Arizona and Michigan Day

I guess I should post something about Election Day in Arizona and Michigan. Well, I've posted a couple of things already, so this is my "Elsewhere" post for the day, too. At Plum Line, I argue that there's a big story going on in that conservatives have already won on policy within the GOP, regardless of which candidate eventually wraps up the nomination. In my other piece, I urge the press not to ignore (winner-take-all) Arizona, but note that they probably will, given the normal media biases. Which ones? There's a bias towards keeping nomination fights going as long as possible (for both parties; hey, don't forget all the speculation about a primary challenge to Obama last year); there's also a bias towards covering new developments, and everyone believes that Arizona is a done deal for Romney. But, I point out, that doesn't mean it isn't important -- and that unless something very surprising happens, Romney will have a good night in both total votes and delegates.

Anyway, that went up a few hours ago, and it sure doesn't seem to be doing any good; I'd guess that the ratio of Michigan to Arizona mentions out there are around 25-1, maybe more. Expect plenty of hard spinning by Romney to remind everyone about the Grand Canyon State later tonight, but everyone else has incentives to ignore it.

By the way -- I'm guessing a Romney win in Michigan. It's just a guess; the polling is far too close for anything more.

As always, the spin is interesting -- how will neutral Republican opinion leaders (including Fox News in general) treat the results? Meanwhile, MSNBC should, if party incentives hold, certainly be treating tonight as a massive defeat for Romney, if at all plausible. So that's something to watch for as the returns comes in.