especially in a large state where organization is key.

Mitt Romney pulled off a tight win in Iowa and will probably see a slight boost. Somehow, the media is trying to spin this as a sign that he is weak because he only got the same number of votes as last time around, and he barely beat Santorum by only eight votes. I think they’re completely wrong and I hope that the voters will realize that. I’m pretty sure the Romney Campaign couldn’t be happier right now. Their main competition, Rick Santorum, has almost no money and almost no organization to contest the other early states with. The next state is New Hampshire, where Mitt Romney has consistently polled in the low 40′s and high 30′s (and his competition has only on occasion broken into the 20′s). With that momentum, he’ll head into South Carolina, where he has received the endorsement of Governor Nikki Haley, and John McCain who won South Carolina the last time around. He stands a really good chance at winning Florida (especially if he pulls off a win in South Carolina), and then it’ll be smooth sailing from there. Almost all the states voting in February are Mitt friendly and he stands a really good chance at pulling off a win in each of them. It’s really hard to think of a scenario where Mitt Romney is NOT the eventual nominee of the Republican Party.

But then we have the wild card. Newt Gingrich. He seems to have decided that being positive and trying to spread his economic message is no longer a valid goal (although he wasn’t really doing a good job at that anyways). With the way he was talking yesterday, it sounds like he intends to do everything he can to stop Mitt Romney, even if he goes down in the process. He doesn’t seem to care about the nomination anymore. He just wants revenge for what the Romney friendly Super PACs did to him (although he doesn’t seem to care about Ron Paul, whose actual campaign aired tons of negative ads against him). His vindictive attitude seems to be the  beginning of an onslaught and eventual bloodbath. The biggest wild card in my mind now is how these ads are received. If the people perceive these ads as petty attempts to slander someone, Gingrich will fade away and Mitt will be unscathed. But if the people perceive these ads as truths about Mitt Romney, then they could really do some damage to him. I think a major part of the outcome will be how Mitt responds to the attacks, in interviews, and especially during the debates. If he can respond confidently and resolutely, the attacks will fade away. If he is perceived to be avoiding the attacks, that could be very bad for his campaign. Granted, even in this scenario, I still think he’ll pull it out in the end and the voters will choose him, but it might be a little less enthusiastically, which could hurt the GOP’s chances against Obama in the fall. If Newt Gingrich really wants to beat Obama, then he either needs to present his positive message, or get out of the race. There’s no space for his slander.

In the end, I am pretty confident that Mitt will handle the attacks well, and will work hard in each state to make sure that he has a strong showing. In the end, I feel pretty confident that the people will decide to send Mitt Romney up against President Obama.

Let me add my worst case scenario for Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum fades away fast, and so does Newt Gingrich, leaving an opening for Rick Perry to redeem himself and regain his foothold as a frontrunner. This is the only scenario where I can imagine the race taking a long time to resolve. Rick Perry is the only one who has the organization and fundraising ability to continue through the whole country. Not only this, but he’s actually done pretty well at the last couple of debates. If he keeps having good debate performances, his chances will increase and people might be willing to forgive his missteps.

National Journal Magazine has a new political “insiderss” poll out today showing that both Republican and Democrat insiders believe that Romney will be the strongest candidate to face Obama.   You can see the Republican insiders overwhelmingly gave Romney their confidence.

Mitt Romney Ranks as Strongest Candidate to Go Against Obama

Q: Who would be the Republicans’ strongest presidential nominee in 2012?

Democrats (111 votes)

Rank/Candidate
1. Mitt Romney 29 percent
2. John Thune 15 percent
3. Tim Pawlenty 13 percent
4. Mitch Daniels 11 percent
5. Newt Gingrich 6 percent
6. Haley Barbour 5 percent
6. Jeb Bush 5 percent
8. Mike Huckabee 3 percent
8. Bobby Jindal 3 percent
8. Sarah Palin 3 percent

Also receiving votes: Dick Cheney, 2 percent; Michael Bloomberg, Eric Cantor, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, no one, 1 percent each.

Romney

“He can raise money, has something of a national base, has been around the presidential block, can talk about the economy, looks good on TV, and handles himself well.”

Q: Please rank the top five candidates, 1 through 5, in terms of who you think is most likely to capture the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Republicans (109 votes)

Rank/Candidate/Insiders Index*
1. Mitt Romney 81
2. Tim Pawlenty 46
3. John Thune 38
4. Haley Barbour 28
5. Mitch Daniels 25
5. Sarah Palin 25
7. Newt Gingrich 14
7. Mike Huckabee 14
9. Jeb Bush 6
10. Bobby Jindal 5

*METHODOLOGY: All 127 Republicans among National Journal’s Political Insiders were asked to name and rank the top five contenders for their party’s 2012 presidential nomination; 109 participated. In tallying the rankings, a first-place vote was worth 5 points, a second-place vote 4 points, and so on. The Insiders Index reflects the percentage of points that each contender received out of the maximum possible. For example, Mitt Romney scored an Index rating of 81, meaning he received 81 percent of the possible 545 points, the number he would have had if all 109 participants had ranked him first.

Romney

“In a downturn, trading a community organizer for a businessman may seem like a no-brainer.”

Mark B. Lowe over at Race42012.com gave this analysis:

My analysis: The first thing that leaps out at me is the questions. It is not, “Whom would you vote for”, or ,”Whom would you like to see”? The question to the Democrats was, “Whom would be the strongest opponent”? The question to the Republicans was, “Who is the most likely to obtain the nomination”? Note the difference? None of this “favorables” touchy-feely stuff.

The second thing that strikes me is the term “political insiders”. The grass roots like to sneer at them, but it has long been my experience that the middle layers of any organization are the ones who really run things. They are the ones that make things work in spite of the ravings from the top. The top determine policy. The middle actually sees that it gets done in spite of the top echelon in many cases. So don’t blame them for the policy screw-ups during the Bush years.

These are not part-time political junkies. These are the guys whose very jobs and careers depend on their political judgment. If outsiders such as us call a political shot wrong, we lose face. If they call a political shot wrong, they lose their jobs.

The final thing that strikes me is that I pretty much agree with them. As I see it now, the two people most likely to win the nomination are Pawlenty and Romney. They are the ones making the right moves in order to lay a foundation for a successful run. Huckabee and Palin are acting more like celebrities than candidates. If they are truly going to run, I see them making the same mistakes now that ultimately cost Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson the nomination last time.