MITT SWEEPS!

Some additional facts:ABC News: "Democrats Shake Up Michigan Primary, Exit Polls Show"In the closest primary to date this year (excluding more lightly attended caucuses), Santorum easily won the groups he’s targeted, including strong conservatives, evangelicals, strong Tea Party supporters and ardent abortion opponents. Union voters, fleeing Mitt Romney, helped Santorum. And so did Democrats.Exit poll results found that nearly one in 10 voters in Michigan’s open primary were Democrats. That was off their peak – 17 percent in 2000, when they tipped the contest to John McCain. But they influenced this year’s outcome nonetheless: Santorum won 53 percent of Democrats, versus just 17 percent for Romney. Without them Romney would have had a fairly comfortable win. With them it was closer.Romney relied on some of his customary support groups, notably well-off voters and senior citizens – effective elements, if not necessarily the most compelling ones for a national campaign. He won senior… Read more »

I didn't expect Romney to win both. I thought he'd lose Michigan but oh well. A win is a win but three points ahead doesn't say much for his chances looking forward. Now I wanna see if Repubs still wanna throw somebody else in or go ride or die with Romney

<span>Dan Balz: "Mitt Romney survives Michigan primary, looks to Super Tuesday"   His Michigan comeback — he fell behind Santorum earlier in the month — showed his resilience as a candidate and underscored the advantages he holds in the nomination battle — more money, a superior organization and the ruthlessness to attack anyone in his path. Still, his advisers fretted that he would not get enough credit for turning around a campaign that only a week ago had party strategists speculating about the possibility of another candidate getting into the race.   Yet even in victory, the campaign in Michigan highlighted Romney’s <span>flaws</span> as a candidate. That he had to fight as hard as he did in a state he won four years ago was a reminder that he is still struggling to connect with a portion of his party’s base, even against what party strategists regard as relatively weak opposition.   While… Read more »

Yesterday I posted a passage from an article written by David Brooks (Repub) which I think dovetails perfectly with Olympia Snowe's decision to retire_AND with the way Romney's twisted himself into a pretzel trying to appeal to the GOP *base.* Here's a little more of that article:WashPost: "The Possum Republicans"In the 1960s and ’70s, the fight was between conservatives and moderates. Conservatives trounced the moderates and have driven them from the party. These days the fight is between the protesters and the professionals. The grass-roots protesters in the Tea Party and elsewhere have certain policy ideas, but they are not that different from the Republicans in the “establishment.”The big difference is that the protesters don’t believe in governance. They have zero tolerance for the compromises needed to get legislation passed. They don’t believe in trimming and coalition building. For them, politics is more about earning respect and making a statement than it is about enacting legislation.… Read more »

"It seemed like such a good idea at the time."TPM: "Who’s To Blame For The GOP’s Drawn-Out Primaries Nightmare?" The Republican primaries in 2012 would be their own version of Obama vs. Clinton, prompting excited conservatives to register to vote in droves, donate early and often to the candidates, and keep the attention solely focused on the GOP’s message instead of the White House’s bully pulpit. But only two years after deliberately retooling their primary rules to encourage a lengthier fight, Republican politicians are struggling to remember just what on earth they were thinking. […]Read: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/whos-to…Friedersdorf: "The GOP's Extended Primary: It Isn't Like Obama vs. Clinton""The Democrats were deciding which historic nominee excited them most. Republicans can't decide who depresses them least."Read: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/…H/T: A. Sullivan