As is Perry, as was Trump, as was Bachman, as are basically all of the Tea Party darlings. I think one of Obama’s biggest assets going into 2012 is the cavalcade of half-wits that the Tea Party have pushed to the front over the course of this primary campaign plus a few memorable Senate seats in 2010 (Angle / O’Donnell). I’m anxious to see how Romney handles his tack back to the center after he secures the nod, and how the tea party reacts. It’s not just these candidates that are unprepared and shooting themselves in the foot, it’s the whole extreme right wing. We’ll see if they shoot Romney once they run out of their own ‘feet’.

I fully expect Bloomberg to run on the Unity 12 Americans Elect ticket, but I cannot figure who he spoils it for. I expect that nationally he’ll pull more support from Romney, but he has a chance of taking New York’s electoral votes as a favorite son. If Obama loses NY to Bloomberg, he’s toast.

Outside the presidency, the GOP will do fine, regardless of any mild improvement in the state of the economy. They’ll maintain a somewhat narrower majority in the house and take the majority in the Senate. Which is what I’ve been saying since the last election.

As far as Cain is concerned, I just cannot make myself care about anything that happens in that campaign. He is as unprepared for the media scrum of a national campaign as Palin was in 2008. He had zero chance of becoming the Republican nominee when he entered the campaign, and has somehow managed to screw up his chances even more since then.