The American Spectator

Romney is trying to lower expectations FAST, arguing that if he loses on Tuesday he's not out of it. This will be one of his bigger eye rollers. This was the campaign of course that has plunked down more money (some estimate he spent $10M in Iowa and another $10-15M in New Hampshire) than any candidate ever in each of these states and spent a full year in both trying to nail them down in his early state momentum strategy. It is hard to keep track of how many times he said he had to win both or at least win one or would definitely win New Hampshire. . It strains credibility to argue the only viable strategy is to win early states to garner momentum, and then when you fear you will lose say "never mind." Wouldn't it be refreshing if a candidate said: "We lost really bad and we planned on winning. We messed up but we'll try to fight our way back."? By the way, Hillary has the same problem and with her message of "rain on your parade" it looks uphill for her too. UPDATE: A Franklin Pierce poll shows McCain up 9 points( all polling done post-Iowa), taking McCain's lead up to 5.7pts. in RCP.