Mitt Romney explaining why Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri don't matter (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
Having run a campaign that put on a public face of inevitability, Mitt Romney faces a big problem with expectations management as he struggles to actually win the Republican presidential nomination that was supposed to be his.
Politico notes that:
Other than [Tuesday], when his team sent out a memo to pre-spin anticipated losses in Missouri and Minnesota (Colorado was still expected to be a win for him before voting began), Team Romney has done little since Iowa to manage expectations in earnest.
It's hard to lay the groundwork for a loss when you're supposed to be the only serious candidate in the race, the only guy who's run a national campaign, the only one with money and a real organization. So we get the clumsiness of Romney, last night, giving what had to have been planned as a victory speech in Colorado, a state he dominated in 2008, acknowledging defeat in Minnesota (a state he won in 2008) and saying "The race is too close to call in Colorado at this point, but I’m pretty confident we’ll come in number 1 or number 2. I'm looking for a good showing." Sending the candidate out with skin the color of putty and a rictus grin to try to sell the idea that coming in second in a state where just an hour before he had been seen as the overwhelming favorite is not competent expectations management. It's more like a parody of expectations management.
For Romney, then, there's a big challenge for upcoming states: If he's not inevitable, he doesn't have a whole lot else going for him. But if he tries to project inevitability and he loses ... well, Mitt Romney is not a guy who can go out for what was supposed to be his victory speech and sell the idea that second would be just fine by him.