Me thinks the Automaton Doth Protest Too Much

You know someone is full of crap when they frequently remind you of their frankness.

To wit, the presumptive GOP nominee in 2012, (no, not Jeb Bush) Mitt Romney, withdrew from the race today. Stating:

"If I fight on in my campaign all the way to the convention, I want you to know I've given this a lot of thought, I forstall the launch of the rest of the campaign and frankly I'd be making it easier for Sen. Clinton and Obama to win," Romney said. "Frankly in this time of war I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

There's never been a frank word out of this conman's mouth.

I'm just disappointed that I wasted $20 registering the domain ceosforromney.org.

So the polls don't matter?

Well, that's not quite the case.

We can find out the general sentiment in Iowa by reading the polls, just don't know who fits the likely voter model (which is the only poll that matters). Similarly, a blow out would be reflected in polling numbers. However, when you get within a few points of one another, the polls become somewhat worthless. That said, the polls are interesting because of how close they are and what they mean about the primaries.

On the Republican side (in Iowa), it appears to have become a 2 man race between Huckabee and Romney. Giuliani is polling in the low teens, which he claims to have been his plan. He has never put up a large broadcast campaign and has essentially written off the state. McCain has never been popular in Iowa (which is very conservative), despite his growing appeal nationwide. Thompson appears to have never gotten off the ground. Paul is still an afterthought in Iowa.

Heading up to election day the question is who has the better model of likely voters - Romney with his paid staff of campaign veterans who know how to mobilize on caucus day or Huckabee with his network of conservative churches. The polling is a toss up, so the question will be: who can get the bodies to the polls on caucus night?

Essentially, we're back to the question of the likely voter model, as both candidates seem to be about evenly popular and are using two completely different models of recruitment - churchgoers vs. members of the party machinery.

It's worth noting that they're now even as Huckabee has (forgive the term) surged: this may change now that he is at the front of the pack and his small government foes will attack him.

However, this may also be a re-alignment away from Romney by the evangelicals and Huckabee may go on to extend his lead. Point being: we don't fully know what the trend is, but if the two candidates remain deadlocked at the top, it will come down to mobilization.