Newt-ered

Now that so many so-called establishment conservatives and self-appointed Tea Party spokespersons are coming out of the woodwork to clobber Newt from all sides, do we still think he's got a legit shot at becoming the GOP nominee?

Also here's Moseley's latest bit of handicapping which once again emphasizes the likelihood of "surprises" even going so far as to suggest that those of us who continue to expect the utterly unsurprising result of Mitt as the nominee go put some money down on it at Intrade. I'm guessing $10,000 is the standard ante there.

Actually Intrade is kind of a goofy toy. It reflects the volatile conventional groupthink that has fed the boom-and-bust GOP primary cycle. And, although, political junkies love to cite it in discussions like this, it's important to remember that this is precisely what makes it a pretty crappy predictor of results. Don't get me wrong. It's a lot of fun to play with. Although I should say my favorite new toys this election season are these mouse-over sliding poll average graphics at TPM.

Anyway, suffice to say, Intrade is great but it's no Punditbook.

One point of clarification I should make about the GOP Primary so far is that I've always thought Mitt was going to be the nominee, not because of some conspiratorial "rigging" of the system but because I just always thought he was obviously the only candidate without huge fatal flaws. (This is not to say that he doesn't have huge flaws, just not huge fatal flaws.) So the boom-and-bust game the press has been playing of "let's pretend crazy candidate X has a shot this week" has been grating on me.

Anyway, getting back to Mark's latest column, he describes, there, a couple few scenarios for the way things can play out in the coming months including this one.

Alarmed at Gingrich’s surprising ascent, the conservative establishment torpedoes Gingrich before the Iowa caucus. Another “non-Romney” candidate takes his place. In my mind, Perry fills the bill here, because he has the money to buy himself a second look and a talented staff who can attempt to reinvent him. Perry rebrands himself as the “faith” candidate who will best protect us from gays in the military, and the secular culture’s war on Christmas.

And darnnit if that isn't exactly what Perry's campaign is shooting for this week... albeit in typically self-destructive Rick Perry fashion.

Still, it would appear there is room on the right for Perry to stake a claim. And, of course, there's plenty time left for Perry to shoot himself in the foot a few more times too.