I know, I know, most of you are right now writhing on the floor going through withdrawal without the daily dose of polling goodness that usually accompanies our Open Thread. Let me explain what happened. As I was uploading some thumbnail pictures and editing some posts this morning, our server hosting company for some reason thought I was a hacker, and they blocked my IP address. Yes, I was banned from my own blog. The irony. At the time, I thought the whole site went down and we were suffering a server outage. It took most of the morning to track down what happened, and as a result I was not able to post the open thread. But I thank MJ for stepping up, and I thank our IT geek, LiberalGeek, for dealing with my hysterical demands.
But now lets feed our addiction:
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY — PRESIDENT
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 37, Santorum 23, Gingrich 12, Paul 11
NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Romney 39, Santorum 27, Gingrich 17, Paul 10
ALABAMA (Rasmussen): Gingrich 30, Santorum 29, Romney 28 and Paul 7.
ALABAMA (Capital Survey Research/AEA): Romney 31, Santorum 22, Gingrich 21, Paul 7
MISSISSIPPI (American Research Group): Gingrich 35, Romney 31, Santorum 20, Paul 7.
MISSISSIPPI (Rasmussen): Romney 35, Santorum 27, Gingrich 27 and Paul 6.
CALIFORNIA (PPIC): Romney 28, Santorum 22, Gingrich 17, Paul 8
My thoughts: So we have Santorum leading in an Alabama today from yesterday, and now Gingrich leading in another today and Romney leading in yet another today. All three are bunched at the top. If Romney wins, then his campaign is right, the Republican primary is over. If Gingrich loses, his campaign is over. If Santorum wins, that means he is the remaining Non-Romney and this thing gets interesting.
Same rules apply in Mississippi. We have Gingrich leading in one poll and Romney in another, with all three within striking distance. If Gingrich loses, his campaign is over. If Romney wins, the primary is over. If Santorum wins, it gets interesting.
GENERAL ELECTION — PRESIDENT
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (48-44); Obama d. Santorum (50-42)
CALIFORNIA (PPIC): Obama d. “Generic Republican” (53-37)
MAINE (PPP): Obama d. Paul (54-38); Obama d. Romney (58-35); Obama d. Santorum (58-35); Obama d. Gingrich (60-32)
BATTLEGROUND STATES (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (46-42)
The Battleground states above are Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio. But Rasmussen doesn’t break down the numbers to each state, so these numbers while nice, are worthless. For all I know, Obama is blowing out Romney in Virginia and North Carolina and losing by a small margin in Florida and Ohio, and that averages out to Obama 46-42.