I see what Joe means and in many races, I'd disagree. You want a lot of wins early on and knock your opponent out. Most years that's what happens. But remember how Clinton ws going to have the whole thing wrapped up after California and ST? The only thing that kept her in for so long is that she had Penn and Ohio and a few other states that were pretty strong for her. Now, she lost, but she certainly did better in her primary than Romney did in his. And I seriously don't see Romney walking away with this, especially if he alienates evangelicals. Tea Partiers and Palinites are NOT going to quietly endorse him if he wins a lot of states early on. If he does, someone will keep challenging him until the end. If Clinton didn't have Penn, Ky, and Indiana in those later primaries, she would have had to drop out well before she did.
Unless he crashes and burns before the primaries start, Romney is likely to lose Ia and SC and win Nev and NH. Given that, with NY, Ca, and NJ pretty early on, Romney has some big states he's likely to win- if polling stays somewhat in the vicinity it is now and no moderate suddenly starts doing well.
Plus, if the calendar is pretty similar to 2008, Romney didn't compete in the later states thus has a lot fewer folks who voted for him last time around. He took second in Florida and a pretty close second at that, so he has something to work with.
ah, you're back? bringing the total of active or semi-active old forum veterans to at least five. still smoking a pack of Reds a day? personally I've almost quit: 48 hours since last cigarette, a total of about 7 since November 22nd.
