thinking 2012: Mark Byron’s draft list

Mark Byron has a post defining the field for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012 on his blog dated this past Monday. It looks like he’s lining up to say Palin-Romney-Pawlenty-Huckabee maybe Daniels or Jindahl and a bunch of dwarfs. I like his reasoning; I’d like to think Gingrich won’t still be in the conversation a year from now. I’m disturbed to see Gingrich e.g. flogging the Ground-Zero-Mosque issue as a fundraiser; I don’t believe for a second that giving a dollar to Gingrich’s political action committee will make Cordoba House less likely, slow the spread of sharia in the Western world, or touch any of the scary stories Gingrich tells in his article.

I don’t know why Byron doesn’t mention Thune; I’m guessing it’s a result of his picking a Pawlenty-penned list as his starting point, and that list doesn’t mention Thune. Intrade still has Romney 30%, Palin 18.5%, Thune 15%, Pawlenty 11.5%, Gingrich 11% and nobody else going off at better than 8%.