On to Michigan

Huckabee must be strapped for cash and putting everything on South Carolina, given his not lining up events in Michigan. I think that's a dumb choice myself, given this.

I have no idea if the Romney people have finally figured it out, but the key is for Romney to continue to campaign positively, as he was doing at the end in New Hampshire. If he allows his campaign to continue to be painted as overly negative, he's going to have a hard time stopping McCain.

But Romney's staff in Michigan should be more formidable than McCain's. There isn't a ton of time for him to staff up and I doubt it's actually as big as claimed in the first linked item above.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has raised $62.8 million, including $17 million of his own money, while McCain has raised $32.1 million, according to campaign finance reports filed in October. The next fund-raising reports are due Jan. 31.

Romney can survive a second-place finish in Michigan and still win the Republican nomination, said political consultant Craig Ruff of Public Sector Consultants in Lansing.

Despite the conventional wisdom, that Michigan is make or break for both. Mitt might have more options given the above, but that's not really the way you want to win this thing, if you can help it.

There's a little more info on Michigan here.

Mike Huckabee, Anuzis pointed out, has just begun to put together a team in Michigan.  In the chairman's words, "It's an organic organization that relies on the churches and social conservatives."

Some additional insight on the big picture here. Don't be surprised if there isn't a surge in support for either McCain or Romney from the Republican establishment to help block Huckabee. And despite his years in the Senate, the consensus candidate probably would be Mitt. If the establishment sees Huckabee as the threat the base does, they might be forced to forgo neutrality and make a stand.

Huckabee is the clear leader in polls from South Carolina with averages of 32% over the 19% given to McCain, and then 16% to Romney -- his first appearance in third place in the polls. Huckabee will hope for an evangelical turnout again in South Carolina, but Romney’s endorsement from the popular Republican Senator Jim DeMint may be underestimated.

Comments

[Pam]

Huckabee won't do anything spectacular here in MI...it will be a horse race between Mitt and John but you will see more support for Rudy than Huck..

[TheSpartan]

I don't know...lots of megachurches in MI...I suspect you're right, but there are a lot of religious folks outside of the big cities.

[Cory]

Go Mitt! Fred and Rudy supporters need to get behind a candidate who can actually win in order to stop the liberal tagteam of Huckabee and McCain.

[Wahoo Willie Sez:]

Isn't Detroit a Islam stronghold?

[Sara]

I admit that at this point I'm totally confused. Mitt Romney leads in the delegate count with 30, Huck 21, McCain 10, Fred 6, Paul 2, Guiliani and Hunter each with 1, yet the conventional wisdom last night seemed to be that Mitt is toast.

It seems to me that Mitt needs to get back to economics and apply some of his problem solving skills to the Michigan economy disaster. I went to college in Michigan, but that was decades ago, so I really have no sense about the state's political whims at this point. But it seems that with Romney's personal ties to the state and the fact that he and his wife still have family there would give them a leg up on understanding the Michigan mindset. I'd be interested, though, in hearing from those with boots on the ground there.

[TheSpartan]

Why didn't he use some of those vaunted "problem solving" skills to fix the MA economy while he was gov?

[Sara]

Looking forward, we will be trying out the new Converitlive software for the debate tomorrow night on Pal2Pal, so stop by. This will be a test at www.pal2pal.com. Have never used this software before nor ever truly live-blogged before so you may be witness to a disaster, but then again, maybe not.