1. According to PPP, Romney and Paul are leading with a four car pile up for third place. Gingrich is closer to finishing sixth than first. The internal numbers are really bad for Gingrich. A lot more people dislike him than like him.
2. Any finish where Romney and Paul finish in some combination of first and second works fine for Romney. They key is to keep Gingrich on the mat and prevent the consolidation of the non-Romney, non-Paul vote around some other candidate.
3. Gingrich is obviously furious and bitter at Paul. I saw Gingrich going really hard at Romney on television yesterday. All the trends are that he is going down, but he is going down giving the double bird.
4. It is all there for Santorum to surprise. He is the most widely liked according to PPP. None of the other candidates are focused on attacking him. He is getting positive attention from the conservative press. He has put in the work. He is probably in the same place as the median conservative Republican. Paul is getting quite a bit of fire that could move some of his more recent supporters away from him. I could see him gaining a fraction of those who are currently Bachmann/Perry/Gingrich supporters.
5. But Santorum could be setting up to be the Lamar Alexander of this cycle. He could become the third man out in a contest between an unloved establishment front runner and an out-of-the-mainstream alternative who can’t win the nomination. Santorum would have to consolidate the non-Romney, non-Paul vote pretty quickly and completely to win the nomination (I could see Perry dividing the non-Romney, non-Paul vote in South Carolina and giving the state to Romney) and he isn’t even on the Virginia ballot.
Update: David Weigel has a lot of the same ideas.
