Romney Takes New Hampshire While Conservatives Founder

Mitt Romney has won his second contest, and first primary of the season. He is also the first non-incumbent Republican to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. So where are we now? First, Romney has finally broken the 25% ceiling capturing about 37% of the vote. Second, Ron Paul's number two finish couldn't make the Romney camp happier. Paul's libertarian 25% are a real spoiler for conservatives, not to mention Jon Huntsman who put all his eggs into New Hampshire, and came away with a third place finish. All in all, Romney should feel pretty good about heading into the next contest in South Carolina. How did this happen? Well when you have a Republican electorate that believes you can have an amorphous position on any issue, can't tell the difference between fact and fiction, and lives on a steady diet of pablum from FOX News, and Rush Limbaugh, you get Mitt Romney. He's done his time, it's his turn at bat. As the saying goes, Republicans don't fall in love, they fall in line.

As for the conservatives, they are in chaos. Why Rick Perry is still in this race is anybodies guess? However, after a poor showing in Iowa, and a somber speech to re-evaluate his candidacy, less than 12 hours later "We're on to South Carolina!" I have no proof of this, but my hunch is Romney made a phone call promising Perry a place in his new administration if he stayed in. In any event the turn around was rapid, and highly suspicious. Gingrich who got carpet bombed by Romney ads in Iowa, is going to return the favor in South Carolina, and once again this is probably just going to help Obama in the long run. Gingrich continues to drop in the polls, and is going to launch as many torpedo's as he can at Romney, before he goes down on his own ship. The question is will the Gingrich attacks work? possibly, but he certainly won't reap any of the benefits personally. Santorum's faith, family, and freedom message will probably resonate in South Carolina. This from the man who said in last Saturday's debate, "their are no classes in America." OMG! really Rick? He is also still battling the money and organization problem. Huntsman is planning to continue his challenge to Romney in South Carolina, but to what effect? You have 3 conservatives, a libertarian, and a moderate all still thinking they can steal S.C. from Romney, and nothing could be further from the truth. All they are doing is continuing to fracture the electorate, insuring that Romney wins.

There is something else worth mentioning here. Romney's fervor to portray himself as the everyman. A multi-millionaire, with million dollar homes dotting the landscape, who says he's unemployed, and has feared the pink slip, is offensive in the extreme. To paint himself as a standard bearer for the working middle class of this country is nothing short of hysterical. The man is the living embodiment of Gordon Gecko. A man who has slashed and burned companies at the expense of the workers, in order to bolster his investors bottom line. It is Republican hypocrisy in its purest form. An independent evaluation of his economic plan said taxes on those making $40,000 a year will increase, while Millionaires will get a %5 tax cut, that's your REAL everyman. Of course this doesn't bother all the hard line, right-wing, free market, capitalists, they live to make money off the misfortune of others. You know, survival of the fittest, Wall Street personified. New Hampshire's motto works great here: Live Free or DIE! At any rate, if he can sustain the next barrage of attacks leading up to South Carolina and pulls off another win, its probably game over. However, if by some miracle one of the conservatives pulls off a win, we'll have a whole new ball game. Personally, Romney seems to have a Teflon coating that his opponents just can't get past. He puts plenty of shit out, but nothing his fellow candidates throw his way seems to stick. My money is on Romney, but I'd love to be wrong.