The State of the Presidential Race – August 14, 2011

Well, the first major test of the 2012 GOP primaries is over, and the field today certainly looks different than it did on Friday. With a major candidate out of the race and another one getting in, it's becoming clear that the GOP nominee will be one of three people and yesterday's Ames Straw Poll may have altered the race for all of them. Most of all, though, we learned that this primary contest isn't going to be over quickly; with three strong candidates in the race, don't expect to know who the nominee is going to be until May or June of next year. Get excited.

Really, this is just a gratuitous amount of confetti.

Debate Roundup: August 11th GOP Primary Debate

The second major debate of the GOP primary season just ended and brought a little more clarity to the standings of the Republican presidential candidates. While we will know more about how the race will look going forward after this weekend's Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, the debate provided us with a glimpse at which candidates have a chance to win and which are dead in the water. While a “State of the Race” post will probably be forthcoming early next week, for now I'll just stick to my own post-debate format and rank the winners and losers from the standpoint of what the debate means for their campaigns.

Mitt Romney, lording over everyone else. Just the way he likes it.

Debate Roundup: June 13th GOP Primary Debate

Tonight was the first debate of the 2012 Republican primary season and it provided no shortage of awkward moments, political catchphrases and blatant misunderstandings about how the economy works. Instead of doing an entire recap of the debate, though, I'm going to give my analysis of the winners and losers in tonight's debate and how it may affect the race going forward. So, I may miss some of the better... ahem... “policy” gems of the debate, like Speaker Gingrich comparing Muslims to Nazis, or Congresswoman Bachmann saying that she thinks there should be both a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and independent state laws governing the issue, but I hope that you'll forgive me.

And so, from biggest loser to biggest winner, here's how the debate played out.

Dear CNN, this stage is so 2008. Step it up.

And the winner is...

This year's race for the Republican presidential nomination is one of the most wide-open contests in modern history: every frontrunner has fairly significant reasons why they likely won't win, and the whole contest is practically begging for a dark horse to come and steal the nomination. In the past few months, there has been a steady stream of candidates not running or encountering debilitating problems affecting their own chances at winning. So, where does the race stand? To find out, let's take a look at the candidates and where they stand. I'm only going to talk about candidates that I think have a legitimate chance of even making noise in the campaign; sorry if I skip over your favorite candidate, but if there are any incensed Buddy Roemer fans out there, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments section.