Still Other Things You May Not Have Heard

++Donald Trump has pulled out of his own debate, whch was supposed to be sponsored by Newsmax and shown on Aeion television, whatever that is.

++Politico has printed an article that shows that despite Newt polling way ahead of Romney in the South that no candidate this year has a lock on the region. Haley Barbour commented that "we're all split up this year." Haley said the natural favorite was Rick Perry but that disappeared after his faulty beginnings but Haley said Perry could make a comeback.

++NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll today shows that 51% of Americans believe the Republican field is average and another 27% believe it is weak. Only 21% said that the field was strong.

++Newt's surge may not be long lasting. His support among the teabaggers has gone from 35% down to 24% and his unfavorables are rising. Pollsters say the damage has been done by the attack ads on Iowa television. Remember this is what Nate Silver warned republicans about--the nastier the fight gets the more damaged will be the winner.

++The Romney campaign have deliberately set out to "humanize" Mitt after a series of devastating ads by both Republicans and Democrats showing how out of touch he is with the common people. To this end, they are sending his wife Ann to Iowa to campaign with him and make him seem normal. Political observers claimed that the Republican race has boiled down to a choice between aluminum siding and Pillsbury dough. A plurality of a Politico Poll believe the attempt to humanize Romney is a mistake because voters perceptions are already set.

++The latest PPP Iowa poll has Gingrich at 22, Paul at 21, Romney at 16, Bachmann at 11 and Rick Perry at 9. If Paul won Iowa,which is very possible, it would turn the race upside down. He would then follow in New Hampshire where traditionally he has been strong with traditional libertarians. But after that it would be downhill.

++Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast pens a piece "Could Obama Be Headed For a Landslide." Tomasky cites the polls showing that Obama would beat either Romney or Gingrich in South Carolina in the general election. Those are poll taken with the President's national poll sitting at about 44%. If Obama is ahead in South Carolina and Florida when this low in the polls, Republicans have reason to be concerned. Tomasky also reviews the faltering approval ratings of teabagger favorite Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, and the abysmal ratings of Rick Scott, the lowest rated governor in the United States. Tomasky argues that Obama can lose a long list of states and still win 270 electoral votes. But he suggests if he's winning in these two, then he's not losing in the others. Tomasky says he is winning in Missouri, Arizona and Georgia against Gingrich.

++Gallup released a poll today that said that Obama was losing all the swing states. But the poll contradicted their own a shortwhile back and more current polls by PPP, Quinnipiac and Marist. That's alright because we have until March to really pay attention to the polls.

++One fact I noted in a recent approval poll of Obama was that 65% of Americans feel he is a strong leader and approximately the same like the man personally and his family. This is a far cry from the perception repeated by the Republicans that he is a weak leader.