Bobby Jindal And Mike Huckabee Make First Steps Into Iowa

It is hard to believe it, but both Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee are already beginning to make their first visits into Iowa in preparation for the 2012 Iowa Caucus. And Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are soon expected to follow. Each is putting a toe in the water to weigh if there's support to start forming a campaign committee and to start fundraising activity.

However, all of this comes against a backdrop of good economic news today in the U.S. and China, and Wall Street up significantly by a more than a couple hundred points and President Obama's approval numbers a few points higher than his winning margin over John McCain in 2008. The fact of the matter is that 2012 is more likely than not to be a race for GOP candidate to lose, and the best GOP challengers should probably wait until 2016. However, it is possible that Hillary Clinton could run that year, and present a further roadblock to GOP plans to retake the White House for another eight years.

The fact of the matter is that the candidates running for president on the GOP side are largely fringe support figures with a serious lack of the broad appeal among all voters to really have a realistic chance to win an election. Perhaps outside of Mitt Romney, none of them are really electable figures. But Mitt Romney has the added problem that he cannot win the GOP nomination in a party that has never even nominated a Catholic for president, let alone a Mormon. And Jindal is running in a party with few elected office holders of color compared to even the Democrats, making his chances of capturing the GOP nomination slim as well. Sarah Palin appeals only to fringe of GOP voters as well.

In 2008, John McCain might have looked like the most electable of the GOP crowded list of candidates, however even that proved to be way too little compared to the excellent Democratic candidate in Barack Obama and his extremely well run campaign. In 2012, the GOP challenge might be far greater yet with the nomination of a less acceptable nominee and against the backdrop of an a greatly improved American economy, President Obama could be poised for a landslide re-election win. 2012 might just be a GOP race to see who will lose and become another insignificant and fringe GOP figure like Barry Goldwater did in 1964, while the better GOP potential candidates wait until 2016 for a better shot.

I guess it may not really matter just how much some early GOP candidates wander into Iowa if the political environment is running strongly against them.