On the road to the primaries (Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Huckabee, Cheney)

[TnHilltopper]

Well as we finally move into the final quarter of fund raising in an election cycle that now more feels like giving birth to a quintuplet of 10lb babies, the third quarter numbers are in. Here is a list of the “bottom line” after spending has been accounted for.

For Democrats, it is as follows: Clinton -- $35 million; Obama – $32 million; Edwards -- $10 million; Bill Richardson -- $5 million; Chris Dodd -- $2 million; Joe Biden -- $800,000 and Dennis Kucinich – $327,000.

For Republicans: Giuliani -- $12 million; Romney -- $9 million; Thompson -- $7 million; Ron Paul -- $5 million; McCain -- $2 million; Mike Huckabee -- $651,000; Duncan Hunter -- $133,000; Tom Tancredo -- $110,000 and Sam Brownback -- $95,000.

As the politic goes, the democratic side of the aisle is starting to look fairly well locked up. Hillary is quite a bit out front and unless Obama or Edwards can take her down a few notches, she is looking like the one. Of late, there have been more pointed attacks towards Hillary from both Obama and Edwards and the race going into Iowa seems pretty well split evenly, but elsewhere is where Hillary has it going.

Now the Republicans this year are the race to watch if only for the sake of entertainment that one might get from a Spike TV episode of celebrity death match or WWW wrestling event. The exchanges between Giuliani and Romney are starting to rise to an all new level and I suspect before it is all done it will look like two boxers staring each other down before a match on HBO. Fred, hello, Fred, is anyone home?

I am going out on a limb here and going to make a prediction, I have this strange hunch that Fred Thompson will drop out before the primaries. Since his first and only actual debate so far, Fred has vanished from the public eye, has not been out fund raising, isn’t giving stump speeches, and is suspected of hiding under Cheney’s cot at his undisclosed bunker somewhere… Fred just doesn’t look like he is up for the rigorous expense of energy it takes to run for President and I think the people see this more and more.

Another bit of added excitement this election cycle on the GOP side of the aisle is that slight and slender fella from Texas, Dr. Ron Paul. The outsider dark horse that was written off by most commercial media and pundits a long time ago is making waves. More and more each day the political and media establishment shake their heads in amazement, as he is the only GOP candidate that has seen a growing fund raising effort despite the usually slow third quarter. Whether he ends up with a nomination or as a third party run, he will play a pivotal role this cycle.

One thing that should be noted this election cycle on both sides of the aisle is that the internet and the information age is changing the face of how elections are ran. The days of landline phone polls are quickly dissipating and the biggest loser this election cycle will not be any of the candidates but will in fact be the media’s grip on guiding public opinion of which candidates have some media stamp of approval as though they know what is best for us. Now the people can directly display their sentiments and the veil of who those people are that are actually being polled will vanish like a puff of smoke on a windy day.