I've been meaning to link to Noam Scheiber's argument that Mitt Romney is best placed to win the Republican nominaton for about a week now. So, uh, here's my link. Scheiber's argument is from before South Carolina, but it seems even stronger to me now. Romney is currently way ahead in delegates, and he appears to be doing a fine job racking up good numbers while no one is watching. All the media coverage last week, for instance, was on McCain's victory in South Carolina, from which he got 19 delegates. On the same day, Romney quietly won the Nevada caucuses, giving him 18 delegates, McCain and Giuliani seem, to me, to be running momentum campaigns, hoping that their profile and earned media will vault them to victory in large states. Romney, by contrast, is running an organization campaign, and so simultaneously competing with them for media time, but also the money and doing the spadework in the less noticed primaries where a little bit of effort wins because no of the other candidates are putting in any.
