First off, the RNC has the right idea here:
Chairman Reince Priebus doesn’t want any part of this primary, and I think that we can all agree that this is a quite refreshing development, yes?
Moving on… well, it’s Romney’s to win. The question is, by how much. I’m seeing it bandied about – mostly be Gingrich’s people – that if Romney ‘only’ wins with less than 40% of the vote then he’s losing momentum. Looking at the current polling… um, no. The polling samples are closer to NH’s 2008 exit polls (which had the partisan breakdown at 61R/37I/2D) than Iowa polling was to IA’s 2008 entrance polling; so it’s a bit reasonable to think that Romney’s going to hit the upper to mid thirties in Iowa. If that also means a twenty point lead then it means that Romney won New Hampshire without particularly slowing down. Romney will only be in trouble at about +10 or so.
Moe Lane
PS: Erick Erickson has an excellent point here, by the way, and let me add my own: every other candidate’s had a metaphorical pie thrown in his or her face. Suck it up and walk it off. This sort of thing builds character.
Huh, your link to Erick’s post results in a 404 error….
Odd: it worked just now. We had a bit of a hiccup earlier over at RS: that might have been it.
Hiccup…or was it? Sure, that’s what they want you to believe. Move along citizen, ignore the black helicopters circling under your bed, just…Wait, that doesn’t work, does it? Ummm, well maybe it was just a hiccup.