alt.politics.republicans

"Jack" wrote in message
news: $ @ ...
>
> Looks like Hillary's got it in the bag.
>
> Unless someone comes out of left field... like Carter and Clinton did.

And like Bush did, as well. In fact, in "open" nomination races where
there's no incumbent President or Vice President seeking a particular
party's nomination, it's actually quite rare for the candidate who's leading
in the polls 5 months before the first primary to end up with the
nomination, much less the presidency. This is WAY too soon to be making a
call.

If you want to try to figure out who'll end up with the nomination you need
to look at who's had upward momentum in the polls in the early states like
Iowa and New Hampshire over the last two or three months. That's where
you'll see a dark horse start to rise. That's also where you'll see, by
looking for downward trends, the frontrunners who've peaked too soon. The
rest of the nation tends to be swayed a lot by results in the early states.
If Hillary is seen as the frontrunner now, but only comes in 2nd or 3rd in
Iowa and/or New Hampshire in January, the rest of the country will view her
as a "loser" and back off on their support.

Another factor to consider is which minor candidates will likely drop out,
and where will their support go once they do.