Ford O'Connell and Tara Dowdell join Fox News' Jonathan Hunt on Fox News Live's "On The Hunt" to discuss the passing of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum's bids to become the Republican presidential nominee, Super Tuesday, the importance of Ohio in the GOP presidential primary, the possibility of a contested convention and President Obama's 2012 re-eleciton chances.

The Republican presidential hopefuls are heading into next week's "Super Tuesday" contests with different game plans but the same goal: find the most friendly terrain to make a stand.

As the state-by-state race goes national with 10 contests on Tuesday, the cost and scope of fighting on a coast-to-coast battlefield is forcing the four remaining Republican candidates to focus on states where they have the best chance to pull off a win.

Their contrasting strategies were clear on Wednesday, a day after Mitt Romney regained his shaky front-runner status with wins in the Arizona and Michigan primaries.

Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker whose hopes of rejuvenating his flagging campaign lie in the South, is treating Tuesday's primary in his home state of Georgia as a make-or-break contest. He also is hoping to score well in Ohio, the day's most significant prize, and the conservative southern states of Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Rick Santorum, now Romney's chief rival, will challenge Gingrich in Tennessee and Oklahoma. He also will fight Romney in Ohio, a politically divided state that will be a key battleground in the November 6 election, when the eventual Republican nominee will face Democratic President Barack Obama.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is focusing on Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota, states that will hold voter caucuses rather than primaries. Paul's committed backers can make a difference in low-turnout contests in caucus states.

And Romney, who survived a near-disaster by pulling out a narrow win over Santorum in his home state of Michigan, has safe havens on Super Tuesday in Massachusetts, where he once was governor, and in Virginia, where he and Paul were the only candidates to collect enough voter signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Romney will visit North Dakota and Idaho on Thursday but will put much of his energy into Ohio, where he campaigned on Wednesday. He is unlikely to spend much time in the southern states where Santorum and Gingrich will battle, although Romney's wife, Ann, is scheduled to be in Georgia on Thursday.

For Romney, a victory in Ohio over Santorum - the latest hope of the party's most conservative wing - would go a long way toward easing some of the doubts about the former Massachusetts governor.

"It's really going to be all about Ohio," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell said of the Super Tuesday landscape. "If Romney does well in Ohio and over the next few weeks, it will get harder for the other candidates to make a plausible argument that they should be the nominee."

Read more from John Whitesides at Reuters

Romney eked it out in Michigan and regained his tenuous front-runner status, thanks to Santorum’s last minute missteps.

That said, Super Tuesday will be all about Ohio, and frankly the Buckeye State is a must win for Romney due to the state’s prominence in the general election. If Romney can’t breakthrough in Ohio, he could find himself dodging conservatives all the way to Tampa.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at Politico's "The Arena"

As voters go to the polls in Michigan, the candidates and campaigns are already focused on Ohio which is shaping up to be the next major battleground as it votes in a week on March 6th as part of Super Tuesday.

Rick Santorum is making a quick detour Tuesday from his campaigning in Michigan for an afternoon rally in Perrysburg, Ohio. And the conservative Susan B. Anthony List will sponsor an Ohio leg of their bus tour supporting Santorum. On Wednesday, Mitt Romney's first stop after will be a rally in Toledo, Ohio, followed by a town hall in Bexley, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

Since Ohio is the next Midwestern state up for grabs, analysts said it will be key for each candidate.

"If Santorum can demonstrate a Midwestern weakness for Romney, then he could get an influx of resources and this could drag out much longer. Ohio is all about general election electability whereas Michigan is likely to be Obama country in the general (at least as of right now)," Ford O'Connell, a Republican political consultant, said.

Read more from Kevin Bohn at CNN

There’s talk that it’s Rick Santorum who is currently under the gun, not Mitt Romney.  He can write a check to himself, if need be, while Santorum must win Michigan and Ohio to make the case that Romney has a mid-West problem which warrants additional support for Santorum as a preferred alternative.

Erick Erickson reported on Twitter that Romney will not participate in the CNN debate in Georgia before Super Tuesday.

The big money players behind the Super PACs of all the candidates have agreed to come together to fund a general election PAC, regardless of the nominee.

The general election could come down to the GOP winning Ohio, Virginia and Florida.

Polling suggests Ohio Senator Portman wouldn’t generate enough of a boost to warrant selection as Veep. While Rubio in Florida and McDonnell in Virginia would benefit the nominee, especially if it’s Romney,  there’s thought that McDonnell would be the better choice.  His addition might also help win a Senate seat by helping to support George Allen simply by being on the ticket.

Yet, on the conservative front, some suggest McDonnell isn’t quite the conservative he’s often made out to be, which could prove to be a problem with the base, nationally.

One of the sources consulted for the above is friend and analyst Ford O’Connell, who worked on the 2008 McCain campaign.

Read more from Dan Riehl at BigGovernment

The latest survey from Rasmussen Reports (released 2/16/12).

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to ride his polling momentum into Ohio where he leads Mitt Romney by nearly two-to-one in the first Rasmussen Reports survey of Republicans in the state.

The new statewide telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary voters shows Santorum picking up 42% of the vote to Romney’s 24%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich draws 13% support, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Santorum leads Romney by an even bigger margin – 58% to 30% - when the race is down to a one-on-one matchup in Ohio. Romney leads Gingrich 46% to 37% in a two-man race and Paul by a 58% to 26% margin.

Still, only 46% of Ohio Primary voters are certain of their vote at this time. Forty-seven percent (47%) say they could yet change their minds.

Ford O'Connell joins Fox News' Neil Cavuto on "Your World With Cavuto" to discuss Rick Santorum's strategy of going negative on Mitt Romney, the 2012 CPAC straw poll, the Maine caucuses and the upcoming Michigan GOP presidential nominating contest. Also, see Fox News Insider.

Things can always change, and between now and Election Day 2012 they will several times over. But I have to hand it to Fox News' Chris Stirewalt, his current presidential swing state analysis is on the mark. Of course, much of this depends on the state of the economy on Election Day 2012 and who GOP primary voters nominate as the party's standard-bearer. Note: I am fairly certain that New Mexico will go for Obama, at least for now.

While Obama continues to tie or lead national polls, his performance in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin matters more. And there, things are not so good for the incumbent.

Obama won all 12 of the swing states in 2008, but how many of them will he win again?

He has structural advantages and history on his side in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (though all three states skewed heavily Republican statewide in 2010). Polls and electoral trends suggest the president is unlikely to prevail in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

That leaves Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia as the swingingest swing states and Obama trailing in electoral votes 245 to 242 with 51 up for grabs. And there, team Obama will be counting on the most expensive, aggressive and negative re-election campaign ever waged.

And that’s where there’s real trouble in the poll for Obama in this poll.

Since 2008, swing state voters have become 9 percent less Democratic. When Obama won the swing states by 8 points, Democrats boasted an 11-point party identification edge. Now it’s down to 2-points.

Four more years of President Barack Obama is certainly not ideal. That said, it is important to take a critical but objective look at the 2012 electoral map. The Washington Post's Chris Cilliza and Aaron Blake do a solid job of analyizing the swing state landscape.

Note: I am not sure Obama is going to win New Hampshire and it's four electoral voters, particularly if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination. Additionally, the "Expansion Path" is most unlikely of the five scenarios put forward by The Fix duo.

One important point before we start: The Obama team used as its baseline for each of these five scenarios the 246 electoral votes that Massachusetts Sen.John Kerry (D) won in his 2004 loss to President George W. Bush. That means that Obama could lose none of the states he and Kerry carried in 2004 and 2008 — including swing states like New Hampshire and Wisconsin — and have the numbers add up. The paths are ranked from most likely to least likely for Obama.

1. Florida path: If Obama wins the 29 electoral votes in Florida, he’s at 275 and a winner.

2. West Path: This scenario requires Obama to sweep Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada and then also take Iowa, where he won overwhelmingly in 2008 but Kerry lost narrowly in 2004. (Add those four states up, and Obama is at 272 electoral votes.)

3. Midwest path: The industrial Midwest has turned against Democrats in a major way since Obama carried every state in the so-called Rust Belt three years ago. But, if Obama wins only Ohio and Iowa, he’s at 270 electoral votes and a winner — albeit by the thinnest margin possible.

4. South path: In 2008, Obama was the first Democrat to carry North Carolina since 1976 and to win in Virginia since 1964. If he repeats that feat in 2012, he gets to 274 electoral votes.

5. Expansion path: Three years ago, Democrats were confident that they would have won Arizona had Republicans not nominated homestate Sen. John McCain. And, with no prospect of an Arizonan on the national ticket this time around — sorry Jan Brewer— the Obama team sees the possibility of turning Arizona blue.

The vast enthusiasm gap that swept President Barack Obama into office in 2008 is turning against him. The key for the enventual Republican presidential nominee will be to capture independents in the 2012 swing states. USA Today's Susan Page has more:

[T]he "enthusiasm gap" that helped fuel a Democratic victory last time has turned into a Republican asset. Sixty-one percent of Republicans say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting for president next year, compared with 47% of Democrats.

Among the most enthusiastic are some of the GOP's core voters: conservatives, middle-aged men and those 50 to 64 years old. Those who are least enthused include core Democratic groups that were critical to Obama's election in 2008, including minorities and younger voters.

In swing states, Obama trails former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among registered voters by 5 points, 43% vs. 48%, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich by 3, 45% vs. 48%.

This is the second in a series of surveys that USA TODAY and Gallup will be taking through the 2012 campaign focused on 12 swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Most other states and the District of Columbia are all but guaranteed to be won by one party or the other, giving Obama a likely base of 196 electoral votes and the Republican nominee a base of 191. A candidate needs 270 to win the White House.

The decline in the number of voters who identify themselves as Democrats — and the rise in those who call themselves independents — complicates the president's re-election strategy.

In the swing states, the number of self-identified Democrats (not including those who lean Democratic) fell from 35% to 30% since 2008. The number of independents rose 7 points, 35% to 42%.