Visual source: Newseum
Charles Franklin looks at graphs, polls and trends.
Timothy Egan:
By almost any measure — social, political, economic, logical — Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is nuts, nuts, nuts. Go ahead and jack up the price of nearly everything that moves in the United States with a 9 percent national sales tax on all new purchases and services. Talk about instant branding: every time you buy something, you’ll be hit with the Herm Cain tax at the checkout line.
And this is just the start.
Mark Blumenthal:
The recent endorsements of Mitt Romney by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and others, have some questioning whether endorsements matter, and others buzzing that that Romney has become an "inevitable candidate."
But an analysis by the Huffington Post shows that the current rate of endorsements for all candidates, Romney included, remains behind the pace of the last five contested Republican nominations. Christie's nomination may serve as an important signal to Republican insiders, but by the yardstick of modern campaigns, the Republican party establishment is far from a consensus. Many of the major officeholders that traditionally endorse a presidential candidate are still on the sidelines.
Mark Mellman:
Since the rise of the modern nominating system, every successful presidential aspirant in both parties, save one (Bill Clinton), has won either Iowa or New Hampshire. That doesn’t stop pundits from trotting out Iowa and New Hampshire winners who failed to capture the nomination, as well as nominees who failed to emerge victorious in one contest or the other. All this pseudo-analysis misses the point, however. If you don’t win one of these two early contests, your chances of becoming your party’s standard-bearer sink to near zero.
It must be so, because it was last time. Actually, it still may be so, but it's NH and not IA that matters.
Nate Silver:
If Mr. Cain does not win Iowa, though, someone else will. If that person is Mr. Romney, he will probably also follow it up with a win in New Hampshire, making him an overwhelming favorite in the nomination race. But if that person is Mr. Perry, we might see a long, drawn-out contest between him and Mr. Romney — something that seemed very likely a few weeks ago and remains reasonably likely now. In either case, Mr. Cain would again be reduced to the second tier of candidates, at best.
And from the
Onion News Network:
A hat tip to Pollster's excellent
"outliers" feature for some of the links above.