Mitt Romney's Quiet Thunder

As anyone who pays attention to national politics knows, the Presidential Primary election season is filled with many ups and downs for all the candidates. A "surge" here, and a "plummet" there. The media loves to take down the leader, and elevate the underdog. We've had the Rudy surge, then the Thompson surge, then the Huckabee surge, and today, as I type this, we're hearing all about the McCain "comeback" surge.

Amongst all the noise, with all the ups and downs, it's interesting to see the quiet, gradual progress Mitt Romney has made in many of the early primary states, and even California and New York. The media has yet to anoint Romney with a "surge," but that's OK, Romney's storm is a quiet, yet powerful one.

Rather than looking at any one poll, or at any one date, if you look at the aggregate of all the polls across the last year, and trend lines, it reveals a very interesting dynamic. Let's look at Iowa, for example:

In Iowa, Romney's trend line started out in 6th place, and is now in 1st.

But, it's not just Iowa, in...

Michigan
Romney's trend line started in 4th and is now in 1st.

South Carolina
Romney's trend line started in 6th and is now in 1st.

Nevada
Romney's trend line started in 6th and is now in 1st.

New Hampshire
Romney's trend line started in 3rd and is now in 1st.

Florida
Romney's trend line started in 6th and is now in 3rd.

California
Romney's trend line started in 6th and is now in 2nd.

New York
Romney's trend line started in 6th and is now in 4th.

Click here to view all the poll trend-line graphs.

Political campaigns are long, and a bit like a stock in the stock market. They go up, they go down, but a solid, fundamentally-sound company will always be trending in the right up, regardless of the temporary market swings. By this measure, I'm feeling pretty good about the chances of my favorite candidate for the Republican party...Mitt Romney.

Romney didn't have the national recognition of Rudy, McCain or Thompson, and he's had to contend with religious bigotry for being a Mormon. In spite of all that, he has done what he does best, quietly turn a long-shot into a success. He's known as the "turnaround" master, in business, the Olympics and in Massachusetts. He's now doing it by his success with his campaign. A clear underdog, he's put an organization together to beat the odds. Washington needs turning around. Romney's the man for the job.

Kevin