A friend and fellow HucksArmy blogger and soldier, Al, made some great points the other day about Mitt Romney and his trend of virtually uncontested "gold medals" in state contests that no one else either campaigned in or was even paying much attention to. Romney won Wyoming with zero competition and minimal press coverage; and Romney also won Nevada, which people knew about only because the highly anticipated Democratic caucuses in that state were on the same day. In Nevada, Romney's only competition was Ron Paul, who came in a dismally distant second at 14%. Yes, there was competition in Michigan from John McCain, but that state, ideally, should have been a snatch for Romney (home turf, ya know?). From Al's post:

I will give Mr. Romney credit when it comes to his win in Michigan; he did earn that one even though he shouldn't have had to. Michigan is his birth state and the state that his father, George Romney, governed. Mr. Romney should have won that state in a cake walk but he didn't.

Now let's analyze what I have just gone over. Of Mitt Romney's three wins, in only one of those wins did he face any serious competition. In the other two instances Mr. Romney fled a key battleground state to campaign in a state that lacked competition. I don't know if this shows a lack of confidence on Romney's part, after all he was defeated in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Could those two losses shaken Romney's confidence in himself or does this show a fear of factors out of his control. If he intentionally abandoned the key battleground states in a race against fellow Republicans what would he do in a race against the Democrats?

So Romney blew it in Iowa and New Hampshire where he should have come out with gold medals dangling around his neck--instead, he ended up overshadowed by two surging candidates, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Mitt "I can't take it" Romney also conceded South Carolina before voting even began--South Carolina, as I've mentioned before, has typically been the state to "decide" the GOP nominee (which, as I have also said, may be very different this year), but Romney, seeing South Carolina as a lost cause (and high competition), abandoned any hopes of winning the state.

This leaves us wondering how well will Mitt Romney be able to handle the heat in Florida? This is supposed to be Rudy's state, but now that John McCain has surged to a rather formidable position, Thompson's gone, and Huckabee is still fighting, how is Romney going to deal with the competition? Has he really lost confidence in himself, or does he think he can still win the GOP nomination by winning snatch-em-up fly-by states where no one else is around to challenge his slick, slick ways?

-Cydney

Cross-posted on The Celebrity.