And Your 2012 GOP Presidential Nominee Is...

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE for more Discussion at NPR]
[Image Courtesy of NPR]

Other than Ron Paul winning this thing, the process wasn't that unlike a typical post-reform primary season. The field of candidates got winnowed down, there were some upsets and surprises along the way, and ultimately one candidate emerged and became the inevitable nominee.

I wish I had kept closer tabs on the voting throughout the last few days. Political Junkie says Paul edged South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint by 13 points (Yes, edged considering the spread was 91-9 at one point early on during the voting.) with nearly one million votes cast. That the Paul lead was whittled down to a mere 13 points indicates that there may have been an anti-Paul voting faction out there. If this were an actual primary season context, it would have been indicative of buyers remorse having set in among Republican voters. Recall that Ron Paul was the candidate taking some anti-McCain votes during the 2008 primaries (especially after McCain had clinched on March 4).

Well, this has been fun and whether NPR does it again next year or not, FHQ will dust off its own bracket and see how it stands up to a year's worth of hindsight. All the while, we'll be hoping for a Carolina repeat in the basketball version.


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Championship Set in NPR's 2012 Bracket

...and I don't know that this is what the folks at Political Junkie had in mind.

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Championship Round]

Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint. Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint? Well, Newt Gingrich's warning that a third party might rise in 2012 if the GOP doesn't right its ship seems to have come true. Somehow I don't think he meant within the current GOP structure.

And now that this tournament is almost complete, I can just see GOP caucus and convention participants from a year ago shaking their heads right now saying, "See, this is what happened to us last year. We got hijacked!" And they did, but McCain already had the nomination clinched. Speaking of using caucus rules to your advantage, I wonder if the GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee will address some of those caucus concerns when the group's ranks are filled and meetings begin? It was arguably a bigger (though quieter) problem on the GOP side than it was for the Democrats. [Clinton supporters may object.]

Head over and vote now. Ron Paul has already opened up a significant lead. Final results will be revealed on Tuesday.


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NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (3rd Round) Are Now Up

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NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (3rd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Final Four Round]

It may be indicative of the anti-climatic nature of the contest, it may be that I was busy, or it may be that I forgot, but here are the third round results for NPR's Political March Madness. I'll say this: Ron Paul may be coasting to victory in this thing (Hey, organization matters!), but there is some serious South Carolina power represented in the Final Four. Both Jim DeMint and Mark Sanford claim one of those spots. Something tells me the selection committee would try to have these two face off to avoid the "splitting the early South Carolina primary vote" problem. But who could have seen this Final Four coming?

The championship pairing will be revealed on Friday, April 3.


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NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (2nd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Third Round]

Round three voting is now underway in NPR's Political March Madness (link above). And if round two is indicative (a significant increase over the first round's paltry number of upsets), the third round should be pretty unpredictable. I think it is safe to say that this thing has been hijacked in a way that Diebold could even appreciate.

But a Ron Paul-Barack Obama general election should be a fun one.

NPR does seem to be trying to combat this hijacking to some extent. There's a quick turnaround on round three voting. Results will be out on Wednesday April 1. [Then again, they have to fit this in before the real tournament ends next Monday.]


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Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

[Click to Enlarge]

Last week when I posted the retrospective 2008 presidential candidate bracket, I said that I wanted to put one together for 2012 as well. Well, I did before NPR put out their bracket with the top 32 GOP contenders for 2012. Still, some were interested in seeing FHQ's top 8. Here, without comment, is that Elite Eight (with an Obama Tanks and is Challenged scenario tacked on).

The comments section awaits your cheers and boos.


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NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (1st Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge and HERE to Vote in the Second Round]

Sure, the bracket pairings don't match up the way they're supposed to, but the second round is set in NPR's Political March Madness. Click on the link above (directly under the bracket) to vote in round two. Those results will be posted on Monday (March 30).

Spoiler Alert: There was only one upset. (12) Brownback over (5) Daniels. I was looking at the vote totals yesterday and briefly considered doing a quick and dirty investigation of the correlation between the number of votes cast in a particular match up and the seeding/name recognition. The "no name" pairings, on the surface, had far fewer votes cast than pairings like Palin-Steele. And I think Brownback over Daniels fits that category to some extent.


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Let's Try This 2012 GOP Bracket Again

[Click to Enlarge]

I'm not sure that NPR is going to fix the flaws in their 2012 GOP nomination bracket, so I took the liberty of correcting it. First off, as I said in the comments over at the other post, the seedings weren't matched up properly. The way these things are set up, the top seed is supposed to play the lowest possible seed in the next round assuming there are no upsets. Why should the number one seed have to play the 6-11 winner when the three seed gets the 8-9 winner. If there were no upsets, the top seed plays the six and the three seed plays the eight. Look, politics isn't fair, but if were going to go this route, let's at least do it the right way.

The other issue is a minor point, but one I thought should be addressed. These brackets need names. I'm going with the Reagan and Lincoln brackets.

So, without further ado, my picks in what should be the real NPR 2012 bracket.

In the Reagan bracket:
Palin outduels Steele. DeMint advances against Corker in an SEC showdown. Rob Portman upsets Jeb Bush based on Bush fatigue. Newt takes out Cantor, and Mike Pence narrowly avoids being upset by Jeff Flake because Flake resembles Will Forte who used to do a mean John Edwards on Saturday Night Live. Huckabee dispenses Chuck Hagel and Jon Kyl inches past favored Paul Ryan. Finally, Pawlenty stays silent and lets Tom Tancredo eliminate himself. Hey, save it for the second round.

In round two, Palin edges DeMint in an underrated showdown, Portman's fairy tale journey ends at the sweet sixteen against Gingrich, Huckabee outlasts Pence, and Pawlenty's first round rest pays off against Kyl.

Round three see Gingrich upturn the former vice presidential candidate, and Pawlenty send Huckabee back to the book signing circuit.

And in the Reagan bracket final, Gingrich emerges victorious against the Minnesota governor.

In the Lincoln bracket:
Romney romps over a "before his time" George P. Bush. Hey, he'll turn 36 during primary season (...or after its over, if the calendar remains the same). John Thune takes out Meg Whitman and Mitch Daniels vanquishes Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. Charlie Crist puts down yet another Arizonan, John Shadegg. [Is it me, or are there disproportionately too many Arizona Republicans filling out this group of 32?] Haley Barbour uses his insider connections to beat back a strong fight from Ron Paul and meets Mark Sanford who eliminated Rudy. Utah Governor Jon Huntsman bests Jon Ensign in a Battle of the Jons and Bobby Jindal is able to put down a challenge from Alan Keyes.

In the second round, Romney outdoes Thune, Mitch Daniels upsets Charlie Crist, Mark Sanford wins the southern governors showdown and Huntsman surprises Bobby Jindal.

Round three sees Romney crush Daniels and Huntsman keep the upsets going with a defeat of Sanford.

In the Lincoln bracket final Huntsman does the unthinkable and advances to face Gingrich in the finals.

The Finals:
Not bad. A three seed against a seven. Just like my typical basketball brackets, I go for some upsets that aren't likely to happen. I like underdogs. What can I say? [You can say there's no chance this is going to happen.] I've Gingrich winning this one and moving on to face Barack Obama in what would be an interesting general election campaign.

What do you think?


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NOTE: You can see more on the prospective 2012 GOP candidates with FHQ's candidate tracker or a broader look at candidate/nominee emergence here.

[Click Map to Vote at NPR]

Ha!

Well, so much for me putting together a bracket for prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidates. And I was only going to include the top eight candidates. How quaint.

NPR's Ken Rudin has put together a list of the top 32 candidates potentially vying for the chance to challenge Obama in the fall of 2012. Yeah, you have to stretch a bit to get to that many, but it will be nice to check back on this to track who rises and falls as we head into the 2010 midterms and beyond. First round results will be revealed on Tuesday March 24.

Head on over to NPR to vote and come back here to post your Final Four and ultimate winner. I'll say this: Jon Huntsman is a dangerous 7 seed.

H/t: Nicki's Nook


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Look, I'm a basketball fan. It is hard to grow up in North Carolina and not be. Indiana may get the Basketball State distinction, but that's high school basketball. So I say Indiana Schmindiana. I'm talking about college basketball. And North Carolina is the home of college basketball (in my opinion).

The fact that I'm a fan, then, may have been lost during last year's NCAA tournament, but I was much more involved in the presidential tournament that coincided with the Big Dance. This is true every four years, but 2008 was unusual. Typically the presidential candidates take care of their party business and clear out in time for the basketball start. But not in 2008. No, the top two seeds in the Democratic bracket had to extend their contest until June. And even though there weren't any contests after March 11 (or before April 22 for that matter), the battle was still on. Who can forget Obama's "bittergate" injury or his association with the now infamous agent, Jeremiah Wright, which jeopardized his amateur status?

[Note to self: No more bad jokes linking politics and basketball.]

Well, maybe just one more.



Seeding above is a bit post hoc, but I had to weigh the difference between issue/longshot candidates and when each candidate dropped out. There is no perfect formula. However, this is my opinion of where everyone would have been slotted. And as is the case with the NCAA Selection Committee, the FHQ Committee of One is second-guessed to no avail (...or those watching usually forget about the selection process and get wrapped up in the tournament process once it begins).

Just for fun, I'll try and put up a prospective 2012 bracket at some point in the next couple of days.

Related reading:
The Obama Basketball Bracket

FiveThirtyEight's Swing State Bias Analysis of the Obama Bracket and [UPDATE] Nate Silver's overall projections as well.

Now, let the real upsets begin.


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