[nowandlater]

As they say in college football, "when you have two starting quarterback, you have no starting quarterback." Incredibly, every candidate in the top-tier is uniquely flawed--it's going to be incredibly hard for any one them to unite the party. I predict it is going to be a historical slug-fest.

Rudy, McCain, Newt, and Mitt are going to be the only choices. The early primary means that those with money are the only ones who are going to be viable. Newt stating that we will wait to the fall to decide is killing the 2nd tier candidates; Newt is freezing the field of lesser competitors making it difficult for them to raise money and to get traction.

Rudy does well because of McCain collapse. The better Rudy does the worse McCain will do and Rudy is golden on the WOT issue. Also, the better Newt does, the worse Romney will do and that is why I think Mitt is doing early advertisement because he knows Newt is going to wait--Mitt's only hope is to get some traction early.

With that being said, I don't see any of these candidates uniting the party. I would hope Mitt does it, but I think I see Mitt has an extra burden placed on him--all politicians flip flop, but if you don't like a politician for other reasons (religion), you just are even more eager to emphasize this symptom of all politicians (come on, he ran for Massachussets! You have to make some distasteful concessions to win!). Rudy's liberal positions will hurt him with Social Conservatives. McCain will never reconcile himself with the activist base. And finally Newt, while looked at favorably, is burdened unfairly by the media image and some hard to explain in the sound-bite era of personal-life issues. Yikes!

Personally, I think Mitt's issues are the easiest to overcome, because I think historically if one flips to the positions that the base wants they have always forgiven and accepted those kinds of changes.

[Kevmo]

Rudy is golden on the WOT issue.
***Rudy doesn't get it. The WOT issue is becoming linked to illegal immigration as a security threat, and Rudy is soft on illegal aliens, among other things.

[Dave W]

Brilliant analysis.

[wafflehouse]

i wont be voting for mitt either.

come on, he ran for Massachussets! You have to make some distasteful concessions to win!

oh sure.. 'distasteful concession' is a pretty low key way to describe it. how far will he prostitute his values for his ambition?

[AlphaJuno]

all politicians flip-flop

I agree - but look how Kerry was ripped apart by clips of him 'flip-flopping' played over and over...There are clips of Romney trying to be even farther left of Teddy Kennedy in 1994 during a debate with him!!

If Romney gets the nomination, it will be the Democrats trying to paint him as a liberal in disguise... That way he will constantly be on the defense to his base instead of addressing the actual issues.