QUESTION OF THE WEEK #5

At this point I'm pretty unsure of who will win the nomination.  With the completion of the Iowa Caucus, and Romney's close win over Rick Santorum, I suppose it appears that Mitt Romney is in the lead at the moment, however the Republican Party has shown very little interest in him over the course of the race.  The main reason he is in the lead is because he's the candidate with the least baggage and the least liable.  However, Rick Santorum ran a close second to Romney in Iowa.  Santorum's main issue is that he is completely socially conservative.  This has both gained and lost him a lot of support.  He is unwavering in his pro-life and heterosexual relationship beliefs, and for this reason he loses a lot of support among the more moderate Republicans.  Their resistance may be enough to keep him from winning the race.  Ron Paul is an interesting candidate.  He has some momentum, especially with the grass roots that he held over of the course of his political career, and he has very clear views on issues, but he has a strange foreign policy stance.  He's also very conservative and very strict in accordance with the Constitution, which could be an issue with passing legislation if he were to make it into office.  Gingrich, who has a lot of baggage, and is portrayed by most political cartoonists as a ticking time bomb, did not do very well in the Iowa Caucus, placing fourth.  The Republican Party was showing a lot of excitement for him in previous weeks, but we are yet to see if they'll except him despite all the baggage he carries.  At this point, most people believe Rick Perry should just back out of the race.  He did very poorly in the Iowa Caucus, and at this point, the Republicans don't seem at all enthusiastic about having him as their nominee.  At this point, I'd say that Romney holds the lead, but it will be interesting to see if Paul and Santorum will keep up the momentum, and if Gingrich will make a popular comeback.