El peligro de las altas expectativas (II)

The Fix:

Mitt Romney begins a three-day tour through Iowa today, a trip sure to re-start the conversation about where the former Massachusetts governor will finish in the first-in-the-nation caucuses in a week’s time.

The Romney team — as they have done throughout this presidential contest — are downplaying his Iowa expectations, insisting that, unlike several of his main rivals, he doesn’t need to win the state and isn’t expected to do so.

They note that, before this three-day jaunt, Romney has only made seven trips to Iowa in the 2012 race, that he skipped the Ames Straw Poll — a traditional early organizational test — entirely and that there remains some lingering ill feelings among conservatives in the state due to his nasty battle with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the final days of the 2008 Iowa race.

Given those variables, they argue that a top-three finish would be just fine to keep Romney’s momentum up as the campaign heads to New Hampshire — a state where Romney continues to maintain a wide lead — for its primary Jan. 10.

There’s merit to that argument. But there are a few pieces of information that might make it very tough for Romney’s team to sell a third- (or maybe even second-) place finish as a win.

First, and most important, Romney has been the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination for the entirety of the contest. Yes, the likes of Herman Cain, Rick Perry and even Newt Gingrich have risen and, in the case of the first two, fallen. But never has Romney been seen as anything but the most likely pick for the nod. He has been the best-funded, best-organized and best-staffed candidate from the get-go.

In other words, frontrunners win. Period. They don’t get to make excuses about extenuating circumstances and the way the deck was stacked against them.

Second, polling in the runup to Iowa suggests the race is basically a three-way tie for first between Romney, Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Both Romney and his aligned super PAC — known as “Restore our Future” — are now spending heavily in the state, and the former Massachusetts governor is flooding Iowa with surrogates over the final few days before the caucuses to make his case.

Combine Romney’s status as the national frontrunner with the fact that he is in a dead heat in the state a week out, and it’s virtually impossible to see how a third-place finish could be spun as a victory — particularly if Gingrich wins.

Does that mean Romney needs to win Iowa? No. But placement matters — second is WAY better than third — as do margins.

A narrow loss to, say, Paul would be just fine with the Romney team. (It’s not clear whether Gingrich could weather a third place finish in Iowa.) Finishing behind Gingrich is far less ideal and, again, depending on the margin, could give the former speaker the spark of momentum he needs to make a serious run at Romney in New Hampshire.

Iowa isn’t make or break for Romney. But how Iowa goes will tell us a lot about just how strong he will be heading into New Hampshire and beyond.