Ugly

Once again, things haven't gone the way I had hoped, or expected, in this race for the White House. Despite a lot of rallying at the last minute, Mitt Romney did not do particularly well in any of the states he needed to do well in. He won Massachusetts and Utah, big deal. Colorado was a good win, but beyond that they were relatively small. He was about to win West Virginia this morning, until McCain's people stepped in and gave their votes to Huckabee. Romney had 47% on the first ballot, to Huck's 15%. But McCain did his dirty work and Huck then won with 51% of the vote. More dirty tricks.

Mitt almost caught McCain in Arizona, which would have been a real story, but fell short. And they called California for McCain very early-on, which was surprising. Romney had been said to be ahead here by as much as 8 points yesterday. But even die-hard supporter Hugh Hewitt said the other day that Mitt needed to win California and Georgia to have a credible shot at "the title", and he won neither. In fact, he placed third in Georgia, which was won by Huckabee.

Huck was the big surprise tonight, winning 5 states. It seems Romney supporters (myself included) look a little foolish for having said he ought to drop out. Huck had been getting 15% in every race, not even anything respectable. And if you exclude West Virginia, where he really did get 15%, 4 solid wins is still very good for a guy who was in the basement. Still, at the end of the day our party is scattered all over the place.

Unless Romney can show some credible reason why the remaining states will vote for him, he probably ought to drop out very soon. It pains me terribly to say this. But at some point we have to look at the writing on the wall: For some reason, Mitt is not connecting with Joe Lunchbox. For crying out loud, Fox reported tonight that in California, of voters who considered the economy to be their number one concern, they picked McCain overwhelmingly!! Given how poor McCain truly is on the economy, and how great Romney is on it, this result tells me that Romney has a lot longer way to go than I believed. Frustrating when you see something so clearly that so many others can't see.

I watched Romney give a very upbeat speech despite the results tonight; he really is a great speaker (the first thing that attracted me to him when I saw him speak at the Olympics). Then, later, I watched McCain give his victory speech. He looked awful. I figured out why he's always looking off beyond the camera and to the side: He's looking at the teleprompters, and he's lousy at disguising it. Then Fox cut off McCain's speech to go to Obama, who was speaking in Chicago. The contrast couldn't have been more severe. Obama is a very good speaker. Not as good or as polished as Romney, but very good. McCain? Stiff and scripted. Obama had tons of twenty- and thirty-somethings behind him, hanging on his every word as though he was the Second Coming. McCain had a collection of dinosaurs alongside him, also stiff. Romney, by the way, had a crowd similar to Obama's. My point is, if Obama gets the nomination we are going to be in a world of hurt. The man is an empty suit, and he's incredibly liberal in his philosophy. But he's hypnotizing young people in a way I haven't seen any politician do before. McCain had better watch out: He looks like he's about to get what he's been wishing for.

By the way, Hillary Clinton is still ahead of Obama (for the moment). Part of her support came from Latino's in L.A., about 2-to-1 versus Obama. Here's one jaw-dropping reason why.

It's late and I'm headed off to bed. Tomorrow is another day, and the beginning of my move, I think, to try and get my head around supporting McCain. It's like swallowing really nasty medicine: You know you have to do it, but boy is it painful. The only thing for it is to consider the consequences of not taking it.

Tomorrow is also Ash Wednesday, so all you Catholics, make sure you get to church, and fast all day. God Bless.