Yeah, sure, like he'd say he lost...

Josh Voorhees has the story in Slate:

As you may have already heard by now, Mitt Romney held on for a crucial win in Michigan's GOP primary. But it's starting to look like that victory, while significant in the larger election narrative, may not translate to a big win in terms of delegates for the GOP front-runner. The Wolverine State divvies up all but two of its thirty delegates proportionally, with the winner of each of the state's fourteen new congressional districts winning two delegates.
While the Michigan GOP is still doing the math, the partial results suggest that Romney and Rick Santorum may both walk away with fourteen delegates apiece from the pool of 28 handed out by district. (Although, we should note, that Santorum is leading two districts by very narrow margins, meaning a 16-12 or 18-10 split for Romney is still very possible.)
The final two delegates will be awarded based on the statewide totals, although it is not clear if they both go to the winner or if they too are handed out proportionally.
The way Santorum's camp sees things, an even delegate split would mean their candidate fought Romney to a tie in the state where he was born and raised, which in turn would represent a loss for the current front-runner. (If you're keeping track of the spin, they somehow are turning a loss into a tie into a win.)
"It’s highly likely this is is going to end up being a tie, based on the data that we have," Santorum adviser John Brabender tells the Washington Post. "I don’t know how you look at that as anything besides this being a strong showing for Rick Santorum and anything short of a disaster for Mitt Romney." Brabender added: "If we can do this well in Romney’s home state, this bodes well for Super Tuesday."
Mitt Romney pulled out a critical primary win in his native state of Michigan, the same night he also earned all 29 of Arizona's GOP delegates.
NBC News and the Associated Press called the Wolverine State for Romney shortly after 10 p.m. eastern standard time, more than an hour after the last polls in the western portion of the state closed. Earlier in the evening, Romney was declared the victor of Arizona's winner-take-all primary.
With seventy percent of Michigan's precincts reporting, Romney had 42 percent of the vote, followed by Santorum with 37 percent, Ron Paul with 12 percent, and Newt Gingrich with 7 percent. Gingrich and Paul, both resigned to their fates, addressed their supporters before the final polls had even closed. The former spoke in Georgia, the latter in Virginia.
Romney's win in the heavily-contested primary is a major face-saving victory for the former Massachusetts governor, whose campaign has a larger infrastructure and bigger bank account than Santorum's but that has nonetheless been so far unable to deliver the decisive blow in the GOP race.
The networks wasted little time earlier in the evening quickly calling Arizona for Romney, who had entered the day with double-digit leads in the most recent batch of state polls there. But even with his win in the Grand Canyon State, a loss in Michigan by Romney would have likely dominated Wednesday's news cycle given that is the state where Romney and Santorum invested more of their time and money.
As it is, there will likely be plenty of grumbling from some conservatives that Romney was only able to muster what appears to be a relatively narrow victory, despite being born and raised in Michigan, a state where his father was a popular governor.
Romney backers will likely make the case that his victory would have been larger if it weren't for so-called "mischief votes" from Democrats looking to prolong the Republican nominating contest to bolster President Obama's chances come November. According to a CNN exit poll, ten percent of those casting votes in the Michigan GOP primary were self-described Democrats, half of which pulled the lever for Santorum.
Michigan awards nearly all of its GOP delegates by congressional district, so the final delegate tallies won't directly mirror the final statewide percentages. While unlikely, it is possible that Santorum could ultimately win more of the state's thirty delegates than Romney, despite his overall victory in the state. Regardless, with Arizona's delegates in the bank, Romney is assured that he'll end Tuesday with a larger delegate lead than he entered the day with.

Rico says he could care less who the Republicans nominate, but Willard the Lame would be better than Rick the Rabid...