But the main thing I was focusing on was that White got a big bump from Republicans who did the unheard of and crossed party lines to vote for a Dem AGAINST their incumbent Governor. Without widespread anger at Perry over the toll roads and HPV vaccines the same Republican surge that took back the House (and would've reclaimed the Senate without the Tea Party) would've buried White; as it is, he ran about as close to Perry as Perry does to Obama (depending on the poll; took some digging to find, since the first dozen hits for "Perry+Obama+polling" turn up a month old story on Obama beating Perry by 2 points IN TEXAS!) Some people seem to think that's "competitive", yes. It may not help her any more than it did Kay, but I'll be surprised if Bachmann doesn't go after Perry along the lines of "what kind of small government conservative seizes peoples homes for a massive public works project?" (to which Perry will likely respond, "what kind of small government conservative is an IRS lawyer who gets government subsidies for her kids and father?" ) Really, Romney could be forgiven if he's already started writing his nomination acceptance speech.

For once, I agree with trzaska: Bachmann and Perry will split the Tea Party vote while the corporate donors and power brokers who run both parties crown Romney. In addition to an awful economy about which he's done little, Obama will have to overcome that same old boy donor network (not to mention Romneys other powerful connections) if he hopes to turn the big Dem poll advantage right now into a second term. Pretty much his best hope is that the Republicans nominate anyone but Romney, but that's not going to happen, which is probably why "left leaning blogs" are reporting him already abandoning the "hope and change" mantra to go heavily negative against the presumptive nominee.