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January 14, 2008

Romney done sending good money after bad

For all the talk from the Romney campaign about how he’s in it for the long haul and it doesn’t matter what happens in Michigan or South Carolina or any other place, by God, he’ll stay in through Feb. 5 – well, maybe … and maybe not.

How else to make sense of last week’s decision to pull advertising from Florida television stations? True, by normal human standards, a statewide TV buy is an expensive thing: $1 million to $1.3 million. But by Mitt Romney personal wealth standards, it’s really no big deal – more like an unexpected muffler repair for the typical working stiff.

So something else is clearly up, and what’s up is this: His claim that winning two “silvers” in Iowa and New Hampshire is perfectly okay simply does not hold water. The big-deal money guys (who frankly don’t care that much about his or any of the candidates’ politics; these people are investors and want a piece of the winner) are getting nervous and are exploring other options.

Romney spent the better part of $100 million (perhaps a quarter of it his own money) to win Iowa and New Hampshire and then roll onward from there. That didn’t happen, and now Romney’s got his back against the wall. As one top Florida Republican said privately: “If he doesn’t win Michigan, he’s in trouble.”

As it turns out, the latest polls show Romney poised to win his first “gold” in a state where others are also competing (he won Wyoming a couple of weeks back; no one else cared).

If he does win, watch for him to move the entire entourage to Florida Wednesday. With war-hero McCain and Southern Baptist Huckabee working South Carolina hard, there’s not much Romney can hope to accomplish there.

But if he does not win, and particularly if he loses to McCain by more than a point or two, watch for a suspension of the campaign, or a re-evaluation, or a strategic re-assessment or some similar announcement.

In that case, the million plus he did not spend for Florida TV will pay for a nice vacation – or even 50 or 100 of them – for him to go away someplace and sort out what happened.