As a political observer, I think within the GOP there are three major tribes: national security conservatives, fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.
If a candidate can get all three tribes into his (or her someday) tent, the nomination is within easy reach.
As it stands right now, I think Mayor Rudy is pulling in the national security conservatives.
The surprising rise of Mike Huckabee I would have to guess is the social conservatives gathering around him after standing on the sidelines for much of the past few months.
The social conservatives thought maybe Fred Thompson might be their guy but so far, from what I hear, he just hasn't lived up to the hype. Mitt Romney had positioned himself as a social conservative but I suspect there has been some doubt about his actual convictions on those matters because of his past statements while running for office in Massachusetts.
I have no idea where the fiscal conservatives will go within the GOP. I would guess all the candidates within the GOP are more or less acceptable to them. I suppose the hard core fiscal conservatives that edge over to libertarian are going with Ron Paul as a protest vote.
Mayor Rudy can weather a big loss in Iowa. He probably needs to be at least sort of in the running in New Hampshire. However, I think he needs a win somewhere before Super Tuesday. You can't be the front runner without winning SOMEWHERE early on.
Mitt Romney probably can weather a narrow loss in Iowa but it will result in a lot of his campaign is doomed reports. He needs to have a win in New Hampshire or he is done.
Huckabee needs a win in Iowa to surf the wave he is riding on now. The question is now that the spotlight will be on him much hotter, will he be able to stand the kitchen!
We shall see.
Meanwhile, I'm not clear what the tribes are within the Democratic party.
At the moment, there is one segment that is anti-war to the exclusion to any other issue.
Another segment favors more government programs: national health care and any other number of federal efforts to fix problems.
Are there still any national security democrats around? Or did they all get run out of the party like Joe Liberman?
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