Everyone expects a close finish in Michigan tonight, and if Rick Santorum prevails, you can already make a $10,000 bet that the Mitt Romney campaign is going to make a big deal about Democratic voters crossing over to cast a vote in the primary. Some of those Democrats will be assumed to have been a part of "Operation Hilarity," the DailyKos-led movement to win the state for Santorum (which they presume will be good for President Obama's chances).
Naturally, the campaigns are already floating the more ethereal version of the spin they'll resort to tonight if this comes to pass, with Rick Santorum's proxies talking about their candidate's continuing efforts to woo "Reagan Democrats," as if that were a thing he's been talking about doing all along. Santorum's campaign has been encouraging Michigan Democrats to come to the polls tonight by robo-calling them (the assumption here is that people like robo-calls, I guess). Should Romney lose the state's primary, of course, the expectation is that the GOP establishment will erupt into a garment-tearing panic-klaatch and renew the call for a savior. So Romney will have a tremendous incentive to speak out against all of the tactical voting that was done on Santorum's behalf.
You see the problem here, right? Well, if not, here's Jonathan Chait with an ace reminder that somebody has gone on and on during this year's GOP primary season about how he voted tactically in the 1992 Democratic primary in Massachusetts.
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