Five things to watch on primary day

pToday are some caucuses and beauty contests in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota.br //p div class=”dkimg-r”img src=”http://images1.dailykos.com/i/user/426/images.jpg” alt=”" height=”139″ width=”225″ //div We will, of course, be covering it here, and let’s talk about some things to watch: pstrong1. Will Rick Santorum finally surge (and can headline writers avoid saying he did)?/strong/p pSantorum’s doing well in the polls: a href=”http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/what-we-learned-from-nevada/#more-25509″He leads/a in Minnesota and Missouri in some polls and trails in Colorado, where Romney is seemingly ahead./p pRomney is very much the front runner, but what will it mean for Romney if Santorum is yet another rallying point for “not Romney” conservatives not thrilled with the Romney candidacy? Will there be more attacks on Romney that can be used in the fall? Will his elitist, unpopular persona be cemented in people’s minds? Inquiring minds want to know./p pstrong2. Will turnout lag/strong?/p pTurnout has been unimpressive in Florida and Nevada; how excited can you get about voting for someone who you’re not that into? From a href=”http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/what-we-learned-from-nevada/#more-25509″fivethirtyeight.com/a:/p blockquoteThis a href=”http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/romney-wins-but-turnout-lags/”dynamic/a, which we highlighted after Florida, was in full effect in Nevada. Turnout there declined to 32,963 voters this year from 44,324 voters in 2008 — a 26 percent drop. And the decline was slightly larger, 29 percent, among voters who identified as Republican in the entrance poll./blockquote As Kos has pointed out, take atypical Ron Paul voters out of the equation, and it looks even worse. So what’s the trend going to be after today? pstrong3. Will Newt finish last anywhere?/strong/p pa href=”http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72528.html”Politico/a claims that Newt is back on stage for good. That’s nonsense, as much nonsense as claiming washed up Sarah Palin is a political powerhouse. Here’s a clue: People who are in it for themselves generally do not have staying power. Newt’s at the top of the list, and just because he has delusions of grandeur doesn’t mean that the myriads who dislike him agree he’s grand—and there are more of those every day. Interestingly, I’m talking about Republicans./p pstrong4. Will GOP caucuses survive this primary?/strong/p pIf the caucuses are unpredictable and hurt turnout, what’s the point?/p pstrong5. Will the polls be right?/strong/p pThey usually are./p pFor these and other points of interest, join us this evening at 8 PM ET for some liveblogging!/p pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/5zu26PSdIK0S5bwkN-52IQtuAsc/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/5zu26PSdIK0S5bwkN-52IQtuAsc/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/ a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/5zu26PSdIK0S5bwkN-52IQtuAsc/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/5zu26PSdIK0S5bwkN-52IQtuAsc/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/pdiv class=”feedflare” a href=”http://feeds.dailykos.com/~ff/dailykos/index?a=obYeinKOSIg:zDj4g-xw60c:H0mrP-F8Qgo”img src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dailykos/index?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo” border=”0″/img/a /divimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dailykos/index/~4/obYeinKOSIg” height=”1″ width=”1″/
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Five things to watch on primary day