If there's any consensus in the blogosphere on what Mitt Romney's win in Michigan means for the 2008 election, it's this: That he should have run his campaign the way he did in Michigan from the start.
The former governor of Massachusetts beat Republican senator John McCain of Arizona with 39 percent of the vote. McCain had 30 percent and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee came in with 16 percent.
"With hindsight, I think there was a better way for Romney to position himself: as a conservative and supremely knowledgeable expert on the economy, as George Bush's heir as a vigorous defender of the U.S. in the war against Islamic terrorism, and as a person who is himself a social conservative -- just take one look at his family portrait -- but who doesn't talk much about those issues except in the context of the constitutional philosophy which will guide his appointment of judges," wroteJohn Hinderaker, a lawyer and founder of the conservative blog Power Line. "I
think if he had followed this route, he would have been truer to himself and more credible to voters."
New York magazine columnist and former Wired magazine writer John Heilemann says that Romney "probably" should have always run as "the politician he once was," but that it was probably his pandering to the economically depressed Michigan voters that helped push him to victory.
In a colorful piece of writing, Heilemann asks whether former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani really is a genius after all in the way he played "Michigan's Republican Goat Rodeo."
Like others, Heilemann notes that Romney promised Michigan voters that he would "fight for every single job," while McCain told the same voters that their jobs aren't coming back, and that this could have been a factor at the polls. *Atlantic *blogger Ross Douthat notes how hypocritical this response to the two different candidates' approaches is.
Nevertheless, the blogs were ablaze with buzzabout McCain prior to the Michigan primary, according to the political blog-tracking service Wonkosphere run by two Arizona State University professors. That led one of them to predict that McCain would win the primary.
"McCain enjoys the lead in buzz share over the last two weeks, and has had buzz share increase for three days in a row. My predictions: McCain
35, Romney 32, Huckabee 18, Paul 5, Giuliani 5, Thompson 5. Romney
35-McCain 32 would not be at all surprising though either," wrote blog author Kevin& Dooley, although in a bit of CYA punditry, he also hedged: "Wonkosphere data would seem to favor McCain, but I don't know how predictive that national edge might be of the Michigan results."
That positive McCain buzz certainly wasn't coming fromthe conservative Townhall.com site's bloggers Hugh Hewitt, a slavishly devoted Mitt Romney fan, or Patrick Ruffini, the political technology consultant and former member of the 2004 Bush-Cheney online campaign
Meanwhile, the lefty bloggers rubbed their hands in glee.
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