The Unsinkable Mitt Romney

You get the feeling watching the Romney Campaign this week that they are increasingly frustrated that these pesky voters are keeping the primary going where, in their view, everybody else should just drop out and get behind Romney.  Still, they continue to try to give off the impression that they are king of the world, but instead sound more like a crew member on the Titanic.

I am referring of course to the senior Romney official who told ABC News “the nomination is an impossibility for Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich” and that it would “take some sort of act of God to get to where they need to be on the nomination front.”

Sounds close to the White Star crewmen who said, “God, himself could not sink this ship,” shortly before the Titanic hit the iceberg.

Romney’s iceberg could be the primaries in the rest of March, which look to be unfriendly to Romney.  I argue in my column this week for the Arkansas News Bureau that the contest is far from over and now looks likely to still be unsettled by the time it reaches Arkansas.  Romney faces primaries in Kansas on Saturday; Mississippi, Alabama and Hawaii on Tuesday; and then contests in Missouri, Illinois, and Louisiana.

Simply put, these are not states Romney will do well in.  Romney himself described the South as “a bit of an away game.”  He continued his awkward regional pandering in Mississippi yesterday telling a crowd in Pascagoula, “I am learning to say ‘y’all’ and ‘I like grits’.”

The other thing to watch in the upcoming states is whether Rick Santorum is able to edge out Newt Gingrich and make it a one-on-one race (with of course Ron Paul still thrown into the mix).  Gingrich has said he has to win both Mississippi and Alabama to stay in the race and that looks doubtful.  If he drops out and gets behind Santorum (and perhaps swings some of his delegates to Santorum as well), then you could see a new race.