he would have been better off with no immigration bill than this, if Rudy is DOA because of Abortion, guns, and gays that leaves flim flam Mitt, Fred Thompson will win the nomination in a cake walk, now he has immigration served up on a silver platter, Rudy was just as liberal on the issue as he was on Abortion, and Romney's "switch" plays into his say anything way of trying to win conservative voters, ai'd bet good money the GOP nominee isn't in the race yet.

even Hillary would kick Romney's ass.

to the rethug nomination.

barack obama predicted that mitt romney would be the guy to watch on the rethug side in december,2006 before he went on christmas vacation(yeah, i live in chicago, read chicago press).

rudy will be done by the end of the year as rethugs lose the war the iraq. romney will cleverly(that guy is the most slick politician in recent history) flip-flop his way around the war in iraq. he'll look you straight in the face and lie and walk around the iraq issue, looking good.

romney is the guy to watch on the rethug side and they'll begin to think that his victory in Massachussetts means he can win some independents.

i watched him on 60minutes and was impressed with his confidence. i've also seen him campaign and he's very pursuasive.

I think Romney would be dangerous in the general election.  If you're right and many of the early polls show leads due to name ID, then Romney's poor showing against Dems nationally could be a result of his low name ID (especially since he's focusing just on Republicans now).  He will surely have the money and the people to increase that name ID by the election.  Romney's a slick guy and is clearly willing to sell his soul for political gain (why else would he flip so much?).  I'd rather not risk it with him... Go Ron Paul!

on the rethug side. i have a gut feeling(and i think barack was suggesting the same when he said romney is the guy to watch) that at the end of the process, people might want a generational change in both parties.

i mean when the surge fails, US will withdraw and by the end of the year people might(might) want to start over again. romney has been preaching "uniting" different factions(he quotes Abe lincoln a lot in campaigns) in his administration in iowa(watch him campaign on c-span). this guy is the guy to watch and clearly the flip-flop thing isn't hurting him. he'll flip-flop his way to the nomination and when you point it out, he'll point back to you or quote Ronald Reagan on changing positions. i'm personally intrigued with him and i'm sure that's what iowa is beginning to see.

i challenge everyone to watch romney campaign in iowa. he is the guy to watch.

don't discount any of these lesser known republicans. a fair number of polls have come out recently showing romney and fred thompson within stricking distance of hillary and obama.

I don't see how the delegate situation can favor him. Rudy has massive leads in delegate-rich California and New York. Likewise in New Jersey. Those are all early primaries, February 5. Pennsylvania may move to that date also and Rudy leads big there.

In the other state with highest number of delegates, Texas, the one poll I saw had Rudy leading with 24% and Romney barely registering at 8%.

Romney has too much working against him. Not only the Mormon aspect but also flip-flopping. That term is too high profile right now for the party that invented the term to nominate its greatest practitioner only four years later.

Rudy has called out Democrats as weak on terror and as socialists at home. The GOP eats up crap like that. Much of his poll decline has been due to Thompson's inclusion in the polling. I give Thompson a big chance even if he waits until fall to declare, but I'd be extremely surprised if McCain or Romney got the nod. They've been in this from the outset and can't manage high numbers anywhere. What's Romney's high water mark, 32% in New Hampshire? Whoopee. I've seen Guiliani well above that figure in state after state and in national preference polls as well.

At some point you've got to stop wishing and pretending and let the numerical/calendar realities smack you in the face.

If this triumphalism lead Democrats to nominate a weak candidate like Clinton, it will most likely end in tragedy.

I think Romney would have been formidable in a pre-internet campaign, but that we would tear him apart in a general election with his slimy used car salesman, say anything, rhetoric. It's very difficult to gain traction within a primary against flip-flopping, because as long as the final flop is in line with the orthodoxy, the rapid faithful will ultimately believe--- they have too as fundamentalists.

The amount of flip-flopping that Romney has done, and the furtherance of it into the general as he would have to move back to the middle, would provide so much ammunition to put him on the defensive, that we would have a field day with him over and over every day.

Obviously, the logic of Romney's low name recognition also applies to the general election.  His Democratic opponents are nationally better known, which explains some of the Democratic advantage.

As for Romney's gaffe's, Republicans do not suffer as much from that because their supporters hate "the liberal media."

I agree with you, Chris, however, that Mitt Romney would be a weaker opponent than Giuliani.

Chris, if those national matchup numbers come with 50% name ID for Mitt, I would be wary of overconfidence.

See also:

Romney Tops YouTube Video Rankings
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/e xclusive-top-presidential-candidate.html

The Republican race is somewhat more interesting than the Democratic race for a few reasons. Besides the fact that there are far more clowns on that side than our side, the big three all have such pronounced flaws that it's sort of like watching a car wreck that happens over and over again. There also appears to be more movement in the last few weeks on the Republican side than on the Democratic side.

Right now, Romney is approaching the status of a front runner, but I think he needs to do one more thing, in the next month, to help cement this image: improve in South Carolina. He's quite low in the polling in many other states, but many of them appear to be far enough down the line that he doesn't have to worry about them, at least not yet. Of course, this could actually be good for Giuliani, who was for a while the front runner. He's still got plenty of time to turn things around, at least theoretically, and if was bound to go down, it's better that it happened now than the months closer to the start of actual primaries.

On the Democratic side, I feel like I need to pay more attention, because it seems like every poll says something different. Some give the impression that Clinton is sinking like a stone, corresponding with Edwards increasing his numbers, while others suggest something else entirely.