There are, so far, zero officially declared candidates but that’ll change in the next month or so. Here’s a run-down of where I think the odds are on the probables and possibles.
Mitt Romney – even money. Romney has spent years developing local support in the early primary states. Strongly pushing his message that Obamacare is not Romneycare. He’ll have lots of money and lots of insitutional support and the inside track in New Hampshire.
Mike Huckabee – 3/1. The winner of the 2008 Iowa Caucus is waiting to enter the race so he can continue his job on Fox News. However if the newly arisen international issues are still prominent come debate time his lack of foreign policy expertise may become a big liability.
Tim Pawlenty – 4/1. Mr. Boring is a safe choice if nobody else looks promising. May have an inside shot in Iowa due to his being the ex-governor of a neighboring state.
Haley Barbour – 5/1. It’s still not clear he can overcome his liabilities. He’ll do well in the old south but beyond that…
Newt Gingrich – 9/1. Pretty much nobody likes Newt. He’s the finest policy mind in the field but that won’t get him far. His best chance is getting nominated from the floor in a brokered convention.
John Huntsman – 12/1. He’d be 25/1 if he didn’t have hundreds of millions of dollars of personal wealth to throw behind his candidacy. But right now he’s unknown to 95% of the voters so once he leaves his post as ambassador to China he’s going to need to get himself out there in a big way and fast.
Mitch Daniels – 20/1. Daniels would be 4/1 if he runs but I don’t think he will. It doesn’t look like he’s up for the reality of running and may just want to sit back and perhaps hope for a VP slot.
Chris Christie – 25/1. Christie would also probably be 4/1 if he ran but he has said time and time again that he will not run in 2012. If he continues to get credit for being the bold leader of New Jersey and loses at least 30 pounds he may be a good shot for 2016.
Sarah Palin – 30/1. Palin’s favorable/unfavorable ratings are becoming more lopsided by the day. She will run but it’s unclear how disciplined her candidacy will be. And if she can’t expand beyond her core supporters she will never run more than a weak second in most of the primaries.
Jim DeMint – 35/1. Dark horse who seems to be throwing around the idea of running. Will have to fight (with Palin and perhaps Bachmann) for Tea Party support if he does. He won’t run.
Rick Santorum – 40/1. Sorry fecal matter lube man, you’re dropping out after Iowa.
Michelle Bachmann – 40/1. I think she’s preping to run only if Palin doesn’t. Palin will.
Herman Cain – 45/1. Will add some color to the debates and never finish above fourth in any primary.
Donald Trump – 60/1. Ugh.
March 24, 2011 at 6:39 pm |
Jiminy Christmas, I picked a bad day morning to make these predictions.
Since I posted this Michelle Bachmann has announced she’ll form an exploratory committee no later than June (a move further towards running but in no way a sure thing that she’ll actually do it) and Jim DeMint has explicitly stated that he will not run.
In light of this info I’m going to move Bachmann to 30/1 and DeMint to 100/1.
March 25, 2011 at 10:39 pm |
“He’ll do well in the old south but beyond that…”
The old south is pretty much a myth at this point. We think Mississippi makes the rest of us look bad and their politicians have zero appeal outside of the rest of the Ozarks and Huckabee cancels Barbour out for that region. Plus he lied about seeing Martin Luther King: we don’t tend to like that. Georgia, at least, would go for Newt over both of them anyway, he isn’t seen as horrible there. Really, all of our other republican politicians are stupider than a sack of door knobs: Newt is horrible but not stupid so he stands out a bit.
NERD (were his nerdly teen years in Columbus, GA like mine? prolly no): http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AauCarFOO_Y/TB7T998RixI/AAAAAAAAAV4/1K7th54IsOg/s1600/newt+gingrich.jpg
Is Huntsman so very unknown? Maybe yeah. When he was made ambassador I said “Wow, watch out Mittens”. But then, again, I’m not convinced that the Republican half of the country will really vote for a Mormon, especially not in your old south. Its probably better to be an atheist.
I want Santorum, Bachmann, Trump and Palin to run for comedy’s sake. I need some daily scandal to feed my political gossip news addiction.