Michigan Behind; On to South Carolina

As most of you know by now, Mitt Romney was able to win his home state of Michigan Tuesday night in the state's GOP Presidential primary, beating John McCain by roughly 8 percentage points.

Mike Huckabee came in a distant third, followed by Ron Paul and Fred Thompson.

Doing what he had to do in order to stay in the Republican race, Romney focused on traditional blue collar workers--'Reagan Democrats,' as they once were called--in order to contrast his views with McCain's insistence that those manufacturing jobs were never coming back to Michigan.

McCain also suffered from the fact that far fewer Independents and Democrats voted in the GOP primary this time, when compared to his Michigan win in 2000. Michigan allows so-called 'open primaries,' meaning that in today's case the voting was open to voters other than Republicans.

Thus, Romney had a clear edge among the more traditional Republicans in the state.

Now it's on to South Carolina for a key primary on Saturday. Polls indicate that John McCain has surged to the top in the state, pushing Huckabee into 2nd place.

The good news, however, is that Fred Thompson has experienced a super-surge in the last few days with his poll numbers rising by 9 percentage points.

Initially the former Tennessee Senator had experienced a 4-point bump in the polls following his impressive showing in the S.C. GOP debate last week.

With Tuesday's poll numbers showing a 9 point jump since the last poll was taken, Thompson has experienced roughly a 12 to 13 point jump since the debate.

Thompson has also begun running a series of new television ads in the state which show that his credentials as a consistent conservative far outshine the convoluted neo-con, RINO, and faux-conservative records of candidates such as Huckabee, Romney, and McCain.

As Fred quipped Tuesday evening, 'I was a conservative before the others started talking the talk. In fact, not only did I talk the talk but I walked the walk.'

This is a chance for South Carolina to make a difference by really putting their hearts into their votes. Thompson is the one candidate who most closely shares the values of S.C. Republicans and the citizens in general.