The exit polls have:

Romney - 35%
McCain - 29%
Huckabee - 15%
Paul - 10%
Giuliani - 4%

That's wonderful news for the "Keep the GOP race going" crowd. Lots of people, from progressive blogs like Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo to individuals on my friends list, have been pitching the idea of voting for Romney so that he will stay as a viable candidate and keep the Republicans beating each other up.

So they got what they wanted. Yippee.

[EDIT: As I hit post, CNN just called Michigan for Romney.]

Everyone is so gleeful about the chaos this is going to cause, but they need to keep in mind that Romney has more money than any of the other Republican candidates, and he's going to be able to do more on Super Tuesday than anyone else.

Winning Michigan might do more than keep Romney as a viable candidate. It also means he might WIN THE NOMINATION.

No one thought George W. Bush could get elected once, much less twice. If we're watching Mitt Romney get inaugurated in 371 days, I wonder if everyone will think was such a cute idea.

(By the way, with 6% of the GOP vote counted, Giuliani is a tight race with Uncommitted on the Republican side. There's no reason for anyone to vote Uncommitted on the Republican ballot unless they are hoping for Bloomberg.)

The early Dem counts seem about in line with the polls - Clinton is getting something in the low 60s. My feeling is that she needs at least 60% to avoid looking bad, given the fact that so few people wanted to vote uncommitted and so many people crossed over to the Republican primary.

I'm going to vote "Uncommitted" in tomorrow's Democratic primary.

For a long, boring explanation as to why I'm doing that, read the post I made at DailyKos.

I was just talking to my brother, and we were discussing the upcoming Michigan and Arizona primaries. I told him about the DailyKos effort to get Michigan Democrats to vote for Mitt Romney, - they figure that keeping Romney in the race as long as possible helps splinter the Republicans.

I said that I couldn't bring myself to cast a vote for Romney, even if it would help the Democrats in the long run, and he reminded me that my grandfather would probably come back from the dead and haunt me.

Grandpa hated George Romney, Mitt's father. Not because of anything he did as governor, but because of what he did to make a name for himself in the first place. In 1954, the Nash and Hudson car companies merged, becoming American Motor Company (AMC). Shortly afterward, Romney was named as the company's CEO.

My grandfather had been working for Hudson Motors for almost 20 years, but when Romney decided to dump the Hudson nameplate, Grandpa was out of a job without any severance pay or benefits. He also owned a farm, but that didn't produce enough income, and the family never recovered financially.

Grandpa died in 1997 after years of illness. One of his few treasured memories from his last few years was the fact that he outlived Romney, who died in 1995.

I'm trying to decide what to do about next week's presidential primary. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue - I'd vote for my favorite candidate in the Democratic primary, but things aren't that simple this time.

First, because of Michigan's asinine decision to jump the process, the Democratic primary has become completely irrelevant. The idea was to move up on the calendar and get some attention on the state and our economic woes, but the Democratic Party has stripped the state of its delegates and all the major candidates are boycotting. Edwards and Obama had their names taken off the ballot and, while Clinton didn't do that, she has promised not to campaign here or spend any money.

The other possibility is to vote in the Republican primary. I could vote for the Republican that I think would make the best president, which is probably McCain, but that's an awfully low bar. Or I could vote for Ron Paul, but I have serious issues with some of his past statements on race and sexual preference. Either way, it's mostly a vote against Romney, Giuliani and Huckabee.

A few pundits have been saying that they think Clinton may try to use surrogates to campaign in Michigan to boost her margin and make it look like an impressive victory. If I see any signs of that, I'll vote for "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary and urge everyone I know to do the same. Write-in votes won't be counted, so don't do that. Vote for uncommitted or Kucinich, since he managed to mess up his attempt to get off the ballot.

If Clinton does ignore Michigan, I'll be tempted to vote in the Republican primary to try to stop a Romney victory.

McCain wins New Hampshire comfortably over Romney. Huckabee finishes a distant third.

So now what?

Romney's in massive trouble - he had the lead in Iowa and lost it to Huckabee, then had the lead in New Hampshire and lost it to McCain. He spent millions in these two states, went negative and didn't win either one.

Huckabee and McCain did something really smart - they punted one of the first two races in order to focus on the other - but do they have any chance in states where you don't get a year to make your case? It's a week to Michigan, 11 days to South Carolina, three weeks to Florida and 28 days to the 21-state National Super Tuesday. They don't have the cash to make a nationwide push - they're going to have to keep picking their spots. Romney has more money, but, well, he can't seem to win anything.

Fred Thompson may have already dropped out of the race - I don't think anyone would be able to tell. Rudy Giuliani has an interesting strategy - as far as I can tell, he's going to concede every state before Florida, let Romney, Huckabee and McCain beat each other senseless, then come charging from behind. That might work if he had any popularity at all, but he finished behind Ron Paul in Iowa and might do it again in New Hampshire. He isn't even doing well among voters that say terrorism is the most important issue.

Romney has to win Michigan, doesn't he? He's a native Detroiter - he's a Cranbrook grad - and his dad was governor of Michigan. But the polls have it very close between McCain, Romney and Huckabee, and you can't think tonight's going to give anyone other than McCain any momentum.

Huckabee's probably going to win South Carolina. So you could see Huckabee and McCain with two states each going into Florida, and Giuliani spending millions to try to save himself there.

This is all going to happen very fast, and take some great creativity by the campaigns. Romney's attempt to win everything has been a disaster - it's going to come down to the person who uses his limited ammo in the right spots.

The Democratic campaign, on the other hand, isn't going to be nearly that subtle. Obama and Clinton are going to be going toe-to-toe in every state, and most of them will come down to how many young voters Obama can get to the polls. The key might be Edwards. If he drops out now and endorses Obama, that might be enough to clinch it.

Way-too-early prediction: Obama/Dodd beats McCain/Huckabee in November. I can't see Clinton taking the VP spot and why would Edwards do it a second time? The Republicans wouldn't bother putting Romney as veep - it isn't like they could win Massachusetts - and people would be terrified of a McCain/Giuliani ticket. They might fight each other to see who could push the button.

As a liberal, I do NOT want McCain to be the Republican nominee. Look at the polls - he's the only Republican candidate within 20 points of Obama and Clinton in head-to-head matchups. He's the only one that even seems vaguely presidential. I'll happily take Huckabee, who is too right-wing to win the general election, and I'll happily take Romney, who is too plastic and too Mormon, and I'll really, really happily take Giuliani, who is a slimeball with more skeletons in his closet than Freddy Krueger.

There's been a lot of talk in the political blogosphere about Hillary Clinton possibly shaking up her campaign staff. That wouldn't be surprising, but I suspect it won't help. Sen. Clinton is the anti-Reagan. I think she would be a tremendous president - as good as her husband, though with different strengths and weaknesses - but she's a bad candidate. There's nothing she can do about anti-female prejudice, but couldn't someone somewhere have taught her how to appear at least vaguely sincere?

That's the difference between the two Clintons. If Bill had given that speech yesterday and teared up while talking about how personal all of this is, he would have had the crowd in tears with him. Hillary doesn't have that ability - she doesn't have the empathy that a candidate needs.

The candidate that does need to reconsider his campaign strategists is John Edwards. His campaign was so hyper-focused on Clinton that he's got nothing to throw at Obama. You can't attack someone when you have the same campaign: "Change, change, change, change."

Heck, he was so desperate to attack Clinton that he often referred to he and Obama as partners for change against the Washington insiders. Now, he finds himself having to catch Obama, and can't give the voters any important difference to focus on. Fairly or unfairly, at this point, he's basically being seen as Obama Lite, and that's not going to get you the nomination.

Let's see how these score. I've eliminated the fringe candidates and the ones that have already dropped out. Yes, I know I match well with Gravel and Kucinich ... but what about the candidates that might be running in November?

First, GoToQuiz.com:

82% Barack Obama
80% John Edwards
76% Hillary Clinton
67% Bill Richardson
39% Rudy Giuliani
29% John McCain
23% Mike Huckabee
20% Mitt Romney


On ElectoralCompass, I score nearly the same as Obama, followed closely by Edwards, then a gap to Clinton and Richardson, then a huge gap to Giuliani, then McCain, Romney and Huckabee in a bunch.

MyElectionChoices isn't much different - Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Clinton, McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney.

DEHP: Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Richardson, Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, Romney.

That's 4-for-4 for Obama, and Edwards is second on three of the four, which agrees entirely with my non-internet-quiz-based feelings on the matter. If Clinton gets the nomination, I will happily work for her election, but I'd rather see Obama or Edwards. All of the Republicans terrify me, but I'm OK with Romney being last or next-to-last every time.

I don't want Mitt Romney to be president, but he doesn't usually scare me quite as much as Rudy Guiliani or Mike Huckabee.

He made it to the top of the list today with his disgusting attempt to tie Benazir Bhutto's assassination to Iraq.

"We are still learning the details of today's tragic events in Pakistan, but this is a stark reminder that America must not only stay on high alert, but remain actively engaged across the globe. Pakistan has long been a key part in the war against extremism and radical jihadists. For those who think Iraq is the sole front in the War on Terror, one must look no further than what has happened today. America must show its commitment to stand with all moderate forces across the Islamic world and together face the defining challenge of our generation – the struggle against violent, radical jihadists."

Even Rudy Giuliani and President Bush had the class to not actually mention Iraq in their statements.

How is this a "stark reminder" that we should be "on high alert"? Without ever saying so, Mitt ties this to Al Qaeda, but unless he's got information that no one else has right now, they aren't exactly the most likely suspects. The only people blaming this on "extremism and radical jihadists" are Romney, Bush and, by some odd coincidence, the man voted "Most Likely to Have Benazir Bhutto Killed", Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Romney, you might have been too distracted marching with Martin Luther King Jr. or hunting big game to have heard about the reality in Pakistan, so let me fill you in.

Pakistan is a dictatorship. I know we don't like to talk about this, since we're supposed to be counting on Pakistan for help against those "violent, radical jihadists", but that's the truth. General Musharraf took power via a 1999 coup, ousting a democratically elected Prime Minister, and has been the head of the government since.

Until a month ago, he was also the official head of the military as well. He's now given that up - a purely symbolic gesture made to appease the Bush Administration and make sure we keep giving him War On Terror money for no apparent reason.

There were supposed to be actual democratic elections in a couple weeks, where Musharraf was almost certainly going to lose to Bhutto. I don't know how much world history you've studied, Mitt, but dictators very rarely give up power freely. Do you really think Al Qaeda was behind the October attempt on Bhutto's life, or do you think maybe there's a chance that Musharraf blamed them to try to get the international spotlight off himself?

As many of the other presidential candidates from both parties pointed out today, this was certainly a horrible terrorist attack. But not every terrorist is a radical Islamist jihadist. We need a democracy in Pakistan that will help shut down radical Islamist organizations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and today's assassination is a blow to that process.

But it was a blow delivered by a man who is far from a radical jihadist - a man who has, for all his bad points, always denounced Islamist extremism. This was a blow delivered by a man who will do anything to stay in power. Today, he removed one of the biggest obstacles in his way.

And now, Mr. Romney, in your blind rush to look tough on terror, you have given credibility to his spurious accusations. By doing so, you have done damage to democracy in Pakistan and, although you might be too campaign-blinded to see this, you have done damage to any real chance we have to dismantle the very groups you rail against.

I guess that's not as important as picking up a couple more votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.