Cocky Romney strategist: ‘I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee’

Republican presidential candidate, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney talks with a voter while campaigning in Concord, N.H. Friday, Dec. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is feeling pretty cocky one week away from the Iowa caucuses.

“The dynamics couldn’t be better for us,” an anonymous senior Romney strategist told John Heilemann in a profile of the campaign in New York Magazine. “I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee.”

Heilemann writes that much has changed over the span of a month for Romney’s campaign because at “the start of December, this degree of self-assurance would have seemed not merely misplaced but a sign of mental illness.”

But if polls are any indication, it may still be a little premature for the Romney campaign to shoot off about how they’re going to clean up.

According to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich still leads the field with 28 percent. He’s followed by Romney at 25 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 12 percent.

In Iowa, Paul leads at 22 percent, followed by Romney’s 21 percent and Gingrich’s 14 percent, according the RCP average of polls.

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