US Politics Analysis: An Interesting Week for Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum...and Jeb Bush?

Rick Santorum & Mitt RomneyThis is a crucial week for Mitt Romney as he hopes to claim the Republican nomination for President.  has On 28 February, Michigan and Arizona hold their ballots, and Romney is in trouble.

Both states are part of the plan that Romney is the inevitable candidate to face President Obama in November. The reasoning is that Romney wins Arizona easily because of its large Mormon population, and Michigan because it is the home state of his family. Those two victories are a "firewall" against recent Romney losses and set him up for a triumphant performance on Super Tuesday in early March.

This scenario is under serious threat. Romney's vote is collapsing in the latest polls, to an extent that, if the results follow, he might as well kiss the nomination goodbye.  Even if he manages to pull off a couple of narrow victories, in states where he possesses natural advantages over his opponents, then has little hope of prevailing in crucial battlegrounds like Ohio on Super Tuesday.

Does that mean if Rick Santorum beats Romney in Michigan, then the social conservative from Pennsylvania becomes the Republican nominee?  Probably. But this also raises the possibility that Republicans will turn to an alternative. As ABC News headlined on Friday, "Top GOP Senator Says ‘If Romney Loses Michigan, We Need a New Candidate’":

A prominent Republican senator [said] that if Romney can’t win in Michigan, the Republican Party needs to go back to the drawing board and convince somebody new to get into the race.

'If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,' said the senator, who has not endorsed anyone and requested anonymity....

The senator believes Romney will ultimately win in Michigan but says he will publicly call for the party to find a new candidate if he does not.

The unnamed senator does not mean Santorum or Newt Gingrich, who is still in the race when he talks of a new candidate --- he dismissed both of them as losers in a general election ---  but someone like Jeb Bush, the former Governor of Florida.

Conservative pundits have been raising the possibility of a late entrant to this contest, such as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels or Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal, in their desire for a brokered convention. 

This desire might be wishful thinking, but if Romney does lose Michigan, and if others follow the “top senator", this offers a fascinating range of possibilities heading into Super Tuesday.

To avoid this, Romney has to turn his massive financial advantage, flooding the airwaves with attack ads, into results. So to the latest polls. The  tale they tell is after his victories in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on 7 February, Santorum's support immediately rose in Michigan from the mid-teens to the high-30s. But the numbers have barely budged since then.

This does not dispel the suspicion that the Santorum surge is little more than a protest vote against the unpopular Romney machine. But as time marches, it is beginning to look like the losses on 7 Feburary fatally damaged Romney' 'inevitability".

The polls look better for Romney in Arizona, where he currently holds a 39-31 lead over Santorum. but there are signs that Mitt is not a certain winner. Back in November, during one of Newt Gingrich's periodic revivals, he briefly held a lead over Romney. The sample of voters was small, but it holds out hope for Santorum that Arizona is not wed to a Romney nomination.

And losing to Romney in Arizona does not hurt Santorum, as long as he keeps the outcome close. Santorum not only leads in the polls in Ohio; he does so by 42-24. Ohio is not only a swing State in the Presidential elections in November, having voted for the eventual winner in the last 11 contests, and it is also the site of one of the more important Senate races. If the Republicans can win, then they are likely to win enough contests elsewhere to take control of the Senate.

If Romney fails in Ohio, then it will indicate, especially to GOP insiders, that he is not necessarily their best and only chance of defeating President Obama and of delivering the Senate.

Add to this another piece of bad news: since 7 February, Romney's long-running and solid second place polling behind Gingrich in Georgia has collapsed into a distant third, with a woeful 16% of the polls.

Before 7 February, Romney's chances of becoming the next Republican nominee were in the 'more than probable' category. As the consequences of Santorum's three victories begin to sink in, Romney is slipping into the "likely winner" category.

And it is going to take a lot of effort from the Romney campaign this week, and a lot of money, to stop Mitt from falling into the "unlikely nominee" bracket.