Romney fever is not back, it was never here.

The Republican vote split - is it simply geographic?

With a win in a week-long process that finished up yesterday, Mitt Romney is back in the win column. It was predictable, as was the whole Romney-is-back-in-the-game meme in the mainstream media and the mainstream conservative media.  Romney is back, and the Santorum roll is over. But just as it was too soon to say that Romney had lost all momentum, it's too soon to say he's regained it.  No one has really had a ton of it and it is still early in the race. Maine changes nothing.

Seacrest OUT! Wait, I mean Perry.

What do Rick Perry and Ryan Seacrest have in common?  Neither one is running for the Republican nomination for president.

While word is that many of his financial backers might jump to Romney, his endorsement of Gingrich, and his dropping out of the race might be just enough not Romney momentum to make the rest of the race interesting.

Do we need fewer GOP candidates?

We aren't getting anyone else so let's concentrate on the ones we've got now. Huntsman is out, following Bachmann and Cain. And Trump for that matter. That leaves us with Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Paul as the possibilities. Would fewer candidates allow for someone to seriously challenge Mitt Romney? There's a strong case to be made that if everyone dropped out but one not Romney candidate, the eventual nominee would be not Romney. The problem is, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum are not going to blink. They all want to be that last man standing and benefit from the convergence of the not Romney vote. But the longer they hold out the further ahead Romney will get as the not Romney vote is split.

Conundrum.

Conservative Cannibalism

Do Not Touch.

The primary season is meant for people to pick their candidate, back their candidate and fight for their candidate.  At the end of the long haul towards the nomination everyone is supposed to come together behind the eventual winner and march towards the general election arm-in-arm.  In theory that's the case.  This year though, there is something different happening.  Conservatism, which had been re-invigorated by the Tea Party in 2009 and 2010, seemed to have been split in two with establishment conservatives falling in line with Mitt Romney and distancing themselves from the Tea Party and grassroots conservatives and in fact have gone so far as to start attacking them.

It was by all accounts, a squeaker

The GOP caucuses in Iowa yesterday were unbelievably close.  Romney won with 30,015 votes (24.6%) and Rick Santorum came in second, a mere 8 vote back, with 30,007 (24.5%).  Ron Paul came in third with 26,219 (21.4%) and Newt Gingrich was fourth with 16,251 (13.3%).  Everything pretty much went according to expectations as far as who the top four were, although the exact positions and the closeness of the top two were a surprise - to me at least. I thought Santorum had enough momentum to overtake both Paul and Romney, even though he was still well behind the two in the polling averages at RCP in the last week. Boy was I close - off by 8, or rather 9, votes.  I also thought Ron Paul would drop off further than he did and would place fourth behind Gingrich, who I thought would perform a few percentage points better than he did (I was thinking 15% to 16%).

Part 2a - GOP primaries – The Wildcards

Matrix-like: There is no spoon.

NOTE: This is a continuation from Part 1.

There are three big wild cards in the GOP presidential nomination race, and one minor wild card. The three big wild cards include two personalities not in the race – Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. The in-the-race wild card is Ron Paul and the minor wild card, also in the race, is Rick Santorum. 

Each of those four individuals has some concrete or at least a potential part to play in this election cycle. Each one has the potential to make a significant difference or to be a non-factor depending on what they decide to do. A look at what they bring to the process is in order.

Part 1 - GOP primaries – after Iowa, what next?

Spoilers alert.

The Iowa primary race is a watershed moment for the GOP presidential race. Right now the possible paths, even knowing the likely outcomes of the Iowa caucuses are too numerous to contemplate. But if we winnow it down to a number of possible first stage results, some of the likely consequences and next steps can be extrapolated.

The likely outcomes of Iowa based on polling are possible to narrow down. The polling could result in a number of different Iowa winners, despite the decidedly large number of undecided Iowans. To simplify, let’s narrow the field into two buckets – Top 4 finishers, and Also-rans. Perhaps a bit harsh, but this is politics, so there’s no need to couch the wording in niceties.

The march is on

The day after tomorrow the Iowa caucus kicks off the primary season for the 2012 presidential election.  It's the start of an almost year long march towards the election.  Less important than the implications of that march are the predictions of who might eventually win.  While I intend to look at the overall implications of the race this month, let's start with something less meaningful, since it's less effort on a January 1st morning.

Romney - Last man standing in Virginia

Politics is blood sport.

It now looks like only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates to qualify for the ballot in Virginia.  Everyone else did not comply robustly enough with the 10,000 signatures requirement to be on the ballot in that state.  Except that they did.  They didn't have enough to cover off the disqualified or contested signatures, which typically apparently means that to net out at 10,000, 15,000 signatures are required.  That didn't happen. Gingrich is the latest one to fall;

Washington (CNN) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to collect enough signatures to appear on the Virginia primary ballot, the Republican Party of Virginia announced Saturday morning, leaving the longtime Virginia resident without a place on the state's ballot and raising questions about his campaign's organization.

Gingrich, as well as Texas Gov. Rick Perry, did not meet the state's requirement of 10,000 signatures and, therefore, did not qualify for the ballot, the Virginia GOP said via Twitter.

The state GOP announced Perry's failure to qualify late Friday.

The news from the Virginia Republicans is a significant setback for Gingrich, who clamored earlier this week to gather enough voter signatures in the state. Gingrich utilized paid staffers to comb Virginia, asking voters to sign petitions that would allow him a place on the ballot.

On Wednesday, Gingrich ensured a crowd of supporters he had met the threshold for appearing on the ballot, saying he had gathered anywhere from 12,000-14,000 signatures.

Virginia requires candidates to obtain 10,000 signatures from registered voters, with 400 signatures coming from each of the commonwealth's eleven congressional districts.

Gingrich's spokesman said Wednesday the effort to secure a spot on the Virginia ballot was meant to showcase the campaign's ground game.

Allahpundit at Hot Air has the exact exit question that we should be asking for Perry, but it applies to each and every candidate not on the ballot;

Exit question: Is this a disqualifying mistake on Perry’s part? If you can’t trust him to do his ballot homework, why trust him to run a tight ship in the general election against Obama?

My first instinct is that this is an establishment move to ensure a Romney win in Virginia.  It's much easier to win with far less competition.  Dirty pool?  Maybe.  But regardless, the rules are the rules and failure toy play the game properly does call into question organizational and leadership skills.  It should serve as a wake up call to every candidate who considers themselves serious about the GOP nomination.

Bizarro World GOP style

I missed the debate last night, so I'm still looking to see if anything went down out of sorts. Nonetheless, this morning South Carolina Governor, Nikki Hayley herself a recipient of Tea Party support has chosen to endorse - Mitt Romney?

What...how...huh?

National Review Editors lose touch

The Editors of National Review give a well worded explanation of whom they feel is an acceptable candidate, and in doing so, lose all credibility.

Next time, think things through. If there is a next time.

Debate without a winner?

A bit of a yawner.

As we get further into the GOP presidential debates, the GOP primary candidates all seem to be hitting their strides in the debate venues - no big mistakes, get the talking points out, and differentiate yourself from the other candidates.  They all seem to be getting there - albeit a different rates of speed.  Perry for example spoke better but still had a pause or two that was a couple of seconds too long.  Given that emerging dynamic, and the fact that there are fewer and fewer areas of new ground to go over, is it possible for anyone to win?

Romney's comment: It's not a gaffe, but it's not good.

Via ABC, Mitt Romney in last night's debate offered up his second not-ready-for-prime-time moment by  offering to make a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry.  He was just trying to make a point about his conviction on his  point about his health care position.  But after his previous faux pas in an earlier debate (regarding his lawn care company hiring an illegal alien, and him being concerned because he was running for office), this doesn't help Mitt.

Offering to bet isn't a smart thing to do during a presidential debate.  It's not a gaffe in the sense that he's done something illegal (some would say it's immoral), especially since it's pretty easy to argue he was using it to make a point and wasn't serious about betting.  But it's playground politics.  My dad can beat up your dad.  It's not presidential timbre.

Michele Bachmann's camp jumped all over it and pointed out the other reason it was not a good move - it can come across (if you don't buy Romney's defense) as being out of touch with regular people:

“For someone to go and throw around a $10,000 bet, just goes to show even more that he’s not the same level as the people of Iowa or the country,” said Michele Bachmann’s spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

One concern it raises for me is the debating skills. Previously I felt that Romney would fare pretty well in a debate against Obama.  Mitt's not my choice but I felt that if he were the nominee, he'd hold his own in a head-to-head debate versus Obama.  Now I'm less sure, and if you take away Romney's claim to being most electable, what's he left with?

EXIT QUESTION: Did anyone else think this?

GOP 'crowdation'

With Newt Gingrich surging to the top of many polls, clearly his momentum has caused other candidates to try to take a different tack in order to gain, or regain, some traction.  Oddly, it seems like everyone who is trying to differentiate themselves is taking the same sort of approach.

Romney Zombies on the loose

I just finished a fantastic steak dinner at Toronto's Harbour 60, and decided there was no better time to start thinking about zombie metaphors and how zombies can be related to the current political situation in America.  Of course - doesn't the thought process follow? Steaks, zombies eating brains.  Well, it made sense to me at least.  Now, I've talked about zombie democrats before. Collectivism is suited perfectly to zombie metaphors and Democrats have shifted pretty far into that territory.  But that's sort of stale now.  There's some zombification happening in the GOP primaries as well.

What to look for in CNN's GOP debate tonight

CNN is hosting another in a series of seemingly endless GOP primary debates tonight.  The topic: foreign policy and national security.  This will be the second foreign policy debate, and it provides candidates one more opportunity to make an impression on voters for better or worse.  There's two things I'd expect to see in the debate tonight.

Pragmatism versus one-horse-zealotry

Heated.  Things in the GOP primary are getting heated. R S McCain is on an anybody-but-Newt tear in contrast with Ed Morrissey who thinks Gingrich would be a good battler for conservatives and a formidable foe for Obama in 2012.  Elsewhere in the blogosphere and tweet-osphere, I've seen rabid backers of Cain, Paul and Perry tear apart those who prefer another candidate.  Even Romney backers have been dismissive of supporters of other candidates.  This is a primary season, and heated is to be expected.  Everyone seems to have a horse in this race and that means they are engaged.  That's good. Uncivil behavior on the other hand is another story.  While for the most part, criticisms have ranged from viable to less than robust, the  civility has been been present.  It has not been universally so.

Newtmentum!! (and what it means for Newt)

Newt Gingrich's surge to be the not-Romney candidate has taken root according to the latest PPP poll.

Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4.

What is most interesting about this poll to me is the not-Romney aspect of the race.  I knew Newt was on the rise and that part of the result isn't surprising to me.  The question on most pundits' minds will be whether Newt has the staying power that Trump, Bachmann, Perry and now perhaps Cain as well, have lacked.  The standard viewpoint is that conservative GOP voters are test driving everyone who isn't Romney to be the not-Romney candidate and it's now Newt's turn.

GOP foreign policy debate: No real winner

In the first hour of the South Carolina GOP candidates debate, there was no clear winner. In the bonus on-line time, there wasn't much difference. Everyone did well, and as Newt Gingrich pointed out, everyone on that stage would be an improvement over president Obama.  Everyone handled themselves as expected, and there were no real surprises.

Perry defenders puzzle me.

On Twitter after the debate last night, there were a lot of people defending Rick Perry because he forgot his third department that he would abolish.  I understand supporting your guy.  I understand deflecting the problem by pointing out a bunch of Obama flubs in 2008.  I understand that it doesn't disqualify his ideas.  But I don't understand running down Cain on the allegations he faces as a way of deflecting criticism or just doing tit-for-tat.  

What's worse, I don't understand how those who defend Rick Perry think that a bad debate performance doesn't matter.