Figured I'd put this in the debate thread so it won't cause too much havoc.  If a mod wishes it to go otherwise, perfectly fine.

Welcome to 2012 ladies and gentlemen, and that mean another edition of Primary Season, the race before the race, extended over the next (potentially) eight months, wrapped up neatly at the conventions before we have another two months of intense political mudslinging in November.

Unlike '08, we've got an incumbent in the White House, so the Democratic Convention in Charlotte's mostly going to be a rallying party instead of actually too necessary so we're going to be focusing on the race to Tampa: the Republican Party race.  (Hmm, Tampa... Wonder if anyone's going to try to sway the all-powerful nutjob Scientologist nearby in Clearwater..)

Even if you're voting Democrat or third party, it's important to be aware of the Repub. race to see who the opposition to the incumbency will be.  The field isn't as wide as it has been in previous attempts, but it's got an interesting batch of characters.

Mitt Romney: Business owner and former Massachusetts Governor, actually oversaw what would be considered blue-state reforms such as health care, but it could be argued that the strong Democrat led legislature threw its weight into more of them.  A staunch Mormon, it's hard to tell his actual stance because over time he's changed it several times and is thus often labeled as a "flip-flop" type candidate.  Has been largely solid at or near the top of the polls while other candidates have had flashes in the pan that led to near destruction.

Rick Santorum: Former Pennsylvania Senator and Congressman, Santorum is a lawyer and contributor to Fox News.  Largely ran on anti-terrorist wings in the mid '00s, labels himself as a "compassionate conservative".  A wonk on both Bush Doctrine foreign relations and "teach the controversy" anti-science movements.  Also believes that global warming is a liberal conspiracy, and that we should "drill everywhere, because there's enough coal, oil, and gas to last centuries".

Ron Paul: Texas Congressman, Ron is the biggest head in the Libertarian wing of the Republicans.  Famous for often confusing rants about the role of government and the free market in society, advocates several positions including permanent return to the gold standard and elimination of several wings of the government such as the Department of Education.  Believes that the federal government should be limited, and much of the powers should be either handled by the states or by the free market.

Rick Perry: Texas governor.  Perry's views are generally consistent with right-wing ideas: anti-global warming, support of same-sex marriage ban Constitutional amendment while despising the 16th and 17th Amendments, heavy support of Israel.  Has gone on record calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme".  His one centrist idea is opposition to Arizona-style anti-immigrant laws, preferring to have National Guard patrols instead of a fence.

Newt Gingrich: Former Georgia Congressman and 58th Speaker of the House.  History professor and professional speechmaker.  Author of the "Contract With America" in 1995, many of his policies are consistent with that to this day.  However, also has a particular support for flex-fuel requirements for vehicles and a support for NASA.  Famous for several ethics problems including several failed marriages and already on a bad foot for having half his original campaign staff walk out on him.

Michelle Bachmann: Minnesota Congresswoman.  Founder of Tea Party Caucus, and only female Republican candidate. Dropped out January 4th.

John Huntsman: Former Governor of Utah and US Ambassador to China.  Though often described as a center-right, his views are a touch but not much different from other Republicans, with the usual anti-environmental (though he supported parts of it during his governorship), anti-gay marriage (though does support civil unions), favoring private reforms of health care (though isn't against a requirement).  Favors keeping strong ties to China though interested in keeping the Taiwanese situation peaceful.

These are the main players, with a few fringers here and there but not much to worry about.  The specters of Donald Trump and Hermann Cain have passed by leaving us with our contestants on "Who Wants to Try To Unseat Obama".

The next few months prove to be interesting as several states have leapfrogged eachother.  We've got 12 primaries to tackle before Super Tuesday of March 6th which has 11 distinct primaries and could potentially be where the whole shebang is ironed out.  As the tight polling before the primaries have seen and the down to the wire Democrat primary of '08 showed, we might still be in for a bumpy ride. 

Iowa was the starter's pistol, and if it's any indication, it WILL be a tight ride.  Romney only beat Santorum by 8 votes, and Ron Paul squeaked in with 21% himself, splitting the majority of the delegates between the three of them.  Bachmann has been the first casualty of the race, though she tried to put up a good front about it, she suspended this morning leaving us with six major candidates.


Romney     30,015  25%  7
Santorum   30,007  25%  7
Paul          26,219  21%  7
Gingrich     16,251  13%  2
Perry        12,604  10%  2
Bachmann   6,073   5%   0
Huntsman      745   1%   0

Going to the big board that includes "Unpledged" delegates reported by CNN, we've got this total, with 1,144 needed. 

Romney    18
Santorum   8
Paul          7
Perry         4
Gingrich     2
Bachmann  0
Huntsman  0

Perry has maintained that he's looking to New Hampshire and South Carolina, so we've still got five or six strong here.  No doubt Ron Paul is having a near heart attack about getting a strong showing so we're going to probably hear more and more from him as time goes on, so expect to hear a LOT of Ayn Rand speeches in the coming months.  Santorum is a surprise to me only because he's the only one of the candidates who hasn't had any focus (with Perry and Gingrich famous for their flameouts, Mitt as the rock-strong candidate all the others had been compared to, and Ron as the "oh wait, he's serious?" attitude by the media).   McCain has thrown his hat behind Romney so we'll see how much of a bump that will get him going into New Hampshire on January 10th.

Real Clear Politics has their tracking of polls with Romney at 40%, Ron Paul at 18.7, Gingrich at 11.3, Huntsman at 10.3, Santorum lagging at 4.3 and Perry dead last at 2.3.  I'm not going to make a delegate projection based off of these however, since all the polling was done by the 3rd, so we don't know how the Iowa results have changed things.

Let the race begin!

The thing I like about Mormons is that they are generally agreeable people. They tend to try to be friendly and nice to everyone and please everybody.

So, I tend to not horribly dislike Romney or Huntsman. They seem like nice people - Huntsman even seems like a genuinely nice person. Romney used to actually act on policies and had some good ones. But he's trying to reverse a lot of things to look better for the GOP candidate, which is working in small bits. Huntsman doesn't have a huge chance; he's too new. No one knows his name yet. But if Obama wins this year, he might have a shot in 2016, who knows? As long as he keeps it up in the meantime.

Romney might actually do some good as president once he isn't campaigning so much. I see him as similar to Obama, in that he will talk big on the campaign trail but maybe not act in a precisely similar fashion once in office (not to dis Obama; he's certainly tried to do some things, but the flipflop on the NDAA has me pretty miffed at him right now). Hopefully that's good news for moderates and democrats, and people who aren't voting based on blind religion instead of proper moral and legislative principles.

Ron Paul has some really good ideas... and a lot of really bad ones. I'd be worried if he ended up in office. I know some people who are campaigning for him, but I really can't imagine why. I don't like some of his backwards policy ideas. I do like some of his quirky ones, but it's not worth the whole package.

Gingrich, Santorum, Perry... no. Just no. If any of those d-bags gets in office I will run, and not stop until I have crossed a national border of some kind.

I think Romney's going to win over the GOP in precisely the same fashion that Kerry won the democratic spot in 2004.

The way I figure it with Bachmann out of the running, one question is who appeals most to the Tea Party faction and who might benefit most from their votes. Which seems to me to be Paul on the economical issues and Santorum on the social issues. I don't think Paul has enough appeal with the religious conservative faction, though, so I figure the race will end up being between Romney and Santorum.

Unless, of course, they find Santorum's baggage lifter first. :-P Given his staunchly anti-gay stance, I figure that the probability is good, now that Santorum will be getting more scrutiny, that that might happen.

The thing I like about Mormons is that they are generally agreeable people. They tend to try to be friendly and nice to everyone and please everybody.

Individually, I've found this to be true as well.

As a voting bloc, they tend to be a lot more problematic to me, as they tend to be a reliable part of the theocratic/crypto-racist portion of the Republican base.  I see lots of Mormons that are nice, rational people on their own, and then as soon as election time comes around it turns into "Sure, I have some disagreements with X, but the elders have indicated that X is the official stance of the church, so I'm voting for X".  Drives me nuts.

Those national convention delegate totals from Iowa are speculative at best. The way most caucus states (including Iowa) choose their delegates is that the people at each precinct caucus elect some number of delegates to a higher level caucus (such as a county or congressional district caucus), who elect delegates to a state convention, who elect delegates to the national convention. The delegates elected at one level are often not required to vote the way the caucus that elected them voted.

For example, if Rick Perry drops out of the race between now and the county conventions, all of the delegates elected from Perry-supporting precincts would be likely to shift their support to a different candidate (such as Santorum) at their county convention, and would be free to vote accordingly.

Also, there's no guarantee that the delegates elected from a precinct caucus even support the same candidate that a plurality of voters in that precinct supported. It's not uncommon for caucus participants to focus only on the presidential preference vote, and for the delegate positions to go uncontested to anyone who volunteers for them. In fact, the presidential preference vote is completely meaningless. It's the delegate election that really matters.

This process varies state by state. The Green Papers website gives a state-by-state breakdown of the exact nominating rules and schedule for each state. Any news organization that pretends to know with certainty who will end up getting how many delegates from Iowa is lying. It simply won't be decided until the state convention. The likely outcome is that one candidate will get most of the delegates, and other candidates will get few if any.

et- Yeah they're speculative, but to be honestly that's really what the whole primary process is.  It's all technically speculation before we get to Tampa, as there are several states that have rules that state electors don't have to vote the way the primary votes. 

I suppose it's just a bit of political theater, but it's still a way for candidates to shore up their policymaking and platform, in a way its an eight month political ad.

Well, Huntsman just tapped out.

Word is he'll endorse his fellow Mormon.

Very interesting... it seems confidence and staff are now the limiting factors in candidates continuing, not money per se. The Newtron Bomb could have been dead, but he had friends with unlimited pockets.... so not only is he still going, but the yield has been boosted. And he's now a shaped charge aimed at the Mitten. Dumber Than Dubya should have been out, too, but he still has cash in the bank to roll along. So it's a five-, not three-, man race. I still expect Dumber to drop out soon, but the Newt has the power of spite; he'll bull along maybe to Super Tuesday if he can keep up confidence in himself.

Not So Nutso is nowhere near out, though, and the Choir Boy is getting more than enough evangelical support to keep going despite being under the radar.

I think the conventional wisdom of "Republicans always fall in line" is starting to crack here. There are many people who really, really, really don't want to nominate Multiple Choice Mitt.

Perry is throwing his hat behind Gingrich, though there's some interesting news afoot.  The numbers in Iowa have Santorum actually winning there now... It might alter a few strategies, give Rick some momentum.

The Choir Boy's fate is now tied to the Newtron Bomb's, oddly enough. If Romneybot 3000 (TM) (now with Emotion Chip!) wins SC, the narrative will be that of the hat trick (three in a row). But if the Bomb irradiates the state, then people will reconsider the inevitability of the Inevitable One, and the Choir Boy will be declared the winner (or at least tie-er, since to admit him winner would be to admit a mistake).

This does not help matters for him, though. The Choir Boy will be the next to concede, by elimination: the Bot, the Bomb, and the Nut all have too many endorsements and too much ego to do so for yet.

Dumber than Dubya has left, as predicted. What wasn't predicted was his endorsement of the Bomb, followed by a partial endorsement from Caribou Barbie, who hasn't been in the race for months now. The yield of the Newtron Bomb is thus boosted manyfold... polls now show him tied for first with the Multiple Choice Mittbot.

We'll see what happens after debate #{oh god stop already you're embarrassing yourself no wait on second thought go right ahead}....