Presidential Material

Republican candidates for President are taking the plunge left and right; it appears that this primary will be a long, bloody one. Mitt Romney is now pledging to make a decision by mid-December, and it appears that Newt Gingrich will be waiting for a draft movement to come along and sweep him to the White House. Sam Brownback is also planning an early 2007 announcement, so far as I can tell, and there will assuredly be others getting in line soon.
John McCain has been buying up College Republican support in the early primary states like South Carolina, Alabama, and Michigan; he is making inroads elsewhere and bringing the checkbook along for the ride. Several states, most notably Michigan, have seen the beginnings of proxy battles between McCain and Romney supporters. For the record, Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis is now without rival in his bid for another term at the helm after Dave DiShaw bowed out of the race. McCain has also come under fire from Romney for his lack of "true conservatism", which is somewhat ironic given some of Romney's stances in Massachusetts. Mitt cannot be happy, on the other hand, with a hit-job of a poll that found 43% of Americans would never vote for a Mormon. I honestly do not see why in the hell this matters, even though I am not a big fan of Romney at this point.
Newt has pledged to be out on the stump, "winning the future" with his bold ideas and policy proposals, so much so that Americans will beg him to run. We will be watching to see how that shakes out; there is nary a politician on air more often than Gingrich. Sam Brownback is at least hiring staffers at this point, and he is bringing on an Ohio CR to coordinate the youth efforts when/if he declares. Rudy is the one who has been most quiet, save filing an exploratory committee the day after McCain. I have yet to hear of any field operatives being dispatched by America's Mayor, but it cannot be too far off. The one thing all of the above did during the election season was to hit the stump hard for GOP candidates, but I do not see this bearing much fruit after so many of those candidates were trounced at the polls. No matter though, as this is shaping up to be a most intriguing contest.