Kasich has intrigued me ever since he signalled he was running (I owe Isaac a huge mea culpa for severely underestimating his governor in 2012.) Since the debate, I have seen a number of pundits suggest he may be the winner simply for proving he could run with the big dogs when he had not even been in the race a month, and would not even have been AT the debate had it been just five days earlier. One analyst even claimed the debate put Kasich in the "top tier," a small group that will only shrink Rubios poor polling, poor fundraising and having to share ALL natural resources with JEB gradually kill his candidacy (though I did see on pundit say he was "co-winner" with Kasich.)

Yup: If he stops tossing grenades he loses his relevance; if he continues he loses his popularity (already quite polarized, as you noted.)

Meh, primaries are all about preaching to the choir, in Huckabees case, literally. It is a real shame; his pro-environment and public health care record as governor of one of the poorest states really appealed to me in '08--then he lost the nomination, got his Fox gig and went off the deep end about how CO2 is a diabolical myth.

Four to SIX?! There were ONLY ten; if I read and subtracted correctly, you are saying Cruz and Christie are at least "maybe"s? Yeesh, given how Christie handles intercity politics and Cruz cooperates with his own Senate caucus, put either in a room with Putin and we are ALL dead.

Moot point: JEB had this the moment he announced. His fundraising is jaw-dropping; more than Hillary and Cruz (his next closest competitors) COMBINED. That buys a lot of poo and a lot of monkeys to throw it all over the country from now until November 2016. And several analysts have noted the same thing I did: Trump rocketed to the top mostly by stealing supporters from everyone else (the biggest loser was Rubio, who saw his polling nearly halved,) but there were a few other winners: Kasich rose enough to make the debate, Walker rose a full point, and JEB rose FOUR as establishment Republicans desperately rallied around the most viable alternative to the Trumpocalypse.

Incidentally, EVP re-entered the fray a week ago today, for the first time since the midterms, with a characteristically thorough and accurate post (IMHO) covering all the primary candidates in both parties. The Votemaster also said he does not know if he has the time to keep the site up through the election, but does know there will not be daily posts. Makes me a bit sad, since RCP and everyone else has coopted the poll aggregation model he pioneered in 2004 (when he actually ran three different versions of polls to see which proved most accurate in the end; averaging the past week with the most recent days weighted proved best, and is what most folks use now.) I disagree with him on a few assessments (he is far too hard on Webb, IMHO) but completely agree on most. Anyway, just and FYI (or nostalgia; if a week is an eternity in politics, what are a dozen years...?)