GOP InTrade Watch 11/17

As of November 17
1. (1) - Mitt Romney - 70.5%
2. (4) - Newt Gingrich - 13.3%
3. (5) - Ron Paul - 4.7%
4. (5) - Jon Huntsman - 3.9%
5. (3) - Herman Cain - 3.4%
6. (2) - Rick Perry - 3%
7. (7) - Mich. Bachmann - 1.1%
8. (8) - Rick Santorum - .6%
9. (10)- Sarah Palin - .3%
10.(8) - Gary Johnson - .2%

I imagine Tim Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels sitting at a bar somewhere, watching the NationalJournal debate on foreign policy cut off so CBS can show some reruns, then they flip the channel to one of the smaller cable-news channels where they talk about the inevitability of Mitt Romney, and how it's now Newt Gingrich's turn to surge.

Pawlenty: "Coulda been you."

Daniels: "If you hadn't dropped out after Ames, it would've been you."

(simultaneous sips from their brewskies)

Pawlenty: "One-point-six million from Freddie Mac for advice as a historian."

Daniels: "You're telling me.  Why did we become governors?"

Pawlenty: "Think Ron Paul will get a turn?"

Daniels: "Why not?  Then everyone will suddenly remember he'll be 77 years old in 2012, and they'll spin that story of some Paul blog defending a neo-Nazi, and it'll fizzle and die."

Pawlenty: "Then Huntsman?"

Daniels: "Right before Christmas.  Then down on New Years Day."

Pawlenty: "Think Santorum will get a turn?"

They look at each other, then bust up laughing. They finish their beers, pay the tab, and put the Mitt 2012 buttons back on their jackets.

GOP InTrade Watch 10/23

As of October 23.

1. (1) - Mitt Romney - 66.5%
2. (2) - Rick Perry - 14.7%
3. (4) - Herman Cain - 7.2%
4. (7) - Newt Gingrich - 3.1%
5. (6) - Jon Huntsman - 2.5%
5. (8) - Ron Paul - 2.5%
7. (9) - Michelle Bachmann - 1.2%
8. (-) - Rick Santorum - .5%
8. (-) - Gary Johnson - .5%

My first thought might have been "Wow, Newt's fourth" but he's fourth at a mere 3.1%. He's fourth because Chris Christie and Sarah Palin have finally fallen out of the running.

Now that we have a few weeks' break from debates, the candidates can go out and capitalize.

Mitt Romney is in the best position and people with money know it. Rick Perry had a really good quarter, but have you noticed how much of that was raised before the debates started? With the last debate as the last taste in voters' mouths, I think Perry's going to go for a scorched-Earth sourthern strategy. He's going to go mean and negative and go farther than what the Bush team did to McCain in South Carolina in 2000, guaranteed. I think it will backfire, but only backfire enough to secure the nomination for Romney. After that, Mitt will be battered and bruised (we ain't seen nothin' yet) and Obama just has to hope for some positive ecominic number to combat Mitt with.

Obama's strength might be foreign policy, but you know who else had a strong foreign defense argument but a weak domestic one? George H.W. Bush. What happened to him?

As for Herman Cain, InTrade has never taken him too seriously. Cain strikes me as a guy who ran for president to increase book sales and speaking fees, and he's as surprised as anyone that he's suddenly at the top of the polls.