Back to life, back to reality

The holidays are over and now we're into the long slog of winter. And since it's an election year and the schedule has been compressed, we're already at the Hawkeye Cauci. So what happens tonight in Iowa? A few guesses:

• Romney finishes in the money, which means that the electorate is thinking more about defeating Obama than making a point, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
• Ron Paul will do well and might even win the thing, but he's really in the race to make a point, even though the electorate may be less interested in that. He'll push his agenda as far as he can, though, and a good showing in Iowa guarantees him a place on the stage.
• Newt will not do so well, as his lack of organization starts to catch up to him.
• Surprisingly, Rick Santorum does well enough to make it to New Hampshire, but it ends there.
• Rick Perry has the money to go on, but it's difficult to see him making much headway.
• Michele Bachmann gets to come back to Minnesota and decide if she wants to fight the folks who are trying to unseat her through redistricting.

A few more words on Ron Paul. Mitch Berg wrote yesterday about Paul's son Rand, who is a freshman senator from Kentucky. Rand Paul shares many of his father's views, but he wears the cloak of a more traditional Republicanism and his manner is less, how do I say this delicately, crazy uncle-ish?. I would not be surprised if Rand Paul is a major factor in the future election cycle, which is why Ron Paul will not, in the end, run as a third party candidate. As Mitch rightly suggests, the role that Ron Paul plays, sort of a Jeremiah with bad eyebrows, is important in this cycle. We do have some serious issues that none of the other candidates seem willing to address, but we never elect Jeremiahs to national office.