If Romney does win, the race is thrown into even more turmoil. South Carolina would be a three-way toss-up, with Fred Thompson taking a piece of everyone else’s total. Romney probably has a leg up in Nevada because he’s the only one with organization out there, but it’s the same day as South Carolina so it won’t get as much interest from the media. Florida comes next, and it’s Giuliani’s last stand, but the latest polls show as much as a four-way tie. And nobody has the resources at this point to compete in all the February 5 states, which means they’ll all just be crossing their fingers.

Here’s to the clusterfuck!

I wish I could also get paid a lot of money to rationalize losing. It’s about as likely that Romney is going to put together a victory through Michigan as it is that his father actually marched with Martin Luther King in the 1960s.

It’s been awhile since there was any polling done in the state.  But the most recent measures did not look good for Mitt – Rasmussen’s Dec. 8 poll showed Huckabee taking the lead, and we all know what happened in the last state where that occurred.  What’s more, it appears that Michiganders were so enamored of Romney after the October debate in Dearborn that they put Rudy Giuliani ahead of him in a November poll.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Michigan has lost half of its delegates for bucking Republican Party rules and moving the date of the primary up to Jan. 15.  That means that even if Romney wins, he won’t be able to claim a decisive delegate count as evidence of his momentum.

So what’s really going on out there in Michigan?  McCain is making a significant press, according to the Ann Arbor News, with two events planned in the state over the coming week.  Dawson Bell at the Detroit Free Press points out that McCain has a variety of endorsements in the state, as well as organization to put up a fight against Romney.  And he also warns of the unsettled state of the Republican electorate, highlighting Huckabee’s recent gains among the state’s religious conservatives.  That can’t be good news for Romney, whose loss of “values voters” to Huckabee in Iowa proved his undoing.  In a state that has had its economy sundered by the global marketplace, the former Arkansas Governor’s cracks about not wanting to elect the guy that took your job away from you ought to ring true.

For a formerly presumptive frontrunner who told us he’d run away with the early contests, telling us you’ll pull it out in the third real contest (since not even Romney is trumpeting his Wyoming victory) doesn’t sound too hopeful.  It might be time to pull the family car into the rest stop and hose down the dog again.

That was a joke. The GOP candidates are, of course, wonderful people, and there’s no better way to get ready for the Orange Bowl than to exercise your democratic right to decide whether the party of moral values should be represented in the fall elections by an adulturer with anger-management problems or by an amoral flip-flopper.

Meanwhile, the Politico reports that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is not ruling out a December 2007 primary date. Gardner is standing on the ledge, muttering “don’t make me do it,” waiting for Michigan’s next move:

Gardner pointed out a rarely-noticed part of the New Hampshire law that says he must set a primary date for “each year when a president of the United States is to be elected OR THE YEAR PREVIOUS.” (emphasis added.)

The law anticipates that other states might threaten New Hampshire’s status by moving their contests to very early in January.

And Michigan may do that.

There seems to be a sort of convergence here. I expect that, by mid-November, we’ll learn that Michigan has re-scheduled its primary for three weeks ago, Ron Paul won because his supporters turn up everywhere, even the past, and now New Hampshire is threatening to move its primary date to October 1975.

The Republican National Committee plans to penalize at least four states holding early primaries, including New Hampshire and Florida, by refusing to seat at least half their delegates at the party’s national convention in 2008, a party official said Tuesday. [...]

“The rules are clear,” said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “Any state that holds their primary outside of the window shall be penalized delegates.”

In addition to Florida and New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina also face sanctions for moving their contests before Feb. 5. Two other early nominating states, Iowa and Nevada, will escape Republican sanctions because they hold nonbinding caucuses, not primaries.

While the DNC made an exception for New Hampshire and South Carolina, the RNC has not — which raises the stakes, given those states’ interest in maintaining their position at the front of the calendar. New Hampshire’s Republican chairman was sounding belligerent:

Fergus Cullen, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, said the party would hold to its primary, now set for early January, to maintain its historic role as the first primary state, even if it had to accept the penalties.

“If we end up being stripped of delegates, that is the price we are willing to pay,” Mr. Cullen said.

The precise outline of the controversy won’t be known until after Sept. 4, when the state committees are due to submit their nomination plans to the RNC. But given the relatively more stringent rules on the GOP side, it looks like the Republicans could be in for an even dicier game of chicken than the Democrats.

UPDATE: Jerome Armstrong points out that, compared to what has happened among the Democrats so far, the Republican approach to the calendar fight is pretty low-key. Jerome argues that, unless the GOP winds up with a brokered convention, the effects of the showdown are likely to be minimal.

So, if you assume another 6 months as bad as these 6 months (and that the rates stay relatively stable in these states), Florida, Colorado, and Michigan would have a number of foreclosing households greater than the swing of the 2004 election results in those states.

Now, I am not saying that these are all Republican voters. Indeed, many of them will not be. But, by and large, people who think that their incomes will go up tend to vote Republican. In any case, with these large numbers, it is clear that this has the potential to become an election issue. Furthermore, with Nevada, Michigan, and Florida having very early contests, there is a real chance that Presidential candidates will have to take positions on these issues.

Candidates will need a message on this. Maybe they will need policies. In any case, electorally significant numbers of people will be effected by this issue.

I think Dayton is right, and I’ll try to track how the candidates approach the issue as the campaign continues.

Former Governor Mitt Romney (MA), born in Detroit, Mich., recorded 10 percent in the state, good for third place, where his father, George W. Romney, was governor from 1963 to 1969.

Senator John McCain placed second and third, respectively, in neighboring states California and New Mexico.

Expect the numbers of Senator Sam Brownback (KS) to increase as time progresses. He is expected to announce tomorrow in his home state and when the Christian conservatives begin to express support for him, his standing should rise. To what extent remains to be seen.

The biggest impediment to success for Jim Gilmore, former Virginia Governor, is name recognition. His conservative credentials and national security experience would make him a tough opponent in the primaries — if people knew who he was.

Left off the ballot: Congressman Tom Tancredo (CO), Congressman Duncan Hunter (CA), Congressman Ron Paul (TX), John H. Cox (IL), and “The Other Candidates.”