US Update: Poor Ol' Mitt

Having a bad week? Well, spare a thought for poor old Mitt Romney. A week ago, he looked like he had victory in the opening two states sewn up and was well ahead in the polls for the South Carolina primary this weekend. He was looking like being 3 out of 3 and well on the way to securing the Republican nomination.

Then Iowa turned round, rather red-faced, and said "Er, we might have got our counting wrong, it rather looks like Santorum won not you". There followed a battering in the debates over his tax-returns and South Carolina gave quite a thumping victory to Newt Gingrich instead.

The circus moves on to Florida next with only 4 contenders still in the race - Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul. Paul is independantly wealthy enough to stay in the race, although really his involvement now seems to be about how much damage he can do to the others and maybe as a platform to launch a third-party bid for the white house in November. In Iowa Santorum seemed to have emerged as the preferred challenger to Romney, he now looks to have fallen well behind Gingrich in that regard. If he drops out soon, Gingrich is likely to move clear of the field. If Santorum stays in, Romney remains in the driving seat, but only just. And that brokered convention is still a possibility.