Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee -- who I think could be a very good candidate -- has been so slow to gear up it's unclear whether he'll actually run. --1/14/07
The incumbent, republican Norm Coleman, is beatable. I think Franken could be a more formidable general-election candidate than some think -- but he needs a vigorous primary challenge, to hone his campaigning skills and to convince people that he's a serious person. --2/1/07
[If Sen. John Warner of Virginia retires] columnist Dan Catalano predicts that US Rep Tom Davis will run to replace him. Catalano hedges on whether former Va. governor -- and former '08 Presidential aspirant -- Mark Warner will run for the Democrats. I predict that he will if John W really is retiring, which I suspect is true. And I further predict that Mark W. will whup Tom Davis from Cumberland Gap to the Chesapeake Bay and back again. --5/1/07
On a stage of aging, white, conservative curmudgeons, Mitt Romney stood out as looking least like your cranky uncle who you can't stand. (It's especially fun to hear these sour-pussed grousers repeatedly invoke the importance of Ronald Reagan's optimism, which, apparently, cures all that ails ya'.) But bear in mind that Republicans have no problem nominating miserable, aging cranks. They tend toward Bob Dole, not Jack Kemp. --5/4/07
Giuliani and McCain have both opted out of the preposterous but politically critical Iowa Straw Poll in Ames on August 11, which is a wrench in Romney's plans (as I described recently in the paper). With them out, Romney is expected to dominate, so if he does it won't impress anybody. The story out of Ames will be whoever rises from the secondary pack, perhaps Huckabee, depriving Romney of his intended big media boost heading to the fall. --6/12/06
I've written before about how fast Romney is blowing through that money, but nevertheless I'm amazed that he's already out this far in advance of the actual campaign season. Blowing through his whole stash already means two things: 1) a serious attempt to win the nomination is going to cost him a lot more than I think he was expecting; and 2) it's taking much more of a sales job to get his numbers up than he was expecting.... I've continued to believe that John McCain would ultimately win the GOP nomination, and this development is very good news for that camp. The continued exposure of Giuiliani's ugly side is taking its toll. And I may be imagining it, but I have this feeling that Fred Thompson's appeal is already cresting and heading down. By staying out of the way, McCain may be on his way to reclaiming his status as frontrunner. --6/26/07
Assuming Shaheen runs (and given numbers like that, why wouldn't she?), the GOP might have to just chalk that seat up as a loss. And if that's the case, they might have to concede the state as a loss in the Presidential race on the same ballot next year. --6/28/07
I've long said that there's no way in this world that the Republican Party will nominate Rudy Giuliani -- one by one, every Republican will have that moment of epiphany when they stop associating Giuliani with "9-11 New York," which they love, and start associating him with "Moral Sewer New York," which they loathe. --7/30/07
Ron Paul could be turning into a serious spoiler in the early part of the GOP contest. He'll do well enough today [in the Iowa Straw Poll], and has enough money raised, to turn himself into a serious presence in New Hampshire -- and he could be very, very likeable in the Granite State. The question is who he would take votes from. --8/11/07
The breakout moment [in the Iowa Straw Poll] is Huckabee's, as he pulled out a solid second place; he now needs to seize the moment to get some momentum, and money, and media attention. He has a chance now to become the Bill Richardson of the GOP side: certainly not top-tier, but legitimately part of the picture. The rest are toast. Brownback's third-place finish might not be enough to keep him around much longer. Tancredo's fourth is a serious blow, although it's possible he could hang around for a while, raising money from the immigrant-bashers. Paul is a different story: fifth place is enough for him to keep getting attention and gaining spoiler status. Tommy Thompson is now officially done, and Duncan Hunter already was done -- I doubt either of them will even be in the scheduled post-Labor-Day debate. --8/12/07
Despite spending an unfathomable amount of money, he remains at or below 10% in the critical early state of South Carolina, verifying my long-held theory that no Republican south of the Mason-Dixon line is going to vote for a slick, wealthy, double-talking Mormon Northerner. --9/14/07