Blumenthal's Super Tuesday primer:
He expects a close race in Tennessee:
The most surprising finish may be underway in Tennessee, where two automated, recorded voice polls conducted over the weekend both show support for Newt Gingrich climbing rapidly. … The WeAskAmerica poll showed all three frontrunners separated by a single percentage point, 30 percent for Romney and 29 percent each for Santorum and Gingrich. The PPP poll gave Santorum a slightly larger share of the vote (34 percent), followed by Romney (29 percent) and Gingrich (27 percent). Other Tennessee surveys conducted late last week had Gingrich significantly lower.
John Cassidy wonders if Romney will effectively end the nomination fight tonight:
A week ago, a Santorum loss in either Tennessee or Oklahoma seemed unthinkable. That such possibilities are even being discussed shows how far things have moved in Romney’s favor. It’s not just the polls, and it’s not that social conservatives have suddenly shed their suspicions of Romney. But there seems to be general feeling in the G.O.P., certainly in its upper reaches, that it’s time to call a halt to the circular firing squad.
Ezra Klein watches Republican lawmakers:
Party leaders have come to the conclusion that this primary is hurting them — here are some graphs on that — and they don't seem interested in letting it go on in a serious way for much longer. If Romney wins tonight, expect a lot of endorsements, and a lot of establishment pressure on Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, in the coming days.
Nate Silver outlines various scenarios and says "Romney is likely to remain the favorite to win the nomination almost no matter what happens." Josh Putnam calculates that neither Santorum nor Gingrich can get 1,144, the number of delegates needed to win the nomination:
The bottom line here is that Romney has enough of a delegate advantage right now and especially coming out of today's contests that it is very unlikely that anyone will catch him, much less catch him and get to 1144. … And that is a problem in this race. Well, a problem for Gingrich and Santorum anyway. If all either of them can take to voters is an argument that all they can do is prevent Romney from getting to 1144, then neither has a winning strategy.
They have, instead, a losing strategy, in a way that would make the eventual winner look more and more like a loser. The pressure on Gingrich and Santorum will be brutal after tonight, if they don't win more than one state apiece.
I repeat what I'll be looking out for: Romney's share of the blue-collar vote in Ohio and his evangelical support. My daring prediction is that Romney won't win those core constituencies handily enough, and that his weak position as the nominee will be buttressed by one of the harshest, nastiest propaganda campaigns against an incumbent president in memory.
We know what Romney is capable of, with brutally negative advertizing. We also know his own substantive positions – more tax cuts for all, more defense spending, and yet somehow a balanced budget – are too weak to bear much scrutiny or mathematical analysis. So we'll have a Super-PAC dominated endless loop of anti-Obama slime and untruth.
The Dish will, of course, be live-blogging tonight. Good times.
The Dish 