Iowa's over now, and all the hoary ghosts of Mitt Romney's campaign have gone with it. Signs of hope are few in the once-proud, but shattered candidacy of the former Massachussetts governor.
Romney's shaky comments after his second-place showing -- something about how winning a silver medal in the first event doesn't mean you won't win gold in the last event -- were the rustling murmurs of a floundering candidate. Romney has reason to be confused. After all, he outspent every candidate on the ballot in Iowa and still couldn't even come within 10 percentage points of the winner. It didn't help that Romney spent most of the caucus in New Hampshire, where polls show him running a statistical dead heat with Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose base is more than 2,700 miles away.
Even the Iowa winner, Mike Huckabee, who crushed the rest of the field with 34 percent of the Republican vote, couldn't help but give Romney a swift parting kick, saying that he believes McCain, not Romney, will win in New Hampshire. This bold prediction might as well have been fighting words from Mitt Romney's point of view, but with Hollywood tough-guy Chuck Norris standing squarely behind Huckabee when he made that remark, the former Arkansas Governor suddenly looked more daunting.
Huckabee doesn't expect to take New Hampshire, but he knows that if Romney loses it, the Huckabee machine will suddenly have the shiny look of a campaign that can win it all.
Even if Romney wins New Hampshire, and these polls show that's becoming less likely with each passing day, it'll be neck-and-neck. A barn-burner won't have positive effects on Romney's skinny lead in Michigan or on his tie with Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Nevada. In just one day, Romney's loss in Iowa has sucked a massive amount of air from his campaign, and in this business momentum is everything.
It's possible things aren't as dire for Romney as I'm making them out to be, but the news hasn't been good so far. Unless he can overcome two negative editorials from two of the state's largest newspapers, Romney could be in for a bad winter. If you look real close, you can see already that Mitt Romney is sweating bullets in New Hampshire.
Romney's shaky comments after his second-place showing -- something about how winning a silver medal in the first event doesn't mean you won't win gold in the last event -- were the rustling murmurs of a floundering candidate. Romney has reason to be confused. After all, he outspent every candidate on the ballot in Iowa and still couldn't even come within 10 percentage points of the winner. It didn't help that Romney spent most of the caucus in New Hampshire, where polls show him running a statistical dead heat with Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose base is more than 2,700 miles away.
Even the Iowa winner, Mike Huckabee, who crushed the rest of the field with 34 percent of the Republican vote, couldn't help but give Romney a swift parting kick, saying that he believes McCain, not Romney, will win in New Hampshire. This bold prediction might as well have been fighting words from Mitt Romney's point of view, but with Hollywood tough-guy Chuck Norris standing squarely behind Huckabee when he made that remark, the former Arkansas Governor suddenly looked more daunting.
Huckabee doesn't expect to take New Hampshire, but he knows that if Romney loses it, the Huckabee machine will suddenly have the shiny look of a campaign that can win it all.
Even if Romney wins New Hampshire, and these polls show that's becoming less likely with each passing day, it'll be neck-and-neck. A barn-burner won't have positive effects on Romney's skinny lead in Michigan or on his tie with Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Nevada. In just one day, Romney's loss in Iowa has sucked a massive amount of air from his campaign, and in this business momentum is everything.
It's possible things aren't as dire for Romney as I'm making them out to be, but the news hasn't been good so far. Unless he can overcome two negative editorials from two of the state's largest newspapers, Romney could be in for a bad winter. If you look real close, you can see already that Mitt Romney is sweating bullets in New Hampshire.
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