I may be wrong, but I thought Romney was winning going into Michigan, by way of 2 second place finishes and garnering more delegates than Huckabee and McCain.

This result gives Romney a much needed profile boost, and no doubt, McCain doesn’t look like a shoe-in now. The US MSM media have been pathetic: switching and swooning with every new poll.

Sunny says Romney is a Religious Conservative and a Hawk, that may be his latest platform, but it’s unclear what the hell he stands for. I think Obama and Hilary would love to take down on Flip-Flop Romney – however much cash he’s got (it might also bring Bloomberg into the race, who I don’t think will run if McCain wins the GOP nomination).

It’s also clear that despite Romney not winning a lot, he is getting what counts…high percentage seconds to keep himself well ahead in delegate terms. If Huckabee and McCain keep fighting it out in the way they have been so far they’ll both lose out.

“Rudy Giuliani’s campaign is faltering and should be dead by the Super Tuesday (5th Feb) ”

Disagree. His strategy, which I don’t think is a good one but he’s put a lot of thought into it, is to ignore the early contests as the irrelevent pissing matches they really are and concentrate on the big states and super Tuesday. He hasn’t campaigned in the states that have voted thus far, and thus is near the bottom. However, with no clear leader, his strategy to break through in Florida could yet bear fruit, Florida has more delegates than the combined number of the states that have so far voted.

NB: I hope he’s wrong and loses out, but he’s not dead until after Florida.

It’ll be interesting also because it’ll show how much the people of America are willing to be led by the media. If Florida votes for McCain and Romney you can bet your bottom dollar they’re lapping up the media and being controlled by them. But then Giuliani only has to come close to either of them to prove that it is indeed about what you do on the ground too.

MatGB – Giuliani would have to come first in Florida to have any chance in my view, otherwise he is finished. My feeling is that most voters have had a chance to evaluate the other candidates now, which is what makes his strategy a losing one. He was initially riding on the wave that he had brand recognition and that people were worried about terrorism. But most Republicans cite the economy and immigration as their main issues – something that Giuliani is not very strong on.

Aaron – I agree, the swooning over McCain has been rather pathetic. But out of all the Republicans I think I dislike him the least. The problem is, among Republicans he gets little support compared to Romney or even Huckabee.

Lee

We shouldn’t imagine that republicans voting for McCain and Romney in Florida means they are being controlled by the media. That is far too simplistic.

Sure it would partly reflect the greater exposure their sensible efforts in the early primaries have provided. But in a nation of 300million people not every voter can have a long chat with every candidate. As such it is valuable for voters to know when the chips are down what direction candidates head in.

That only really becomes clear when it comes to votes – and Rudy has yet ducked that issue.

As such we could well argue a vode for him in Florida is a vote for ignorance.

and that would be simplistic too.

6. Of course them simply coming at the top wouldn’t show anything, I really didn’t explain myself clearly unfortunately. It’s a complicated issue but if you look here you’ll see that Giuliani has long been the favourite, especially during the time when he was all over the papers. Now he has dropped off the media radar it is now McCain that is favourite. If Giuliani was strong on a policy level and if people voted based on that then his lead wouldn’t have dropped around 50% from before christmas.

You could argue that his policies weren’t clear and that others have got their across for the first time and that’s a perfectly reasonable explaination, but if that’s the case we shouldn’t see a resurgence from Giuliani in the polls by more than a few points. If he does rampage his way back up to the top runners on the basis of one state then it would be hard to deny the public aren’t voting based on positive exposure more than policies, surely?

Lee

if he rampaged to a big victory I think we’d have to conclude it was indeed a somewhat superficial win based on swings in media coverage more than anything else.

But I should expect more than a few point swing. After all, he hasn’t campaigned in the previous votes and has done in this one quite extensively. That alone, before considering TV coverage, will have earned a few percent more voters on the others. And of course campaigning will provide him with better TV coverage too.

Most important will be if it seems close in the days before the vote. He may then have to take some chances and be specific on some policies. And that in turn could have a huge impact on votes.

Very true, and I agree..although I would say that even a marginal victory could be indicative of media power. McCain is the guy that is ahead right now, and depending on South Caronlina you’ll have a popular candidate nationally going up against a candidate with the most actual support in results…for Giuliani to break in to that race (we know how everyone likes two horse races) would take something a little bit more than being committed. Post Iowa his national rating was as low as 10% after being as high as 30%. If he gets more than 20% of the vote I’ll be personally assuming that it can’t all be down to him.

But it was as high as 30% when he was campaigning in his high profile efforts. As such if he does that in Florida it seems fair to imagine that 30% might at least hold up.

I understand what you’re saying, however in itself is sort of conceding that it was media power that took him so high in the first place. If everything was about policies we wouldn’t have seen giuliani get barely any votes in the states surveyed so far, and we won’t get a return to the same heights he had in October, as far as I’m concerned.

Lee

That is partly true – although the media is a useful tool for conveying policy positions. (not that the Mayor has used it for that yet.) So all media coverage isn’t superficial.

And of course we should forget that a high profile gives people confidence they are voting for a prospective winner – and thus almost regardless of what the media coverage is like, it can help shore up his support that might otherwise drift towards a ‘least bad option’ among the other candidates.

But I guess I’m arguing somewhat counter-intuitively given my many rants at Labour’s amateurish spin machine these days (which as far as I’m concerned is just a gift to the tory professional spin machine).