Winners and Losers Jan. 10: Romney Sweeps Two Rounds

A contest makes finding the winners and losers a lot less complicated.

Winner: Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney could hardly call Iowa a victory, but there's no such ambiguity in New Hampshire Primary results Tuesday.

He was so comfortable and so confident that Romney spent the afternoon catching a movie: Mission: Impossible.

South Carolina won't be impossible, but it will certainly be more difficult and won't provide much time for cinema. The voters are more conservative and more interested in their alternatives than Romney's neighbors in New Hampshire.

Loser: Former Sen. Rick Santorum had a big night in Iowa and went straight to New Hampshire in hopes of driving that momentum to a big finish in the Granite State.

With numbers continuing to come in, Santorum looks likely to finish in fifth. At best, he could narrowly pull out a fourth place finish in front of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

A wiser move would have been polite, but infrequent visits to New Hampshire in the past week and the kind of relentless focus on South Carolina that he offered Iowa for weeks.

Instead, he's got 10 days to make up ground in the Palmetto Sate. A tough order for any of the candidates — except Romney.