GINGRICH WINS IN SOUTH CAROLINA

The pattern continues, with a twist. The big win by Newt Gingrich in South Carolina this evening continues the pattern we have seen for this entire cycle. Romney remains the front-running, establishment candidate. Clearly, a large chunk of the GOP electorate is dissatisfied with Romney. At every point in the cycle a candidate emerges as the anti-Romney, only to fall back again. The twist this time is that it is Gingrich making a comeback after an initial dramatic rise and fall. Will the pattern continue? Will Gingrich say or do something that will cause him to falter? Or is it Rommey who has blown himself up with the tax issue by puncturing the aura of inevitability about his nomination and the perception that he is best equipped to defeat Obama.

This is getting very interesting, indeed.

GINGRICH SURGE IN SC CONTINUES

There is now lots of evidence to bolster the view that Newt Gingrich is about to win in South Carolina.

One, the latest RCP average of polling data in South Carolina now puts Newt Gingrich in the lead, which is just another indication that undecideds are breaking toward the former Speaker.

Two, Newt was able to deflect the energy from his ex-wife's ABC interview by attacking the media at the start of the debate last night, and the applause from the audience was heartfelt.

Three, Mitt Romney gave a lackluster debate performance and the boos that greeted his "maybe" answer on releasing his tax return were just as heartfelt as Newt's cheers.

Four, Rick Perry getting out and endorsing Gingrich adds a few points to the Speaker's column.

Five, news that Santorum actually finished ahead of Romney in Iowa adds to the growing realization that Romney is not the inevitable nominee. That will cost him a few more votes he would have gotten otherwise.

It ain't over 'til it's over.

ROMNEY WEAKENS...BUT...

There is some new evidence that the Romney campaign is weakening this morning.

New polls show Gingrich is surging in South Carolina. The two most recent polls put Gingrich at 30% or higher, bringing the RCP average for the former Speaker to 26%. That still leaves him 7.6% behind Romney, but I suspect when older polls are dropped from the average and newer ones included that gap will narrow. Update: As I expected, now that a new poll is added to the mix the RCP average shows Romney with only a 1.2% lead. Gingrich is leading in the three most recent polls which simply confirms his growing momentum.

Romney is dealing with more bad news because it appears now that he did not win Iowa by the narrowest of margins, rather he lost to Rick Santorum by the narrowest of margins. The Des Moines Register reports on the discrepancies and the fact that the Iowa GOP has had to recalculate the final totals. They conclude that rather than Romney winning by 8 votes, Santorum won by 34 votes. In the greater scheme of things this is not terribly significant. Romney and Santorum still get the same number of delegates out of Iowa, and no one can take away the positive press and momentum Romney received since the caucuses. But it does eliminate the historic significance of Romney being the only non-incumbent to win both Iowa and New Hampshire and creates just a little more doubt about Rommey's inevitability.

Still, Romney's biggest problem may be his fumbling on the personal income tax issue. Toby Harnden writes about why Romney is being hurt not only by the perception that he is a rich guy who doesn't pay his fair share (certainly he is a rich guy, and 'fair share' is a debatable concept), but by the perception that he is hiding something.

But...to deny Romney the nomination there is still the need for a viable alternative. Newt Gingrich is surging, but that surge may be weakened and even reversed by the interview to be aired this evening on ABC of Newt's second wife, Marianne. Santorum has yet to catch fire, and was denied the opportunity by the foul-up in Iowa and his own poor campaigning in New Hampshire. Rick Perry, according to this CNN story, is about to drop out. That leaves Ron Paul, who has no chance of being the nominee.

In the end what the GOP faces is a process that, once again, produced a field full of flawed candidates that will result in the nomination of the safe, next-in-line, establishment choice. There has to be a better way.

ROMNEY'S THE ONE

With the votes now counted in New Hampshire and Mitt Romney the first non-incumbent to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary most observers, myself included, now believe Romney is the inevitable nominee. Here are the reasons...

First, and most important, Romney is the only candidate with the organization and the money to compete in every state. He can run adds, get out the vote drives, make phone calls, in short, everything a campaign can and must do to win votes on the town-by-town, county-by-county basis.

Second, his opponents are divided. As long as both Santorum and Gingrich remain in the race (and Perry to a lesser extent), they divide the conservative vote. Romney can only be defeated by one conservative alternative.

Third, even if one conservative opponent comes to the fore, that candidate will be need time to gain momentum, and time is running out. If Romney wins in South Carolina, the game is over.

While Romney now has a 99% chance of being the nominee, the contest will go on. The new rules, which elongated the process through spacing the contests across the calendar and limiting the number of winner-takes-all contests, and the presence of Ron Paul in the race will make certain of that.

PRIMARY DAY

Primary Day is here in New Hampshire, at last. Starting tomorrow we here in the Granite State can get back to our normal lives, which means no more annoying phone calls from pollsters and campaign workers (robo-calls or live) and an end to the political advertisements on television. For those folks in places where the candidates and the press cause havoc, while they will miss the money rolling in, they won't miss the crowds and the aggravation.

A few thoughts on the election itself (if you want to hear more, you can tune-in tonight to Bloomberg Radio on your satellite service, online, or over the air on WBBR-New York, from 7 PM to 11 PM as I join Tom Maroney to cover the results).

This Gallup poll tells you everything you need to know about why Mitt Romney seems to have a clear path to the nomination. Of the candidates in the race, he is the only one who is "acceptable" to a broad swath of the Republican electorate. Everyone else in the field carries too much baggage for one part of the GOP coalition or another. Paul is too outside the mainstream on foreign policy, or too libertarian, or too old. Santorum is too much the social conservative, Gingrich has too much personal and political baggage, Huntsman is too liberal and Perry would be eaten alive by Obama on the debate stage. So that leaves Mitt.

You may not like it. I may not like it. But it is what it is.

FROM IOWA TO NEW HAMPSHIRE

Now that the Iowa caucuses are over it is time to reflect upon the results. Here are my impressions of those results and what they might mean...

Momentum in politics is a thing to behold. Just ten days ago Rick Santorum was an afterthought. The final RealClearPolitics average of the last Iowa polls showed him at 16.3%. He finished the night with 24.5%, a mere 8 votes shy of an outright victory over Romney. The latest in a long line of anti-Romneys peaked at just the right time.

The conventional wisdom is set in stone that Romney will win in New Hampshire. The RealClearPolitics average of the latest polls here in the Granite State show Romney leading by 21.3 points over Ron Paul. But if Santorum can avoid being destroyed by his own words or actions in the next week, and that is a very big if, and he can withstand the negative ads that are sure to come, another very big if, then he should do much better than those polls show. Santorums problem here is that Gingrich and Paul will not get out of his way. So, the conventional wisdom is probably correct, but Romney now faces the problem of high expectations. If he does not win by a large enough margin, and I have no idea how large that margin needs to be, he will not be able to erase the narrative that has already taken hold. Namely, that the majority of GOP voters would rather nominate someone else.

Finally, a word of caution to those pundits who would like to declare the race over and Romney the nominee. While I agree that a Romney nomination is still the most likely scenario (after all, history does tell us that Republicans prefer to nominate the safe choice,which is usually the next fellow in line), the calendar is such that if a real alternative can rise above the fray that person will have some time to raise money and build an organization. Not much time, but some time. The key is not what happens in New Hampshire, but what happens in South Carolina. If Santorum or Gingrich can win South Carolina on January 21 and then follow up with a win in Florida, then it is "game on". The entire month of February,except for Nevada on February 4, is filled with small state caucuses awarding uncommitted delegates (Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and the Northern Marianas). The next big contests won't happen until February 28 with primaries in Arizona and Michigan. While Michigan should be a lock for Romney, if the alternative candidate, probably either Santorum or Gingrich, can win Arizona, then he can enter Super Tuesday on March 6 with at least a shot at doing well enough to keep the contest going.