Some interesting ideas come out of the Michigan primary because the Czar believes Michigan is a pretty good miniature model of the United States: diffuse red with pockets of dense blue. And with an open primary, Michiganders of both parties let us know how the November elections could play out.

Namely, a very narrow Romney victory. Here is how the Czar thinks—and mind you, this is merely an exercise, not a prediction.

We see, for example, that most blue collar voters avoided Romney.

Also, we saw that Santorum can get Democrats to cross the lines to vote for him. That’s big for Santorum, but not unexpected in any way for Romney. In fact, some reports say that Democratic turnout for the open primary was astonishingly high.

Further, we see that Romney can swing undecided voters and fence-sitters; in fact, he can get just enough to eke out a narrow victory.

We saw that enough partisan conservatives will vote for Romney, although Santorum’s good results also show that not everybody is buying Romney’s conservative messages. Romney needs a lot of help in his marketing department if he thinks he can win conservatives easily.

Santorum led considerably over Romney as recently as a week ago; but Santorum allowed himself to get bogged down in media nonsense about his “radical fundamentalism” (yep, heard the term—the guy’s a Catholic, for crying out loud, not a Jonestown dweller), and in so doing he lost his edge to Romney. If Santorum wants to get on track again, he needs to spend no more than five seconds on social conservative talking points, and divert back to the economic arguments that buoyed him.

Romney needs to keep Gingrich busy and active; had Gingrich dropped out last week, Santorum would have steamrolled over Romney in Michigan.

There are certainly other lessons to be learned here; however, if you think of Michigan as a microcosm, you can see that Romney can just beat out Obama if the proportions are right.

Let us know what you think. Email is to your left.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.