Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The folks at the Weekly Standard have some good analysis of the Republican Primary. Bill Kristol has a piece that looks at some important elements of the Republican primary:

[Romney] spent nationally twice as much as McCain, and some twenty-five times as much as Thompson and Huckabee. His spending edge in Iowa and New Hampshire has been just as lopsided. It's been money well-spent. He's ahead in both states. And he has a virtually unlimited ability to keep spending. That's impressive. But surely Romney is likely to begin facing diminishing marginal returns from his spending. And after all that spending, he's running at a quarter of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire.

He later breaks down scenarios that the "top five" candidates could ride out to victory. Fred Thompson's scenario is particularly interesting for the history it has on its side: 

Thompson wins or runs a strong second in Iowa, as almost everyone else underperforms (except Huckabee?). Having over-performed in Iowa enough to be the story, Thompson over-performs in New Hampshire and then Michigan, and wins South Carolina. He'll then be on his way, as a center-right candidate running up the middle between Huckabee and Giuliani. (For examples of how being positioned in the center can pay off, consider Kerry in '04 between Dean and Gephardt/Lieberman, or Bush in 2000 between Forbes and McCain, or Dole in '96 between Buchanan/Forbes and Alexander.) Thompson wins Florida and most of the delegates (remember the overweighted South) on Feb. 5.

The full piece, and an accompanying one by Fred Barnes, are recommended reads.