When supporters of one particular candidate start talking with each other, they start feeding each other the notion that “our man’s got it locked up” or “after the first few states, our guy will have an unstoppable lead.” All of this is encouraging to the followers of one candidate or another. It’s reassuring and confidence building. It’s also total horse manure.

The title of this post does specifically mention the former Massachusetts Governor only because his supporters seem to have bought into this line of thinking. Their logic goes something like this; Huckabee (or some other Tea Party/socon) wins in Iowa, Romney blows them out of the water in New Hampshire, then wins Nevada and finishes them off in South Carolina. After this, Romney glides to the nomination then to the White House carried on the backs of a grateful nation who elected him President by acclamation. (That last part was supposed to be sarcasm for the record).

Kidding aside, this idea is following the 2008 model, where the primaries were stacked on top of each other and came in ultra-rapid succession. 2012 will not be like that. The plan adopted by the RNC was adopted specifically because it lengthened the primary process. After seeing the success of the Democrats in their long primary, Republicans have decided to try and copy that effort. Sure the first four states will all be within one month, but the rest of the calendar is scheduled (at least according to the desires of the RNC) to have to wait until the next month to kick off, and the way delegates will be apportioned (March will be proportional, after that, if the state wants, winner-take-all) will ensure that more than one candidate will want to stay in the running.

Another, even more important reason is another key difference between 2008 and 2012. In 2008, two wars, an economy starting to slide into recession, and a President as popular as a cold sore, made the Republican nomination of dubious value. When candidates start announcing for President early next year, after the Republican blow-out only 20 something days from now, the Republican nomination will be worth something. Right now, we have at least 7 or 8 serious, potentially viable contenders gearing up to throw their hat in the ring. To think that all of them but one will be gone after 4 primaries is a fantasy. Last time after 4 primaries, there were still four viable candidates. Only one of the Big Five had been knocked out. Right before Super Tuesday, there were three. Like I said earlier, the calendar makes another Super Duper Tuesday less likely, so candidates will have more time to hang around.

The point of this is not to disparage the Romney supporters or their enthusiasm for their man. In fact, if the Palinistas or Hucakbee supporters were more fervent (or more prominent), then I’d have put their name in the title. However, this whole idea that after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina the nomination will be locked up is a naiveté. The supporters of all candidates should steel themselves for a long, drawn-out primary process. What’s more important, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.