Garcia Media Life

Polls are one thing; votes, even caucus votes, are another.  The time is rapidly approaching that the first set of winners and losers in the Republican presidential race will be officially decided in Iowa. 

The polls (Public Policy Polling) show Newt up by just a single point over Ron Paul with three weeks to go. For all the press about Newt Gingrich’s sudden inevitability, the up-to-the-minute trends as registered by notoriously unreliable polling in the state is that Newt is on the decline. A barrage of negative advertising against him primarily from the Ron Paul camp appears to be doing damage.  Gingrich’s negatives are going up while his Tea Party support has started eroding quickly.  Meantime, more and more evangelical leaders in the state are endorsing Michele Bachmann who is creeping up on Mitt Romney who is currently third. 

How about this scenario for Iowa?  Ron Paul edges out Newt Gingrich.  Michelle Bachmann finishes third, ahead of Romney who comes in a disappointing 4^th.  

Now we come to the New Hampshire primary, where Mitt Romney with home field advantage, edges out Gingrich who is nearly caught by a surging Ron Paul.   Totally plausible scenario that leaves today’s front-runner- Newt Gingrich- winless in the first two important political contests of the season.  

Newt’s poll numbers in the next contests in South Carolina and Florida are strong.  Romney is well ahead in Nevada.  As the early contests conclude, we could very well have a three-way donnybrook verging on a 4-way traffic jam if Michelle Bachmann ends up the recipient of coalesced evangelical and Tea Party support.

This thing could go on awhile as the GOP has restructered its process to include fewer winner-take-all states.  Even 4th place finishers get a few delegates in state after state.  It even leaves open the possibility of the wet dream of all political junkies in America-the brokered convention. 

None of the Republican candidates arrive in Tampa with a majority.  All of them are bruised and battered after months of vicious attacks on each other.  None of them have a lead on Obama in head-to-head general election polls.  Movers and shakers in the G.O.P. establishment meet in a smoke-filled room in a non-smoking hotel to hammer out a solution.

To the shock of the nation and stunning the Obama campaign team- it all becomes a Florida nightmare for the Dems.  The Tampa convention, by acclamation, suddenly nominates former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush who crazily enough, chooses Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his VP.  Months of opposition research and ready-to-go TV ads go down the tubes as shocked Obama operatives read their internal polling.  The Florida path is gone. Bush/Rubio is nailing 40% of the Hispanic vote. The men are gone.  The Catholics are gone.

But come January of 2013, it’s Barack Obama taking his second oath of office, saved by the 3^rd and 4^th party campaigns of Ron Paul and Donald Trump who take just enough votes from Bush and Rubio to put Obama over the top. He reaches his electoral majority Wednesday morning, November 7^th as Hawaii comes through at 6am, ET.

I know, I know.  Reads like a bad novel.  But in a campaign in which reality has already been stranger than fiction….