It's going to be a fierce fight . . . and expensive

Round One is done. Whew !! Glad it's over, but NH, SC, and FL come fast and furious.

The bottom line is that Romney won by 8 votes, but he still got less than 25% of the vote (24.6%). He was followed by Santorum, also 24.6%, Paul 21.5%, Gingrich 13.3%, Peery 10.3%, and Bachmann 5.0%.

Here's the perspective, as framed in an email sent out from Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, this morning:

Who exactly leads the Republican race going forward isn't clear, but we do know two things:

1) The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

2) We'll be facing an onslaught of unprecedented spending from outside groups funded by corporations and anonymous donors. In Iowa alone, so-called "super PACs" spent $12.9 million on almost exclusively negative ads. These groups will turn their fire even more directly on us in the weeks ahead to prove that their candidate is the most anti-Obama.

Interestingly, this letter to Obama supporters did not ask for money. It was a call to volunteer to work on the campaign, saying we have to "out-organize them on the ground."

The race is on !! Re-read Messina's paragraph #1 above. Those dire prospects are real. We can't led this crowd take over our country.

Ralph