Particularly on the Republican side of the spectrum, I sense that a Mr. X is lurking on the shadowy sidelines.

I’ll take a stab that amounts mostly to defaulting to my original scenario in the hope that it will prove prescient.

DEMOCRATS:
1. Clinton
2. Obama
3. Kucinich
4. Edwards

I think Obama wins Iowa. Maybe he even goes on to win NH. It doesn’t matter.

The meme I hear, again and again, from the women who make up the sizable majority of the Dem primary electorate, is “I’m voting for Hillary because she’s a woman.”

Well, okay, dumbshits, I believe you. You’ll nominate her, over a candidate superior in every imaginable respect. And good luck with that.

Obama gets wiped out on February 5–and at this point he doesn’t even ASK for the VP nomination, he’s so pissed off. Hillary, as she would have done anyway, gives it to Wesley Clark, and campaigns in the general election with every bit of the skill and subtlety she’s brought to the primaries. Not having a friendly electorate, she loses.

REPUBLICANS
1. Huckabee
2. McCain
3. Giuliani
4. Paul
5. MitRom

Yes, Huckabee peaked too early–that was the fly in the ointment of my Most Great And Perfect Plan. And yet–he peaked a bit too soon for MitRom to fully exploit it.

Let me explain.

MitRom and the entire corporate conservative establishment have emptied both barrells at Huckabee at this point. I fully agree with Brad that the Iowa caucuses would go to Romney if they were held today.

The problem is that the showdown happened too early FOR ROMNEY. Huckabee is still standing; the two of them are at parity in the polls. And Huckabee remains what he was, is, and ever shall be: a vastly superior politician when compared to Mitt Romney.

Moreover, the Christian Right has now heard everything Romney has to offer them on his LDS membership. And they don’t appear, judging by the polls, to be buying it. In fact, it looks to me like the entire ChristCon electorate has gone rogue at this point, and that poking them with a stick in order to herd them back into line is only going to enrage them further.

Huckabee wins Iowa by a margin exceeding that set by the new post-Romney-rally expectations.

McCain puts the axe to Romney’s candidacy in New Hampshire, because he, too, is a superior candidate to Mitt Romney.

Huck ends Thompson in SC with a thumping win. Bob Jones is rapturtous for all the wrong reasons. On 2/5, Giuliani’s anemic default-choice candidacy is euthanized (the only thing in this whole race I’m sure of).

Paul hangs in, does his thing, irritates a lot of his followers by not spending their contributions very freely or wisely, and never cracks twelve percent. He runs in the general election as an independent and pulls in a solid fifteen percent, virtually monopolizing the anti-war and small-government constituencies.

McCain simply doesn’t have the traction, electorally, to overcome Huckabee. He becomes the ABH candidate, but nobody’s excited enough about him to overcome the ChristCon jihad.

Huckabee’s superior political skill alone accounts for the Huckabee/Owens victory over Clinton/Clark. He rules until the year 2016, at which point Barack Obama takes over with far too large a national debt for the job to be at all worthwhile.

Rep:
Huckabee
Giuliani
McCain
Romney (Will drop in Mid Feb, with four state strategy a failure and unable to break out in the early Feb big races)
Paul (Will not drop, but will still finish with less deligates than Romney)
Thompson (Will drop in early Feb)

The republican side is far more uncertain in my eyes. I still put some money on McCain surprising a few people. He’s got a cleanness and dignity the Romney and Giuliani could only dream about. If Huck fails to perform early, he’s dead. I think Giuliani will continue to falter as he becomes more (or less) than America’s Mayor in the heat of the campaign.

Romney is a bit of a wildcard. He could rally the party to take the primary, but I see the steam leaving his sails rather.

Paul suprises a few people and wins a few states outright, but fails to lock the nomination. He gets maybe 15% of the primary votes nationwide. He turns around and runs as an independent (not libertarian).

McCain clinches the GOP nomination and Clinton pulls the democratic. Paul is in the race as an independent.

Bloomberg fails to take off and drops out soon after he enters.

And then out of left field another person (as of yet unknown) enters the presidential race as an independent. I see a four way race between the dems, republicans, Paul and Mr X.

Nobody gets a majority in the electoral college.

Let the fun begin.

If Hillary’s campaign has shown us anything this last month, it’s that she’s not particularly good at the attacking. If anything, they’ve driven up her negatives and made her opponents look better, which is the opposite of how that would work. What negative attacks of hers do you see sticking?

1. Clinton
2. Obama
3. Edwards

It is going to be tight, down, and dirty between Clinton and Obama, with the dirt being flung primarily from the Clinton camp; it’s how they operate. As distasteful as I find Hillary to be, the Clintons have an enormous amount of political mojo. No “Oprah effect” is going to overcome the cunning political machine that the Clintons have constructed over years of incumbent power. At the end of the day, regardless of the opining of pundits on how weary we Americans are of negative campaigning, one need only turn on the reality show laced primetime lineups to see what both Hollywood and the Clintons know well: it works. Obama will stick to the high road as he pretty much has and it will be to his credit. But regardless of good intentions, if you bring a knife to a gunfight, you are going to leave in a body bag. Nope, barring some serious revelation that torpedoes Clinton, she is going to call in all her markers, and Bill’s, to claw her way to the nomination. If I am right, then it will spell big problems for the Democratic Party in trying to wrest the presidency from Republican control. I suspect that this very reality is the source of some consternation within Democratic circles. Nevertheless, one must never be fooled that Hillary is doing this for the Party, she is not. Being ‘secretly’ free of such an obligation, the Clinton Party will pull out all the stops to secure her nomination. After that is when the wheels of the bus will start to really wobble.

The Republicans:

1. Romney
2. Huckabee
3. McCain
4. Paul

I think Huckabee peaked too early and has one too many nativity scenes made from skeletons in his closet. While Romney still has that scarlet M painted on him, he will ultimately prove to be the least scary of the two warriors of god that the righteous must choose to lead them through the great tribulation. It will be close, but Huckabee’s cell phone is going to be low on god bars when he needs them most. McCain will make gains going forward if this story doesn’t turn into an anti-aircraft gun. However, and rather sadly so, he has very little political mojo and must rely on being the principled, thoughtful, and honorable man that he is, which basically means he hasn’t got a chance in hell of getting nominated. Obviously, Ron Paul suffers from the same affliction as McCain and can only be deemed as unworthy to hold the highest office in the land. I mean we have low standards to maintain, right?

If I am right about all this, then the general election is going to look like a scene from Alien vs Predator.