Republican Race Solidifying

Last night, I mentioned that I'd intended to write about how the Republican presidential contest--like that of their Democratic counterparts--was still mostly wide open. A scant twenty-four hours later, that seems a much more difficult position to defend. Although reports on Thursday morning that Romney didn't appear to be buying any ads in anticipation of Super Tuesday have since been repudiated, it doesn't seem like there's much that a media buy can do for him at this point. TPM Election Central has a round up of polls from the Republican Super Tuesday states, and they fall overwhelmingly toward McCain. There's been talk that McCain could have trouble with the Republican base, but if that's true, the doubting base had better make itself known in a couple of days. Although McCain most likely can't put it away on Tuesday, he can build himself a virtually unassailable lead. If he indeed does have a problem with the base that's not settled in a few days, it could well manifest itself during the general election, which will only help the Democratic nominee. There's still a long time between now and the Republican convention. If McCain follows through with what almost seems inevitable at this point and a backlash develops among the base in the several months of downtime before the convention, will the party try to draft an alternative? At this point it's all idle speculation. Fun, perhaps, but idle nonetheless.