It's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential horserace, and there have been a number of dramatic developments in the meantime. So it's time once again to cast an eye over the Republican field.

Before I begin, a few technical notes are in order. First, data comes from the Real Clear Politics Republican poll-tracking page. The last column I wrote used the data from November 8th, on the RCP graph (every time I say "since last time" below, this is what I'll be referring to). And my own categories, as before, are divided into four levels: those with no chance of winning the nomination, those with a slim or longshot chance, those with a decent shot at winning, and those with a great chance of becoming the nominee. These are fairly arbitrary divisions, but they're what the race has so far seemed to require.

In the past month, there has been notable movement from a number of candidates, two of whom actually dropped into a lower category. Three candidates headed upwards in the polls, and all the rest stayed the same. Without further ado, let's take a look at the categories, from worst chance to best chance.

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I have two important program notes to post today, before I get busy writing today's column (yes, there will be a real column today).

The first is that it's been so long that I basically forgot how the notifications for donations come in to my email from PayPal. What this means is that there were a lot of donations last week that didn't get included in the thermometer bar for the Holiday Pledge Drive graphic. I will get all of the data together later (after today's column posts), so by this evening the graphic will reflect reality once again. The thermometer has to be adjusted by hand in Photoshop (it's not automatic or anything), so I'll get to that later today. My apologies for this oversight and delay, and thank-you notes for donations should get to everyone tonight as well.

The next program note was actually contained in last Friday's column, but it kind of got buried, so I thought I'd repeat it here. I was interviewed Friday morning on a San Francisco Bay Area radio station (Talk910), so if you'd like to hear my take on the Republican race, check it out. My interview starts at around 77 minutes in. The host and the weather/sports guy had just done a bit on Barry Bonds, in case you're wondering why I mentioned him right off (pun intended) the bat. Hey, I'll talk politics all day long; but I refuse to get into REALLY contentious issues (in the Bay Area, at least) like Barry's legacy. Heh.

In any case, as I mentioned, stay tuned for today's column, which should appear in a few hours. And then later this evening, check the thermometer bar to see where we are in the fundraising drive.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

We took last week off for the holidays, so we've got a lot of ground to cover today. Sadly, this included two terrorist attacks in America, one in Colorado and one in Southern California. The truly sad part is that these mass shootings are becoming so common nowadays that within a few months most people will have forgotten them, as we all focus on fresher, more recent tragedies. Welcome to a very grim "new normal," in other words. Sorry to start off on such a heavy note, but such news is impossible to ignore.

Moving along to more lighthearted fare, the Republican presidential race is still as amusing as ever, with no sign yet that Donald Trump is heading for any sort of inevitable collapse in the polls. In fact, he's actually gaining ground. CNN released a poll this week showing Trump at a whopping 36 percent, a full 20 points higher than his nearest competitor. Most of this rise is coming at the expense of Ben Carson, who seems to be fading fast. Carson is now essentially tied with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, in the mid-teens. Even more stunning, Jeb! Bush has dropped to a measly three percent, after his super PAC poured almost $30 million down the advertising rathole. With Carson flailing, this means that in all likelihood the Republican nominee will be either Rubio, Cruz, or Trump. And the most likely scenario is that Donald Trump becomes the Republican standard-bearer. We're officially through the looking glass, folks.

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New Low For The Year

President Barack Obama's job approval rating took a dip downwards in November, to hit a new low point for the entire calendar year. Most of this was due to the panicky reaction the political world had to the Paris terrorist attack. President Obama's reaction to the attacks was fairly muted, spread out over an overseas trip which was followed up by a terse statement (rather than, say, a prime-time Oval Office speech) to America on his strategy for fighting terrorism and the Islamic State.

What this all added up to was a pretty bad month for Obama in the polls. First, let's take a look at the new chart.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

November, 2015

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Two interesting campaign articles today both point out a frightening new reality for the Republican Party. Previously considered unthinkable, unconceivable, and downright unimaginable, some Republicans are now struggling to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump might actually become their party's standard-bearing presidential nominee. The first of these articles, from the New York Times, documents how "irritation is giving way to panic" over Trump-as-GOP-nominee, because many in the party feel that this could "imperil the careers of other Republicans." It continues:

Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors now say they fear that Mr. Trump's nomination would lead to an electoral wipeout, a sweeping defeat that could undo some of the gains Republicans have made in recent congressional, state and local elections. But in a party that lacks a true leader or anything in the way of consensus -- and with the combative Mr. Trump certain to scorch anyone who takes him on -- a fierce dispute has arisen about what can be done to stop his candidacy and whether anyone should even try.

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Has it really been a year already? My, how time flies! Of course, this time of year, everyone's running around like crazy trying to get everything done. Which brings us to our first shameless segue to our traditional year-end parade of adorable Christmas kittens, craftily designed (as always) to soften hearts and open wallets for our pledge drive. You have been warned, so there.

Dashing through the snow

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Once again, a gunman has killed people for political reasons. Once again, he is described in the mainstream media using words and phrases such as: deranged, mentally disturbed, homicidal, gunman, shooter, criminal, murderer, and lone wolf. He may have been all of that, but one key descriptive word is conspicuously missing from most of the commentary: terrorist. Killing people who don't believe what you believe in order to further your political aims is, indeed, one of the definitions of terrorism. If the suspect involved had recently arrived here from Syria (or anywhere else in the Middle East, really), would the news networks be so cautious about calling him a "terrorist"? I seriously doubt it. In fact, if that were the case, he'd likely be quickly labelled an "Islamic terrorist."

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What with the lateness of the hour (and the fact that nobody's going to read much of anything tomorrow), I am hereby officially punting on writing today's column. We'll be relaxing for the rest of the week, in fact, as we celebrate the great American feast of Thanksgiving as well as all the other tangential holiday festivities (leftovers, the Macy's parade, watching the Lions lose a football game, etc.).

I heartily wish you and yours the happiest of Turkey Days, and have one piece of advice for liberal travelers back to the old homestead: if you have one of those "drunk uncle" types at the table who blathers on in fluent politically-incorrectese, this year he might actually be worth listening to. How else are we to understand the staying power of Donald Trump, after all? Remember (a scary thought) -- there are a lot of guys and gals out there just like him, and they all might just nominate Trump for president this time around.

With that cheerful thought, I once again wish all and sundry a very happy Thanksgiving! See you all back here Monday, when regular columns will resume.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

President Barack Obama, in a recent interview, pointed out one of his own shortcomings in a bit of fairly accurate self-reflection. When asked the hardest lesson he has yet learned while in office, Obama responded: "You can't separate good policy from the need to bring the American people along and make sure that they know why you're doing what you're doing. And that's particularly true now in this new communications era." He went on to say, about his first few years as president: "a certain arrogance crept in, in the sense of thinking as long as we get the policy ready, we didn't have to sell it."

President Obama needs to now take his own advice, and at some point during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend give a prime-time address from the Oval Office on national television. We need to hear the president speak right now, to put this another way. He needs to explain what his administration is doing on several subjects, and he needs to do so now.

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Ben Carson hasn't had a very good couple of weeks. He first exposed his ignorance on what is happening in Syria during a debate, claiming (falsely, he later sheepishly admitted) to have solid proof that China was in the midst of the conflict. This was just before the Paris attacks, so it might have been prominently in voters' minds during the aftermath. Then some of his advisors went public in the New York Times claiming Carson desperately needed to study up on the rest of the world because he knew so little about such things as the Middle East, while the candidate himself was making news by claiming the pyramids were nothing more than grain silos. After the Paris attacks happened, Carson wrote an editorial on what to do about the Islamic State for the Washington Post which was borderline incoherent (read it in full if you think this is an exaggeration). And now it looks like this floundering on foreign policy is beginning to hurt his standing in the polls. Could this be the start of Carson fading into irrelevance in the Republican presidential nomination race?

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