PoliBlog (more)

MORE CONTESTS TUESDAY! POSTED FEBRUARY 7, 2012: 7:00AM

Today, caucuses will be held in Minnesota and Colorado, and a "beauty contest" primary (no delegates at stake) will take place in Missouri.  

Probably the most interesting going into today's contests is that Newt Gingrich, who seven days ago (pre-Florida's results) was thought to be Romney's most serious competition, seems like an after-thought. In fact, Paul does as well. Why? Because today is Santorum's day to play the "conservative anti-Romney" competitor.

A side note and good rule of thumb: If one candidate is consistently taking on "favorite sons" (or in today's world, "factional poster-boys") as the nomination process moves from one state to another, then it is likely that the one candidate will be the nominee.

Today's "Factional Poster-Boy" is Rick Santorum. Former PA Senator, a "big government" social conservative (meaning that he, similiar to George W. Bush, would like the federal government to be more involved in pushing forward conservative social positions, rather than "stay out," which is the more typical "small government" libertarian conservative), and a purported candidate for "blue collar, working class" voters is polling well in both MN and MO. 

Let me say these few things about that:

*Gingrich did not qualify for the MO ballot, so all "anti-Romney" sentiment is likely to support Santorum.

*MN is going to be the most interesting race of the day because Rep. Michele Bachmann (the founding member of the Tea Party Caucus in the House) has not endorsed, but her former presidential competitor and fellow Republican from the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" Tim Pawlenty has. Pawlenty is not only a high profile Romney endorser, but he is critical member of Romney's campaign team. In short, if Santorum does well in MN, as Gingrich did in SC, Romney's poor showing will reflect on Pawlenty as much as his earlier stumble reflected on SC Governor Nikki Haley. What does this mean? If Romney doesn't eclipse Santorum by at least 5 pts in MN, don't expect Pawlenty to be on Romney's short-list for VP.

*CO will likely play out similarly to NV. I imagine that this will be Paul's best state of the day.

But at the end of the day, Romney is winning because his competitors are losing. Although most candidates, like sports teams, would prefer to dominate their opponents and play well, most are fine with "winning ugly" because a W is a W is W.

Should Romney come out of today with 3 wins, his record will be 6 out of 8, and that should put him in good standing for the rest of the month (ME, AZ, MI) and help him launch a final push on Super Tuesday.

Stay tuned. More later tonight (I hope! I've been running from pillar to post this last week, so if I don't get back, know that it is just because I have to work, too!).