Romney showed some muscle on Super Tuesday, winning the crucial state of Ohio in addition to Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming. Rick Santorum won Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota, and Newt Gingrich won his home state of Georgia. For those of you scoring at home, that's Romney 7, Santorum 3, Gingrich 1 and Ron Paul 0. And one of Romney's seven, Ohio, was far and away more important than any of the others.
The performance followed Romney's victories in Michigan, Arizona and Washington state last week. Those followed victories in Nevada, Maine, Florida and New Hampshire. All those victories, plus how the states and rules stack up going forward, give Romney a commanding lead in the delegate count.
So the media has Romney in the driver's seat, right? Wrong.
The narrative this morning was consistent: Super Tuesday was a split decision, confirmed Romney's weaknesses and did nothing to solidify Romney's hold on the eventual nomination.
The New York Times' Jim Rutenberg concludes: "Far from bringing more clarity to the race as some in the party had hoped, Tuesday's elections gave every candidate cause to keep driving forward." The headline in the Times on Jeff Zeleny's analysis: "With no knockout punch, a bruising battle plods on." "Mitt Romney won the delegates," Zeleny writes, "but not necessarily the argument."
The LA Times said: "Romney's slim victory over Santorum brings little clarity to the race for the party's nomination." USA Today called Super Tuesday "split." Politico's Maggie Haberman says "Win, no bounce, repeat... (Romney's) campaign and its backers had hoped to use a strong night to start making the case that it's time to wind this down, ... but in the end, he underperformed."
Politico's Jonathan Martin said in his analysis: "Mitt Romney's weaknesses show no sign of going away. ... All of his flaws were on full display Tuesday as he failed to wrap up the GOP nomination on an evening when it was within his grasp."
David Gregory on MSNBC: "Make no mistake: Rick Santorum had a SUPER Tuesday night. ... There's a lot for Mitt Romney to be concerned about."
Look: There's no question Santorum, and maybe even Gingrich and Paul, are going to linger a while longer. But that's partly a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the media universally say that this is a dogfight, that goes a long way to allowing it to be one. If the media emphasized instead that Romney has won 14 states (including Florida, Ohio and Michigan) and Santorum just six, the national conventional wisdom would be considerably different.
This has been a topsy-turvy race and we suppose anything could happen. But we'd be stunned if Romney didn't win the nomination. The rest of the world knows that too, but that's not as compelling a story.
-- Taylor Batten
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