There’s a lot of handicapping of the republican horse race out there, and I’ve decided to throw my two-cents in on the subject.For all intents and purposes, 80% of the ‘front-running’ field is on life support. John McCain has yet to do much, and is anathema to most of what constitutes the ‘base’ of the party. I can’t imagine the scenario that sees him as the party’s nominee.

You can stick a fork in Thompson and Giulliani – they are both cash starved, riding on name recognition and praying that McCain and Romney have stage lights fall on them at the next debate. Huckabee is in a little better shape financially, but in my opinion isn’t electable as a republican and cannot get the nomination. Of course, many huckabuddys say the same thing about my guy (We might both be right). At least Huckabee has some real, live, breathing supporters out there in the grassroots. He has that much in common with Ron Paul, though Paul has more of the truly energized, boots on the ground volunteers.

There is really only one candidate (besides Paul) who I believe can ride this thing out all the way without some huge watershed event. Mitt Romney. Mitt has the enviable assets of cash on hand and media acquiesence, and the advantage of these cannot be overestimated. Of course, he also has some hinderances.

One hindrance is that all of his cash came from two places that are ripe for demagoguing; If it didn’t come from PACs or lobbyists, it came directly out of his pocket.

Does a self-financed campaign have a single thing to do with his position on the issues, or whether he’d make a good president? No. Can a decent ad campaign make his self-financed run look like vanity from a spoiled little rich kid who has decided he can buy his way into the white house? Yeppers. This one isn’t that hard to demagogue. Throw in that the rest of his money comes from the seediest places possible in the minds of the electorate, and there is an excellent angle to take Mr. Romney down.

And then there is the Mormon thing. In spite of the odious nature of ruling him out because of his religion (in my worldview, it is odious anyway), it is going to be a deal-breaker for some of the most hard-core Christian Conservatives. You know – the one’s who aren’t much for listening about policy, but care greatly that their candidate works the name of Jesus into every possible nook and cranny at every single stump speech. I say that as a self-professed Christian and conservative. I think most of these folks are on the Huckabee train for now.

So let’s say that Thompson vanishes after South Carolina, and Rudy after Florida; We’re down to a 4-man race (a 3-man race if you’re watching the race on Fox). At that point, McCain and Huckabee will in all probability be even worse off than they are now on cash, and there might be intense pressure for one of the two to get out of the race. If Huckabee is still in the race at that point (and I fully assume he will be), I expect that he’ll fold up the tent and endorse McCain.

McCain badly needs some sort of draw to fundamentalist Christians, and announcing that Huckabee is his first choice for VP is a strategy I see as probable to try and co-opt those supporters. Huckabee lacks the foreign policy and national stage experience that most voters find important, and a stint as McCain’s VP might be appealing enough to get Huck out earlier than he might have otherwise been willing to do. It doesn’t directly help their cash position, though it might bring in a little more money.

Leaving a 3-way race heading into super Tuesday: Romney, the daddy-warbucks candidate; McCain, the most-hated republican candidate; and Paul, the fringe-kook-rascist-unelectable-(insert adjective of derision here) candidate. Would any of the Huckabee voters have a problem with McCain, even with Huck on the undercard? You bet they would. Is Romney, a *gasp* – Mormon cultist – a better alternative? I can forsee many Huckabee voters – maybe even the majority – joining on the Paul bandwagon by default. I mean, hey – he’s a Baptist too! And what of the Thompson voters? If they weren’t voting for him because they loved ‘Law and Order’, then odds are Paul will be the truest reflection of their worldview, though the jingoists among them may find McCain a better option. At any rate, Paul get some of that vote. The Giulliani vote probably wouldn’t shift much to Paul. Simultaneously, Paul will certainly pick up some current supporters from McCain and Romney as voters actually hear his name and learn a little about him. He’s still smarting from the name recognition deficit, but his piles of cash and soon to be diminishing field can’t do anything but help that.

I’d be hard-pressed to argue any scenario where Paul is the favorite, and won’t try to do it. I can see the scenario playing out as I’ve delineated to this point. From there, Paul needs a watershed of his own to break through in a three way field. I think the tools are there, if fate simply falls our way. The most likely threat to this scenario is a Romney surge that has him moving into Super Tuesday with a groundswell of momentum. Barring that, I’d say Paul’s chances aren’t dead, in spite of the media’s death knell chorus that played as soon as they announced his candidacy.

It may be that Paul can assemble a team of adept marketers who can capitalize on the Anti-Paul media bias and make that our watershed event. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, and everyone likes to feel like they possess some secret knowledge eschewed by conventional wisdom. If Paul can effectively tap into those sentiments and add in a few friendly cart-path bounces (to borrow a golf euphemism) along the way, we could see the unthinkable happen. I wonder what Brit, Carl, Shawn and the rest of the disgraceful excuse for a newsroom over at Fox would have to say……