GOP Race Is Deliciously Scrambled

Mac may be back, but what about the others?

After Republican John McCain's decisive win last night in New Hampshire just days after Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses, the GOP contest remains deliciously scrambled. (Exhibit 1 from last night: Rudy Giuliani in a tight race for fourth place with Ron Paul. Now that's scrambled, though the former New York mayor might not find it particularly delicious.)

But a few things were clear: Runner-up Mitt Romney told supporters that "now we really know New Hampshire." And that new awareness of who Granite Staters are and what they want proved a bitter pill for Romney, who owns a vacation home in the state and is former governor of next-door Massachusetts.

With back-to-back losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney's expensive win-it-early strategy is a shambles. He faces a tough challenge from Huckabee and McCain in next week's primary in his home state of Michigan. A recent poll there showed there's no legacy edge for the son of the late George Romney, a beloved former governor there. And he's not considered a contender in South Carolina.

Romney, however, pledged last night to soldier on and renewed his attack on Washington as embodied by McCain, though he never mentioned his most bitter opponent by name. A Romney aide months ago predicted that by the Super-duper primary day on February 5, when nearly two dozen states will hold their contests, all candidates will be exhausted and broke. Except his boss, the aide said, whose personal fortune would allow him to keep signing checks. How long he chooses to continue doing so is anyone's guess.

For his part, Huckabee pronounced himself ecstatic at his third-place finish. And history shows that the former Arkansas governor has already proved himself king of parlaying a shoestring budget and podium finish into victory. Many credit his stunning ascent in the Hawkeye State to his surprising second-place finish to Romney in last summer's Iowa Republican straw poll--which McCain and Giuliani skipped.

Huckabee is now rising in Michigan polls and looks strong in South Carolina, where churchgoing voters look very kindly on the ordained Baptist minister.

"It won't be long," Huckabee said last night, "before we secure the nomination." He still may be a long shot, but at least now nobody's laughing.

And what of Giuliani? He campaigned and spent money in New Hampshire and, ended up, indeed, having to battle Ron Paul for a fourth-place finish. With no clear GOP front-runner yet, his strategy to run the tables February 5 still may play. But GOP strategists say that to stay alive, Giuliani, lagging Huckabee and McCain in national polls he once dominated, needs to win the January 29 Florida primary.

To underscore the importance of a win in the Sunshine State, while his opponents were flying to Michigan and South Carolina, Giuliani headed to Florida today for two events and will embark Saturday on a two-day bus tour. He still leads there but has been steadily losing ground--most notably to Huckabee--over the past several weeks. With voters watching others take home the prize in Michigan and South Carolina, Giuliani's singular strategy, like Romney's, could very well prove fatal.

By Liz Halloran