The early primaries serve as run-off elections in that one candidate gets run off each week. That works nicely with the meme of this year's debate-laden campaign as reality TV, where someone gets voted off each week.
Thus, we saw Bachmann pack it in after Iowa, and if form holds, Huntsmann will pack it in sometime Wednesday after digesting a low-teens showing in New Hampshire. Then, Rick Perry says "via con Dios" after SC and Newt packs it in either then or after Florida, giving us a Romney-Santorum-Paul denoument the rest of the way.
Thus, we shouldn't write too much into a 20 point thumping that Romney will likely inflict tomorrow; it's in his home turf and other candidates backers will flow more to his rivals than to him once they drop out.
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