I actually think this is a good move for Romney. This is probably the first time political pundits won't talk about him losing, the story will be McCain losing or Huckabee losing and how it has no trashed their campaign.

The best thing for Romney would be to win SC, of course, but he's playing the expectations game. If he pours a bunch of time and money into SC and loses, they start to harp on him again. Since he's leaving SC and ceding it to McCain, it raises expectations for McCain.

Pretty clever in my view, specially if he can pull out a win in SC, which I seriously doubt he can with all the evangelicals there supporting Huckabee and retired military supporting McCain.

I could not disagree more.

Romney has, not too long ago, even led the polls here. This state is clearly "in play" for a late surge by some candidate.

Had he only not emphasized his concession of the state, he might even have won it. He is the winner of the primaries/caucuses so far, with two wins and two seconds. The man is thoroughly capable of delivering a Reaganesque message backed by a strong track record of management success, and could have won here with an aggressive attempt. The lack of initiative disturbs me, but the overt concession alarms me. Nevada is in the bag, and a side trip to Florida could have flown under the radar . . .

I mean, come on! Here I am, an uncommitted SC voter, recognizing Romney is now the frontrunner, and the main alternatives are McCain and Huckabee (with whom I have many disagreements), ready to put Mitt at the top of the list under consideration, and . . . he drops out?

I don't know under what scenario blowing off the most Republican state east of the Mississippi is a good strategy.

Romney comes out of Saturday's voting as the front-runner in delegates and overall votes. This greatly mitigates the news coverage and subsequent bounce that McCain or Huckabee would otherwise enjoy.

I believe Romney is satisfied watching Huckabee win SC because he knows he can simply outlast him across the nation. A McCain victory on Saturday would likely propel him to success in Florida and brings him serious front-runner status. Again, I just don't think that scenario will play out as McCain has been far too traitorous to conservatives.

The LAST thing Romney wants is a Thompson upset win in South Carolina. This would result in a huge shift of HIS votes along with Huckabee's over to the Thompson camp... right before the southern state-laden Super Tuesday. As crazy as it sounds, I truly believe Thompson would win the nomination if he took SC because so many of Huckabee's supporters were once in the Fred camp, but realized he was going nowhere and went with the next best conservative.

The biggest misconception in political circles is that Huckabee is some darling of the left. He may be courting independents with his insane Edwards-like tone on the economy, but the fact is that he is competing with Romney and Thompson for the CONSERVATIVE block of the party while it is McCain and Romney doing best among the moderate Republicans. My point is, the Republican nominee will be the candidate who can galvanize the true conservatives. Once the Romney, Huckabee and Thompson voters unify on one man, this whole McCain farce will be blown away.

I don't get this at all. Considering how many uncommitted or "softly" committed voters there are in South Carolina, and how the candidates still active there are arguing over ridiculous issues like the Confederate flag, this could be a golden opportunity for Romney to jump in and beat the economy drum. Hard. Considering how well things are going in Iraq (I've actually become optimistic about that adventure - hasn't happened since the very beginning), the economy is going to dominate this election, and that's Romney's strong point as I see it.

This is the worst analyzed race I have seen since 1976. Too many pundits, media, experts?, etc. have fallen into the same primary vote trap that is just old habit. No one on the Republican side has received over 40% of the vote in any contest. This race is a delegate hunt not a voter beauty contest.

The biggest story I have seen this year is uncommitted gets 40% of the vote in Michigan. That is the big story so far because Michigan is an open primary. To brave the cold and the snow to get to the polls and then once inside and warm to pick a ballot for uncommitted. First, many more should have voted for the Republican primary. Second, Hillary should have won with at least 75% of the vote. Finally, the story of the composition of these 40% should have run for more that one 24 hour news cycle, it should still be on DRUDGE as developing.

Back to the Republican side. The pre-election polls have been all over the place and being a numbers man myself I wondered how these highly trained professionals can be so far off. Rasmussen release a SC poll taken on 1/16 which showed a tie at 24%. However, only 65% of the 24% are solid votes or 15%. If you adjust the numbers for solid support SC looks like this: 15% - McCain: 15% - Huckabee: 10% - Thompson: 10% - Romney: 10% - other candidates, and wait for it, do the math ..... 40% undecided.

Now Scott Rasmussen is not going to release a poll three days from an election with 40% undecided. Like any good professional he is going to use his best polling and modeling possible the reduce the 40% to 10%.

Now in the end the projections the pollster make may come out to be reality but they were off in NH (dem side) and in Michigan where a small Romney advantage turned into 9%.

Back to Jim's point. On the surface it looks like a bad decision by Romney with mo from MI and so many voters undecided to just run off to NV when a knockout punch in SC could put him the driver's seat for FL. We will find out Saturday.

Romney is not stupid but even smart people make bad decisions. On the other hand, NV has 34 delegates and SC has only 24. Remember this is a delegate hunt not a primary vote chase. Plus it would seem that a win in one state does not carry over to the next state. Romney may have detected that he had no momentum from MI going into SC and his internal polls may have had him in 4th place and not tracking well.

I'm coming to think that the Republican race will start February 6th.

Jim, I think your assumptions are off.

You say that Romney could have won SC. My guess is that if that were true, Romney would be competing right now in SC.

Hugh Hewitt is urging SC voters for Mitt to vote for Huckabee to stop McCain. Hewitt also says the latest polls have Romney at 13%.

My hope is that after SC, if Thompson doesn't win, he drops out and his supporters come over to Romney as the next best choice. Maybe this will help knock off McCain and Huckabee also.

The reason SC has "only" 24 delegates is that the RNC penalized the state half the total for holding an early primary. The likelihood in both parties is that all of the delegates "lost" to national penalties will be restored at the convention. But it is a moot point anyway, because Romney has Nevada in the bag - no one else is even competing for those delegates. He gains nothing by going there.

Not only are many people either undecided or only loosely committed to a candidate, but because the parties have to pay for their primaries here, precincts are consolidated and many voters will be voting at a location far from their homes. The weather is expected to be cold with rain all day long. Turnout will be a huge factor.

For Romney, if he had won it, it would all but cinch the nomination. Only Giuliani would be left unbeaten in a contested race, and much of Rudy's staff is already working without paychecks. The potential gain was much greater here than in a useless trip to Nevada, unless he wanted to play the slots.

What likelihood that delegates would be restored? That is bad analysis gone worse. Why impose party discipline only to look weak in August by allowing the early states to seat their full delegation? I would say 50/50 chance of restoration and I lean against.

Anyway, Romney would pick up an extra 26 delegates from MI. And Florida which is now a winner take all state would revert to congressional district delegate allocation which would dilute a possible Rudy victory.

See ya on 02/06.

Guiliani abandoned them all until Super Tuesday and people don't come down on him like this. Seriously. Fred abandoned Michigan. McCain abandoned Iowa

Romney had to win Michigan, but after winning Michigan over McCain with a healthy margin and despite McCain's bounce and support from Crossover Democrats, we don't hear jackshit about the win.

If you don't like the guy fine. But this bar raised higher for Romney than anyone else crap is making me want to pull for the guy on that alone.

I don't blame Mitt for playing small ball at this time. His path to the nomination is not in Dixie as long as certain others are in the race.
His path is drawn through the Great Lakes states, Greater Massachusetts, assorted small states he can dominate organizationally, and California, Oregon, and Microsoft.
His taking leave of South Carolina is just Mitt's anal way of signalling that he wishes not to be a fly at the plantation picnic but would be "much obliged" for the honor of a gentleman's showing of 3rd place. An appeal and farewell. Channelling Rhett Butler, the gallant northerner. And if nothing else, protecting Brand Romney from a incontrovertible defeat by ordeal.

Bottom line: A loss in Nevada would damage Mitt's story arc more than only placing in SC. A lucky close 3rd in SC while absent would be a net plus. Mitt is directing himself like Olivier. I'm rather impressed with the screenplay.

UNLESS!..he loses Nevada!
In which case he becomes the public bozo.
Nevada, Nevada, Nevada. Makes sense to me.

This was no strategic electoral decision by the Romney campaign not to compete in South Carolina. He DID compete here. He spent many days and over $3 MILLION - the most of any candidate - in the state and then effectively concedes TWO DAYS before the primary to go to Nevada, which he has already sewed up because no one else is even competing there.

I see no way to characterize such a move as any sort of "strategy." Unless the "strategy" is to ensure the time and money spent already was wasted.

The best "spin" that can be put upon it is that he was trying to preempt negative coverage of a third or fourth place finish and raise the level of expectations for McCain. $3 million seems to me a pretty hefty price to pay for a chance to "spin" for marginally less unfavorable coverage.

With the high level of loosely-committed voters even up unto the end, Romney had a reasonable chance to win by just putting in two more days here (or parts of days - he could have afforded side trips to Florida without raising any eyebrows). An outright concession guarantees he can't do it.

Sure, it was still a long shot, but the potential upside of virtually ending the campaigns of Huckabee, Thompson, and probably McCain too, was worth two days of effort.

Let me explain why I believe the states penalized delegates for violating early primary rules will see those delegates restored at the convention.

Once a nominee is apparent - meaning someone has a majority of delegates - that candidate takes over the party for the duration of the campaign. The National Committees (which imposed the sanctions) become subservient to the nominees. Control of the conventions belongs to the nominees.

Now, Michigan and Florida are battleground states, and it is entirely possible that either or both could be close in the fall. Neither party's nominee will risk offending even a tiny portion of those states' swing voters by denying them representation (especially after it no longer matters). Those delegates will be restored on the floor in both parties.

The GOP will also restore South Carolina's, so the nominee can pretend he is doing it on principle rather than for political purposes, but it will be done nonetheless.

"I see no way to characterize such a move as any sort of "strategy." Unless the "strategy" is to ensure the time and money spent already was wasted."-ja

If Romney's SC strategy keeps him away from the lower-end results cluster, it's the cost of a wealthy Mormon liberal doing what a wealthy Mormon liberal has to do to not be embarrassed by performing below modest expectations. In a split field, that's his mission.

My point regarding Mitt's decampment was that Mitt would rather be photographed riding a white horse in Nevada than sitting atop a bogged-down siege engine in the piney woods.

He's storyboarding the scenes for his own biopic.

Candid photos of the Romneys sitting long-faced and sequestered in some hotel suite as bad news comes in from the precincts is not in the script.

Off-topic. Beware surfing RealClearPolitics. Someone has planted trojans/viruses in certain hyperlinks (the "NATO" item at bottom).

Not a strong automatic one, though. Requires positive step to confirm stupidity.

"Beware surfing RealClearPolitics."

Correction: "Politico".