Here's the problem with these silly caucuses that everyone is focusing on while the world burns. The first ones (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina) are held in small, insignificant states whose voters tend to swing to the extremes of the political spectrum. Coupled with low turnouts (something like 12% of Iowans participated) the results don't necessarily reflect the viability of any particular candidate, especially when the so-called "debates" we've had over the past several years (it seems like it's been that long anyway) generally focus on the "mainstream" candidates and marginalize lesser known candidates that may have good ideas. So by the time we get to Iowa, you have the spectacle of Christian Evangelicals (America's version of the Taliban) piling on to hand a "victory" to Huckabee, who, if elected, will make George Bush's Jesus-drenched presidency seem secular. And on the other side, an inexperienced shmo like Barak Obama gets the pole position. And while it's great to see the dreams and aspirations of superficial jack-asses like Romney, Giuliani and Hillary(TM) get crushed, the results are overall pretty meaningless. Meanwhile, any potential for a third party to make any headway is precluded by the fact that the media seems to think we are exclusively a two-party system.
So now we move on to New Hampshire, which in 2000 picked John McCain as the Republican front-runner, the "maverick" who eventually healed to his masters and came to give a speech at Liberty University, the breeding hive of Christian Evangelicals, all in the name of kissing major ass for votes. Liberty University, you may recall, was founded by Jerry Falwell, the same guy that McCain labeled an "agent of intolerance" during his 2000 campaign. If you're going to go that low, you may as well promise to suck some caucus for votes. At least that would be more dignified. Anyway, it should also be noted that NH chose Kerry in 2004. So much for that "libertarian" reputation, though given the choices the Democrats presented that year you can't really blame them (picking "None of the Above" would've been more appropriate).
After New Hampshire, we return to the muck and mire of a majority Evangelical Christian state, South Carolina, where voters are easily swayed by robo-dialers telling harrowing tales of prostitutes and illegitimate black babies. Look for a repeat of this tactic by Huckabee because, yes, he does take South Carolinians for fools, and I'm convinced once the big black caucas spews its load all over SC, his strategy will come to be vindicated. And can you blame him? If all you have to do is pander to the racist, white-power constituency with a cheap whisper campaign then why not? There's still almost a year of campaigning ahead of you, and people will have forgotten about your dirty tricks by the time Super Tuesday rolls around.
And so it is that by the time the first three primaries are done, we are generally left with Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber as our presidential candidates as the minority of voters who inhabitat the fringes of the political spectrum in these otherwise marginal states tell us who they would prefer to drive our country further into the abyss, and the press proceeds to put their stamp of approval on the front runners coming out of the primaries and almost exclusively focus on them. And we wonder why we keep ending up with candidates that present us with a moral dilemma when we go to the polls.
On the bright side, Ron Paul placed 5th, and going into Hew Hampshire, given the proclivity of that state's citizens to identify as libertarians (if not in label then in ideal) he should do well there, probably better than in Iowa. I'll go out on a limb and predict at least a third place finish there.