Governor Mitt Romney is already preparing for a second place finish in Iowa trying to lower expectations.  This wasn't supposed to happen - after over a year of business-like organization, power point presentations and about 8 million dollars, Romney was supposed to easily win in Iowa.

It reminds me of the crazy season in college football - Michigan was supposed to blowout Appalachian State in the easy scheduled opener last fall.  Sports analysts said that it may have been the biggest upset in sports history when Michigan lost.  Imagine if Michigan coaches were to have pre-spun the game by lowering expectations, saying that a loss to App State wouldn't hurt Michigan's national championship hopes.  That would have been ridiculous.

Romney should have won Iowa easily.  Mike Huckabee is the Appalachian State of presidential politics this year. Everyone has underestimated him and written him off.  He was outspent 20-1, but his message has proven to connect with voters more than just money.  App State went on the win the national championship of the lower Division 1 "second tier" of NCAA.  For most of last year Huckabee was considered a "second tier" candidate.  Not any more - don't underestimate Huckabee this year.

Read excerpts from an article in Bloomberg written by Margaret Carlson about Romney's pre-spin of the Iowa caucus:

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Candidates who don't want to get caught coveting what they aren't going to get have been spinning away prior to today's Iowa vote. Those who bet it all on Iowa are now saying that winning there doesn't mean so much after all.

If you're Mitt Romney and just spent the children's inheritance on 30-second ads and a ground organization that assigns almost every voter his own precinct captain, it has to be a blow if the near-penniless Mike Huckabee beats you.

``There's no `have to win' in Iowa,'' Romney, who oversaw the 2002 Winter Olympics, told ABC television this week. ``Either the gold or the silver'' would do.

How about just a commemorative plaque? Romney's done everything but run his grandmother over with a John Deere tractor to woo Iowans. Forget his claim to have been a hunter, or the endorsement of the National Rifle Association that never happened, or the observation that his son was like a soldier in Iraq for driving an SUV all over Iowa. They're within the margin of forgettable exaggerations.

He's changed everything but his hair color. His last-minute attack on Senator John McCain for being soft on immigration was belied by his earlier statement supporting a path to citizenship for illegals and praising McCain's proposal as ``reasonable.''

Fooling No One - Romney looks like the jut-jawed Ward Cleaver, but he acts like Eddie Haskell, the unctuous TV teenager whose syrupy flattery fooled no one. After observing the candidate for months, Hartford Courant editorial writer Bill Curry says he ``wouldn't believe Romney if he were telling me his blood type while lying on an operating table.''