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.