The score between Romney and "Anyone But Romney" stands at 2-0 after the former governor's victory in New Hampshire last night, and the likelihood that a Santorum or Gingrich gets the nomination gets slimmer every day. All the candidates have gone south for the rest of the month. The other candidates know that if Romney wins the next two primaries, they have no reason to stay in the race, and are campaigning as if their political lives depends on it. Anti-Romney ads dominate the airwaves, but the anti-Romney campaign might be too little, too late. Romney had a 55 percent chance of winning South Carolina even before his boost of momentum in New Hampshire, according to Nate Silver's projections. Between Mitt Romney's anti-Obama victory speech and the Obama campaign's glee at the Republicans doing their Romney-bashing dirty work for them, it's increasingly hard to see Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, and Perry's desperate efforts as anything but an annoying buzz underneath the general election campaign that's already underway.
So They Say
"You know, I think it's about envy. I think it's about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God."
-Mitt Romney, answering a reporter's question over whether there are any fair questions about distribution of wealth.
Daily Meme: D.C. Journos Discuss Their Favorite Topic
- George Packer laments the end of "important" political journalism.
- McSweeney's makes a less-tormented version of Packer's argument with CNN in mind.
- John Cassidy counters that reporters aren't at fault for the deterioration of how we perceive politics; media consumers choose to read only a narrow selection of what's available.
- Dana Milbank thinks that New Hampshire wasn't much of a story in the first place.
- David Bernstein writes that the big change in campaign coverage is that the reporting is tailored to reach political junkies online instead of the general readership of a newspaper.
What We're Writing
- With Mitt Romney's nomination all but certain, Harold Meyerson says the candidate now needs to win over his opponent's supporters.
- Jamelle Bouie reports from South Carolina on minority voters who support Ron Paul.
What We're Reading
- Conor Friedersdorf asks whether the conservatives, not the moderates, are the out-of-touch ones in the GOP.
- Matt Glassman reminds us that people don't necessarily run for president to be president.
- If Romney wraps up the nomination soon, it'll be a long slog until the general election. How about we spend that time imagining what a Romney presidency would look like?
- TPM finds a bunch of things less steep than Rick Perry's drop in the polls.
- If the Hunger Games ever happened in real life, Ron Paul supporters would probably do very well.
Poll of the Day
A Quinnipiac University poll shows that Obama would lose Florida if the election were held today; among registered voters in the state, Mitt Romney has 46-percent support compared with Obama's 43 percent.
