I’m wondering if the Republican field is actually a lot more open than most people think. I don’t think Gingrich’s numbers last and he has very large numbers. Gingrich is, at the moment, pulling from both those Republicans who value authenticity and those who value competence and electability (his record as Speaker, he would kill Obama in debate, etc.) I don’t know what happens to those voters when the Gingrich bubble starts losing air. Some surveys show Romney as the plurality second choice of Gingrich voters (it might have been a statewide poll - and I can’t remember the state), but I think that the future post-Gingrich voters are up in the air. I could see a surge to Romney, but also to Bachmann or Santorum. It will depend on who makes an impression in the upcoming debates or (like John Kerry in 2004) finds a groove from working Iowa hard. Or maybe no one candidate gets especially hot and the Gingrich voters (and what is left of Cain’s support) split three or four different ways. It wouldn’t take many Gingrich/Cain authenticity-seeking defections to put Ron Paul over a broken field in Iowa. What happens next is anybody’s guess. There seems to be a boomlet for Huntsman among some center-right pundits, but I don’t know that it will translate into votes. I would watch Bachmann and Santorum. They are more authentically conservative than either Gingrich or Romney, ideologically closer to the median Republican voter than Paul, and they are putting the work in. The downside is that Bachmann and Santorum are both in a crowded ideological space.
If I’m wrong, it won’t be the first time.
