Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado

Well, I got one thing right last week when I said Santorum is the biggest threat to Romney. Santorum has a really good shot to win two of tonight's contests (Minnesota and Missouri) and he is even in good position to come in second in Colorado.

My reasoning was only slightly off. I had said that Santorum dropping out would boost Gingrich. It seems Santorum is a threat to beat Romney in key places. But the reasoning is not as far off as you might think. Santorum doesn't just have a chance to win in Missouri ... he could get close to 50%. This matters because my logic had been that there are some states where Santorum + Gingrich > Romney. Missouri provides a real test of this proposition because Gingrich is not on the ballot. Even with Paul on the ballot, Santorum is inching towards 50% (he got 45% in the PPP poll).

Meanwhile, Romney is downplaying the importance of tonight's contests. Like Iowa and South Carolina, they don't really matter apparently. My favorite part of this memo is their invoking the fact that John McCain lost 19 contests in 2008 so we're really doing just fine. What ever happened with that President McCain anyway?