The pace has certainly picked up over the last ten days on the Republican side of the race for President, with controversial statements by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and the decisions of Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump not to run for the White House in 2012.
And all the while, President Obama keeps raising money - the haul from two Democratic National Committee fund raisers in Washington, D.C. last night was not small, as over 650 people paid between $44 and $35,800 at a pair over events - and he'll have two more fund raising events in Boston on Wednesday.
As for Trump - were you really surprised? He left the race with classic Trump bravado, saying that he's confident he could have won the GOP nomination and defeated President Obama next year.
The latest involving Romney & Gingrich aggravated a lot of my followers on Twitter and Facebook, who wonder if either is really the candidate that Republicans should be pushing for next year.
"What the heck is wrong with Newt?" asked one on Twitter. "Is he trying to kill his campaign before it starts?"
Gingrich had a rough Sunday and Monday, as he went through questions on NBC's Meet the Press, only to emerge with questions from conservatives in the GOP about whether he really opposes an individual mandate in health reform and if he really supports Republicans looking for major changes in Medicare.
Gingrich aides walked back his statements on both yesterday, while Gingrich's camp issued a video of the candidate denying that he was for the Obama health law.
"I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate," said Gingrich.
As for Romney, I'm surprised at the level of vitriol from some Republicans against him, as maybe the second time around isn't going to be as much fun for the former Governor of Massachusetts.
"As bad as Obama is, he will most likely win again if the best the GOP can offer is Newt or Romney," said one of my Facebookers.
Second-time candidacies don't have a very good track record for most when you think about it.
Yes, Richard Nixon won in 1968 after losing in 1960, but I can't really think of any others in the modern era.
Bob Dole didn't win the second time around in 1996, but it was a better campaign than his 1988 bid against then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.
On the plus side for Romney was that Gingrich took some of the focus off with his statements, and that Romney raised $10.25 million in a day long "call-a-thon" from Las Vegas.
Romney does have the money angle going for him, so just as I won't rule out Gingrich this early, I think it would also be a mistake to think that Romney is dead in the water because of his comments last week on health care reform.
Meanwhile, in the Press Gallery on Monday, we were discussing the merits - or lack thereof - in the GOP field at this point in time, when one of my long time colleagues offered up an interesting point.
If we went back four years ago to May 2007, not many people would have said that Sen. Barack Obama was going to win the Democratic nomination. He was still wasting his time in the minds of many experts.
So, while the GOP field seems squishy and ill-defined at this point in time, the only outcome that will matter is in November of 2012.
Of course, that won't stop me from writing and talking about it almost non-stop for the next 18 months or so.
