Outside the Beltway

The battle of Iowa is beginning with Mitt Romney in the lead, but Herman Cain and Sarah Palin aren’t far behind.

Herman Cain is getting a lot of attention lately, but will he amount to anything?

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani tops the latest CNN poll of Republican presidential contenders.

Once again, Sarah Palin has made herself the center of attention in the political world.

Gallup takes the first look at the GOP field after Huckabee, Trump, and Daniels dropped out.

There have been no significant surveys of the Republican field taken since the announcement that frontrunners Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump and Establishment darling Mitch Daniels have dropped out of the race.

The GOP doesn’t have a charismatic superstar waiting in the wings. That’s okay.

Is Donald Trump back in the race? Not yet, but he hasn’t ruled it out.

Tim Pawlenty may face trouble from a pardon he issued while he was Governor of Minnesota.

The Republican candidates of 2012 are so weak because of GOP losses in 2004 and 2006 Senate and gubernatorial races.

All signs are that Michele Bachmann is running for president. What impact will she have on the race?

With Huckabee out, the right side of the GOP primary base may end up divided. And that will help Mitt Romney.

With co-frontrunner Mike Huckabee out, Mitt Romney looks stronger than ever.

Mike Huckabee’s decision not to run has shaken up the GOP field for 2012.

We won’t have Mike Huckabee to kick around in 2012.

Mitt Romney began his effort to confront what is likely to be his biggest political liability in the 2012 campaign.

A study shows that most national columnists and talking heads are about as accurate as a coin flip.

Why are many of the top Republicans are sitting out the race despite a seemingly vulnerable incumbent?

President Obama is vulnerable, but he’s facing a GOP field that is underwhelming even for Republicans.

For the first time, Donald Trump is leading a poll for the GOP 2012 nomination. That’s bad news for the GOP.

Donald Trump is waiting to announce whether he’s running for president until after taping of “The Apprentice” concludes. Some thing NBC shouldn’t allow him to wait.

Donald Trump has been surging in polls of Republican voters recently, but that doesn’t mean much of anything.

Why did then-Governor Mike Huckabee’s office destroy all its office hard drives shortly before leaving office?

Nate Silver argues today’s polls “have a reasonable amount of predictive power in informing us as to the identity of the eventual nominee.”

Quite improbably, Mike Huckabee seems to be positioned at the top of the GOP field right now. The only question is whether he really wants to run for President again.

The race for the 2012 Republican nomination is missing the one thing that GOP nomination battles have almost always had, a frontrunner.

With minor exceptions, all of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 seem to have accepted the idea that defense spending, and the Bush-era interventionist foreign policy, are off the table when it comes time to talk spending cuts.

There’s still time for Sarah Palin to burnish her political reputation. But she probably won’t.

Republicans are starting to sour on Sarah Palin, meaning that they’re finally starting to catch up to the rest of the country.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is beginning to more like a real candidate for President. She won’t win, but she will be entertaining.

All of the plausible Republican contenders for 2012 have significant downsides.