Going into today’s primaries, I figured Romney had to win Michigan by five points to demonstrate that his campaign still had its old mojo. In the event, he won by three. So….I guess things are still up in the air. Romney is in sort of a quantum superposition 
between winning and losing, still waiting for the Republican base to look at him just a little bit harder and collapse him into one or the other.
Or something. In any case, I’ll bet no one else uses that particular imagery to describe tonight’s results. And Romney is still the luckiest man in the world. (Well, the second luckiest after Barack Obama, anyway.) It’s as though he’s a modern-day Dr. Faustus. No matter how stilted and awkward and jawdroppingly detached from normal human experiences he remains, somehow every one of his opponents ends up self-destructing under his steely gaze. Bachmann had Gardasil, Perry had “Oops,” Cain had Ginger White, Gingrich had Gingrich, and now Santorum is reeling from Snobgate. Ron Paul has come through unscathed, but that’s only because he’s apparently cut a side deal with Romney and his infernal patron.
So Romney is still the presumptive nominee, the winner by default because everyone else is unthinkable. And after limping through the spring and finally staggering into the convention like a punch-drunk Rocky Balboa, guess what? Not only will he have to face Apollo Creed in the main event, but it looks like the Greek Streak, Olympia Snowe herself, might be pecking away at his kneecaps the entire time. Unfortunately for Romney, being the second luckiest guy in the world in a presidential race is sort of like being the second best team in the Super Bowl. He better check the fine print on his contract.
