Romney Beats Huckabee in NH. Oh, There's Some Old Guy Too

OK, so the citzens have had two chances to make a choice* and twice Mitt has lost...er...excuse us...twice he's been the first runner up winner. Last week Iowans thought a guy who believes Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs was better suited to be president than he was, and yesterday the voters of New Hampshire picked the last remaining Civil War veteran as their choice over him.

People, people, people. Let's get with the program here. Mitt's spending so much money on this campaign he has to win if for no other reason than by November he'll be totally broke and probably need a place to live. It's the duty of every upright American citizen to vote for him. Also, he's had every opinion that every upright American citizen has had, so there must be something you and Mitt agree on.

Romney's team downplayed the loss and the former Massachusetts governor forecasted later victories would still bring him the GOP nomination. "Look, he's white, rich, male and he tells you what you want to hear. When are you going to realize that's all there is to a republican candidate?" a Romney aide asked reporters.

After back-to-back second-place showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney's campaign will move to Michigan next week to try and purchase a much-needed victory. "We figure if worse comes to worst, Utah will be a turnaround state for us," said a campaign aide. "Unless that Huckabee guy converts."

"It'll be much more difficult to come back from two defeats in two states he should have won by any measure," says Costos Panagopoulos, director of the Fordham College Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy in New York City. "Romney needs a win to validate his campaign efforts, his huge on-the-ground structure, his millions spent in ads," Panagopoulos said. "Of course having a position and keeping it for more than twenty minutes would probably help too."

Second place might not be good enough in the eyes of the news media, either, and Romney could be painted as on the way out, said Rich Hanley, director of graduate journalism programs at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. "Plus, as we all know, the next president will really be chosen by Chris Matthews."

Kirk Jowers, a Romney supporter and friend and head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, says the loss puts a lot of pressure on the campaign to take Michigan's primary. But, he adds, "On the positive side, Romney has the best organization throughout the states. He has the most money and the most comprehensive battle plan to win. On the negative side, he has no positions, no platform and no beliefs, so it's just about a wash."

"Romney is the one candidate who has not put all of his chips on one state," Jowers said. The fact he is willing to compete in every state makes him far less vulnerable than the media would like to portray. Of course the fact that only people who don't watch the news vote for him is a bit of a drawback, but I'm sure the Romney campaign is working on that."

*We don't count Wyoming because only 12 people showed up and eight of them were drunk.