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.