Li'l Patrick. . .

. . .Ruffini tries his hand at Kos-style chicanery over at Hugh "Not to be Taken Seriously as an Analyst" Hewitt's blog. If anything, this bolsters the point I made about the Romney campaign's extremely limited appeal. For all of Hewitt's (and many others) bluster about McCain's inability to attract what they deem as conservatives -- which is apparently limited to Romney supporters -- he simply can't make that claim coming out of South Carolina.

So, rather than face up to the fact that McCain does have conservative support, they resort to the "Abandon ye all hope" card and make a pitch for Mike Huckabee. This is what I like to call "mind-bending sycophancy".

I'll put it to Hewitt this way: Mitt Romney has zero chance in the South. We folks here in the lower hinterlands have an aversion to slicked-up johnny-come-latelies. So, naturally, Romney's campaign begins its downward swirl toward the great political septic tank the moment he crosses the Mason-Dixon line. And, if a Republican can't win the South, he simply cannot win.

The truth of the matter is that Romney likely did himself more harm than good in promising to yank Michigan back to its post-war era s glory days. Everyone was watching, but the only people who believed him were those who really, really wanted to.

It's telling that there have been no reports (correct me if I'm wrong) of a national bounce for Romney since his pyrrhic victory in Michigan. One assumes that, if it were there, the Romney campaign would be trumpeting it. We'd hear that America has heard Mitt Romney's clarion call of economic prosperity, and how it is responding by rallying to it. Truth is, I don't even hear the crickets.