This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
By Carter Eskew
and ED ROGERS
The Mitt Romney-Rick Santorum battle in Michigan is all the talk among GOP activists.
The Romney folks say that it is going to be similar to their battle in Florida against Newt Gingrich, while the Santorum team says it is more like the one-on-one race in Missouri.
The Romney campaign tends to romanticize its Florida victory as the turning point when it fought back from behind. Others see it as a classic mauling, where Gingrich was buried by vicious negative ads.
Santorum says that he sees that punch coming and won't be caught flat-footed like Gingrich was.
Santorum is betting that Romney can't get 50 percent in a two-man race, and that if he can't get it in Michigan, his home state, he is too weak to be our nominee. The idea that a loss for Romney in Michigan would be fatal is growing. Others say it would start a war of attrition that Romney would ultimately win.
All this is unpredictable and uncharted. It is all very un-Republican. We haven't had a competitive primary contest last this long since 1976, when President Ford beat Ronald Reagan. No one knows how this will end. Republicans hate that.
— Ed Rogers reported to chief of staff John Sununu in the first Bush White House. In the Reagan White House, he worked in the office of political affairs.
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Permit me to make a reckless prediction: If Santorum wins Michigan (on Feb. 28), Romney is finished.
Michigan is as close to home field as Romney gets, and it was a rare win for him in 2008. Michigan sticks out; it is a political protrusion before the mixed messages of Super Tuesday. Santorum should bet everything there, relying on his cauldron of angry economic populism and right-wing social agenda to bury Mitt.
And if Rick does win? Then, there will be another giant sucking sound, and Jeb Bush better be nailed down.
— Carter Eskew was chief strategist for the Gore 2000 presidential campaign.