Within the Margin

Romney knew perfectly well that he might not win Iowa, and that he was about to get wrecked in South Carolina. But only today, ahead of the contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, did I get an email from Romney campaign engaging in the sort of language we in politics use before losing an election:

Friend,

Please see below a memo from our Political Director Rich Beeson, “The Road Ahead – A Reality Check.”

Some quick takeaways:

• No delegates are being selected today. The delegate count tomorrow morning will remain the same as it is today. Gov. Romney has a significant delegate lead – he is the only candidate to have earned delegates in every available contest.
• Missouri is strictly a beauty contest (see ABC News: “Why Missouri Is Holding a ‘Meaningless’ Primary“). The primary being held today is completely divorced from any delegate allocation, and Missouri will hold an entirely separate caucus next month. We plan to compete in the actual Missouri contest in March.
• As our campaign has said from the outset, Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest.  John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too.  But unlike the other candidates, our campaign has the resources and organization to keep winning over the long run.  A winning conservative message, hard work, and old-fashioned delegate math will win this race for Governor Romney.

Thanks,
Matt Rhoades

Obviously, there’s no harm in this. Romney has seen the same polls as we have that show Santorum in position to win a contest or two today. This email means they’re seeing the same thing in their polls, so they lower expectations in the hopes of making the day as benign as possible for them.  There are two interesting things here, though. First, as I mentioned above, we didn’t see this from them before some of the bigger contests they went on to lose – perhaps because there’s no escaping the outsized magnitude of Iowa and South Carolina in this media-driven process? And second, they have to know that regardless of their attempts to tamp down expectations, the punditry will flock to a couple of Santorum wins today as desperately-desired evidence that the race is still on, that chinks still exist in Romney’s armor of inevitability. I certainly will, because nominating contests are too interesting to be over by the Super Bowl.