Poll: Good news for Gingrich and Obama in early states

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5. If Paul wins Iowa

It will be tough for the media to keep ignoring him, but the Rethug base will continue to do just that. He will not win any primary states where it's easy for the base to just cast a vote, even an absentee one from home. Paul has motivated a bunch of people, but if it weren't for him, my guess is that 80-90 percent of them would just be indifferent to politics, at least as far as any sort of activism goes.

Bachmann has sunk like a stone, she doesn't get one of the three tickets out of Iowa. I'll be surprised if Santorum doesn't pull out the day after Iowa, the way that Dodd and Biden did four years ago, and Huntsman is finished after a poor showing in New Hampshire. Perry gets knocked off after South Carolina, and that pretty much boils it down to Mitt, Paul, and Newt as the Anti-Romney that the fundies in the rest of the states need. Paul's libertarian views are not their cup of tea, either.

Who gets the tea partiers? Right now, it looks like Mitt to me. Maybe some like Paul, but there are positions of his that drive them crazy. And if they don't trust Mitt now, they never will, unless he emerges victorious from Tampa. If Grantcart is right, and no one has that first ballot victory, then the fundies will be deeply wounded by Romney's 'theft' of the nomination, and they'll go third party for sure.