Robert Farley wonders “why isn’t Mitt Romney being treated as the overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican race? He’s won two of the four contests so far, and placed second twice. Moreover, Michigan differs from the other three contests in that it’s inhabited by actual people, twice as many as the other three states combined. He’s also the leader in total money and trails only minor also-ran candidate Rudy Giuliani in cash on hand.”
All true. What’s more, as you’ll see in the chart overhead, he actually has a narrow majority in terms of delegates allocated. The Republican race is by no means over, but Romney unmistakably has the lead. What’s more, Romney seems to me to have the advantage of internal lines in the three-way Huckabee-McCain-Romney battle. McCain’s big hope was to knock Romney out of the race (or, more precisely, to have Mike Huckabee knock Romney out of the race) in order to become the establishment candidate with maverick cred. But having added a solid win in Michigan to his Wyoming pickup, Romney is a clearly a viable candidate for the establishment to back and McCain is back to being a guy who Republicans don’t really like.