Willard Ties Himself

Mitt Romney with his anti-immigrant adviser handily won the Arizona primary.

At this hour 10:00 pm EST, Willard looks like he will win a very small victory in Michigan. The end results will probably change in a week when the caravan has moved on. Willard barely won Oakland County where his family lived and he grew up by 1%. Santorum lost the Catholic vote because of his comment that he vomited at JFK's speech on the separation of church and state. Some of the voters used to be Kennedy Democrats in their youth.

Fox News exit poll claimed that the Michigan voters' priorities was electability at 33%, Strong moral character at 23%, Experience at 21% and 15% a true conservative.

Romney has won voters earning more than $250,000 and is inching toward winning those earning $100,000 or more. Santorum is winning the vote of the middle-class and lower middle class. Union households are voting for him by 45% to Romney's 27%.

Since Michigan is an open primary,over 41% of the primary voters said in exit polls they were independents or Democrats. The New York Times found that 10% were Democrats, which is the highest since 2000 when Democrats crossed the line to vote for John McCain against George W. Bush. 50% of the Democrats voted for Santorum and 15% for Romney.

Tonight's advantage to Romney, according to Nate Silver, was the early voting had Romney at 42% over 39% for Santorum. They were cast before Santorum picked up momentum in the last 48 hours.

While the Washington Post claimed the voters this year were more moderate than in 2008, the New York Times found the opposite. 6 in 10 claimed they were conservatives and 3 in 10 claimed to be very conservative. Tonight, Romney was winning the "somewhat conservatives" at a higher rate than Santorum winning the "very conservative".

A thing to remember--the delegates are allocated in Michigan according to congressional district. So if the slight Romney lead holds tonight, he will essentially split the delegates evenly.

Talking Points Memo had the best line today that Romney invokes the Popeye Defense when he talks about his artificial persona and wealth--"I am what I am".

Markos Malitos at the Daily Kos tweeted, "Romney loves Michigan so much, he offered to buy it."

At best, Romney can be glad the night's nearly over. He didn't show anything except that he can spend enormous amounts of money for negligible results.

Ron Paul regaled his followers with the prospects of eliminating the Patriot Act and denying that he was in a conspiracy with Romney because reports show his ads never attack Willard only other candidates. And it is true he hates Rick Santorum.

Newt Gingrich ate up early evening air time by talking about trees--yes, trees. I guess Newt thought that was a Romney strong point.

So the clown car moves on to super Tuesday. Now everyone is focusing on Ohio as the test for Romney and whether Romney can win anything in the South. Newt is gearing up for another comeback with his new infusion of Adelson money.

This will not be over soon enough. John McCain thinks that Romney may end up too wounded to be a strong candidate in November. On this John may be right.