Meanwhile, South of the Border

Despite a pair of humiliating set-backs in Alabama and Mississippi last week, Mitt Romney is still on course to stumble over the finish line in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Despite an overwhelming desire to find anyone else up to the job, the Anybody But Romney options have imploded one by one - first Bachman, then Perry, then Cain, then Gingrich. When Rick Santorum is the only alternative left standing, you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. So it's no surprise that the delegate math is still heavily in Romney's favour, and that the election stock markets still peg him as an 89% favourite to win the nomination.

But his odds of taking the White House are far less than that, despite Obama's lackluster approval ratings. Although Romney is routinely described as the most "electable" Republican in the field, he has two glaring flaws that should ensure Obama's re-election.


Flaw 1. Romney reminds me of John Kerry v 2.0 - he flips, he flops, he lacks convictions. Voters want a leader who stands for something and, unlike the rest of the Republican field, it's unclear what Romney believes in. Just as Kerry's past made it difficult for him to attack Bush on Iraq, Romney's past makes it difficult for him to criticize Obamacare. It's going to be very difficult to attack Obama's Health Care model during debates, when Obama just needs to smile and thank Mitt for providing the Massachusetts model it was based on.

Romney's wishy washineness has allowed him to get pulled into issues that are better left dormant. The only thing making contraception a major election issue accomplishes, is energizing Democrats who were otherwise indifferent to this election after being let down by Obama.


Flaw 2. The one issue Romney may be able to ride to the White House is the economy, but Romney's business background only highlights his second fatal flaw - his inability to relate. Say what you will about them, but the one thing Barack Obama, George W Bush, and Bill Clinton were all able to do was connect with voters. So while Obama is sinking three pointers and cracking jokes this fall, expect more awkwardness from Romney, in line with his "$10,000 bet", "I'm not concerned about the very poor" and "some of my friends own NASCAR teams" Richie Rich moments.

If Obama wants to take on Wall Street and the top 1% this election, he couldn't have designed a better opponent. After all, you can't spell Romney without "money".


So while Democrats may be hoping for divine intervention to deliver them a Santorum nomination, they really should be counting their blessings that Romney will be the nominee. He may look like a formidable opponent, but Romney is the perfect foil for Obama to be up against.

McCain Mitts His Match, and other news

The Mittster came up with a big win in Michigan last night, keeping it a four man race for the Republican nomination. The next big test is South Carolina, where McCain will try and exorcise the ghosts of 2000. Meanwhile, Giuliani's strategy to lull his opponents into a sense of overconfidence by sucking royally in the early primaries appears to be working swimmingly, given his 3% sixth place showing in Michigan.



The markets still have McCain in front but no one seems to stay the front runner for long in this race.

In Other News...

-Having already gone with a brutally bad pun in the post headline, I'll resist the urge to use any obvious "nuclear" play-on-words when recapping the Linda Keen firing. Actually, I won't use any words to recap this one because, truth be told, I haven't been following this story very closely. Thoughts?

-Writer's strike got you down? Well, the CBC will be airing another edition of "Test the Nation" this Sunday. I mention this only because I will be part of the blogging team (which will, I suspect, be quite ineffective without our trusted friend "google"). With over 200 people in studio, this should give me a good idea of what it's like to be a backbench MP, if nothing else.

-PTimHB has more on the upcoming Alberta election - looks like a promise to scrap health care premiums could be in Stelmach's platform. Flip-flops aside, it would be a smart political move on his part and it's not like Alberta is short on cash.

Primary Numbers

It's election night in New Hampshire as the tiny state of one million people helps select the next President. I'll be flipping back and forth between the results and the hockey game so expect updates here throughout the evening. Given that I'm neither a New Hamshirite nor an American, I'm aware that my opinion doesn't really matter but here's my thoughts on the candidates who could still win the Presidency:


Democrats

I would have been on the Gore bandwagon had he decided to toss his hat in but, understandably, he's happy winning everything except the Presidency (although some could argue he has already won that too...). As it is, I keep bouncing back and forth between the three front runners.

I really like what Barack Obama represents...I jut don't really understand why he represents what he represents. I have yet to see any coherent argument as to why he represents "change" more than Edwards or Clinton but, hey, it's a fun ride to watch and he'd make a hell of a candidate. But Hillary's getting attacked by Lou Dobbs right now so that probably means she's doing something right, and Edwards has as much charisma and better policy than either of the other two so I'd be fine with any of them.


Republicans

This race is the fun one. I'm joining Jesus and Chuck Norris in endorsing Mike Huckabee. Not only is a regular on the Colbert Report but, as pointed out recently by a few libloggers, he's made a 22 Minutes cameo:



If you thought Stockwell Day was a fun candidate to follow, just imagine Stockwell Day with a sense of humour!

From Colbert's buddy, we move to Jon Stewart's. John McCain is expected to win tonight and has staged quite the comeback after being left for dead this fall. McCain is probably the most electable man in the field, although the generation gap is going to be the size of the Grand Canyon if it's him against Obama. He gets full marks for the best line of the New Hampshire debates when he agreed wholeheartedly that Mitt Romney is the candidate of change.

Fred Thompson, to the best of my knowledge, is still in this race, but it's possible he's dropped out and I just missed it.

Rudy Giuliani is just hoping no one forgets about him by the time Super Tuesday rolls around. I don't mind Rudy - he cameo'd on Seinfeld once - but I have a hard time endorsing someone if his win means having to look up the spelling of his name every time I post about him during his Presidency.


LIVE UPDATES:

8:00 pm: The polls close and CNN makes the ever-so-bold prediction that...John Edwards will be third! I guess they're going to hold off on that bold "Richardson finishes fourth" call until some more data comes in.

8:05 pm: CNN is profiling Salem now. Full credit to Wolf Blitzer for resisting the obvious Hillary Clinton joke.

8:16 pm: CNN projects that McCain wins New Hampshire. I guess it's time for Romney to get those push polls into the field in South Carolina...

8:32 pm: Clinton 40%, Obama 36%, Edwards 17%, Richardson 4%. You know, I'm shocked that Jed Bartlett's endorsement in his home state couldn't move votes for Richardson.

10:24 pm: Edwards is conceding now and he's using the SNL Gore "health care" speech...or at least a very close approximation to it. Clinton's up by over 4,000 votes with 63% of the polls in, so it certainly appears that she'll eek this one out. Not a great result if you think about it but, given the polls over the last two days, it likely leaves the Democratic nomination as a pick 'em.

I think the take home message from tonight is that Super Tuesday is going to be very interesting for both parties. And, while it's still early, does anyone else get the sense that the Republican nomination might actually come down to a delegated convention?