Over at the Politico, Jonathan Martin and Lisa Lerer report that more than simply lowering expectations, Mitt Romney is giving up on South Carolina:

"This is a state I'd expect that Sen. [John] McCain has pretty well wrapped up," Romney told reporters at the Sun City Hilton Head Retirement Center in Bluffton. "It would be an enormous surprise if he were unable to win here."

Romney's South Carolina strategy amounts to being politically half-pregnant. He doesn't want to raise expectations in a state he likely can't win, so he's dashing off to Nevada midday Thursday to compete in the lightly contested caucuses there Saturday. But at the same time, he doesn't want to offend his supporters in South Carolina.

There has been a train of thought that suggests Romney should have ceded South Carolina from the beginning and focus on Florida, after Nevada of course. Following his Michigan victory, however, it looked for a moment as if Romney would try to rally in the state that every GOP nominee has won.

Except that before he takes off, Romney is upping his South Carolina ad buy by tens of thousands of dollars. Guess if money's no object, why not?

As Martin and Lerer report, Romney is spinning his decision as a numbers game with Nevada having 34 delegates to South Carolina's 24. And if this race does come to delegates, and not to momentum per se, then Romney might be vindicated in the end. There's just no way to know now.