“We know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like. The anti-war government niggah … that America was a source for division around the world ….

Start listening at 34:20 …

Let’s have a look at the details.

PPP makes the point that 16% of Michiganonians have already voted in the primary, and among these, Romney has a 62-29% advantage over Santorum, making Tuesday’s vote an uphill battle for the latter. Among those who are likely to vote, according to this poll, Santorum leads Romney 39-34%. This indicates an upward move for Santorum, but the pollsters claim that it is not enough to put Santorum in the lead. The PPP poll predicts that Romney will yield 39% and Santorum 37%, and the margin of error for that poll is 4.8%.

PPP points out that during the days leading up to last weekend, Santorum’s favorability declined from 44% to 15%, while Santorum’s negative attacks on Romney has not affected Romney’s favorability rating very much.

The Mitchell Research poll is more recent. Apparently, Santorum has made significant inroads with Michigan voters. In Mitchel’s Thursday evning poll, Romney had reduced Santorum’s 16% lead among Tea Party voters, but over the weekend, the numbers have shifted to give Santorum a 6% lead in that group. Romney had reduced Santorum’s lead among Evangelic ls for 16 to 7%, but over the weekend Santorum’s lead has improved to 19%. A similar pattern was seen in other demographic groups. Polling finished yesterday puts Santorum at 37%, up from 30% last Monday, with Romney at 35%, having registered 32% on Monday and 36% on Thursday.

During this time, since last Monday, the percentage of undecideds according to the Mitchell Poll has gone from 22% to 10%.

So, according to the Mitchell Poll, Santorum now leads Romney by 2% in a poll with a margin of error of 3.34%, with 10% undecided, and with a disproportionate member of those undecideds having broken towards Santorum over the last few days, and a general shift towards Santorum and away from Romney in most demographic groups.

While the Mitchell poll is inconclusive and technically shows the contest as a two-candidate horse race, it is not inconceivable that even as we speak Santorum support has gained a couple of percentage points to move beyond statistical uncertainty. As 12% of undecided voters melted away, Santorum moved ahead 7% while Romney moved ahead 3%. Assuming a 2:1 ratio, the remaining 10% of undecided voters could give Santorum (conservatively) a 5% or more increase and Romney a 3% increase. This would predict that the final outcome will be Santorum at 42%, Romney at 38%, with Gingrich and Ron Paul in a virtual tie for third.

I should also mention that while Gingrich’s support remained steady at 9% in the Mitchell Poll since Monday, Paul’s numbers jumped form 7 to 12 to 8% during this time. It is possible that some of Romney’s loss was from Paul supporters shifting towards Santorum as well.

Going into Tuesday’s poll, I’m going to have to predict a Santorum victory in Michigan. Since Michigan is Romney’s “home state” this will be extra-significant.

This all assumes an equivalence between PPP and Mitchel polling, and accuracy of polling that is reasonable to expect much, but not all, of the time.

The polling data is available via Real Clear Politics (download the PDFs there)

I am not making this up. The man who has a better than 10% chance of being the Leader of the Free World swears this is true, and why would he lie?

See:

Here’s Romney getting it too (caution, sound is loud on this one):

And, finally, here’s Hitler throwing glitter on Romney

Well, OK, then. He’s saying the government does not give us ANY rights. Rights come only from god. His god, to be exact.

Well, OK, then. I’m a Pastafarian, and His Noodly Rights include health care. The Fundies can stay out of this if they want.

Santorum was speaking to an audience of pouties at CPAC. Courtesy of Right Wing Watch. Watching the Right Wing so you don’t have to.

More power to Santorum. If he holds a good 10 – 15 percent of the Republican vote and keeps talking like this, those people will stay home if Romney is the nominee.

The Romney Juggernaut never was a Juggernaut and still isn’t.

Hat tip: JEL