ROMNEY SHOWS A LITTLE GLOW – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  He didn't do well the last time out, but Mitt Romney seems to be inching up in the polls as tonight's debate draws near.  Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog, headlines "Mitt Romney surges as GOP debate season opens."  The Politico, which is tilting more and more leftward, warns readers, "Mitt Romney underestimated."  From The Politico:

Everyone just might have underestimated Mitt Romney.

Serious competitors for the Republican presidential nomination have dropped out of the running. Romney has flexed his financial muscle with a $10 million-plus one-day fundraising haul. Most of all, his narrow, economy-focused message appears to be resonating amid growing alarm about the unemployment rate – which rose above 9 percent the day after Romney declared his campaign.

And in one poll, an ABC News/Washington Post survey released last week, Romney actually led President Barack Obama by 3 percentage points. That’s the best general election showing any Republican has had in a long time.

Add it all together and Romney has had his best political month in nearly four years. He increasingly looks like the 2012 election’s marathon man, a steady and durable candidate who enters Monday’s New Hampshire presidential debate with a better shot than ever at becoming his party’s nominee.

Long described as the GOP’s weak frontrunner, Romney hasn’t actually resolved many of the vulnerabilities at the heart of his candidacy. The Massachusetts health care law he signed and his history of shifting positions on social issues, along with his wooden style as a campaigner, are still formidable obstacles.

Nevertheless, Romney has watched the 2012 race move gradually in his direction.

COMMENT:  Well, we'll see.  One thing Romney does have going for him is an ability to appeal to the middle.  And people do know him.  His reputation as a successful businessman helps.  Having been born to wealth doesn't.  Many people, rightly or wrongly, write off the success of the well-born as being more a matter of connections than talent, and in some cases they're right.

Right now, Romney appears to be the man to beat.  We'll see tonight if he's a fighter, or a guy who'll "sit on his lead."

June 13, 2011