Jon Huntsman

By Alan Fisher in Americas on January 18th, 2012
Photo by AFP

Some presidential election campaigns will end here in South Carolina.

The candidate or candidates will come to the realisation that they cannot win the Republican nomination, that their vision of America has not been accepted by the majority, and that despite the hopes and dreams, the hands shaken and the interviews given, that it is finally over.

Jon Huntsman has already left the field, lacking money and supporters, his “ticket out of New Hampshire" not even good for a week.

To accept the thinking of the Mitt Romney campaign, then the contest is over.

He has done what no other Republican challenger has, and that's win the first two nomination contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire. And they argue, victory in South Carolina on Saturday - which has picked the winner in every contest since 1980 - will make him the presumptive nominee for his party. They are attempting to build an aura of inevitability.

The conservatives in his party don't like him.

By Al Jazeera Staff in Americas on January 7th, 2012
Republicans in New Hampshire await the debate [GALLO/GETTY]

Follow the latest Republican Party presidential debate in New Hampshire - minute by minute.

10:44 PM: The last question was a softball: Candidates were asked where they'd be if they weren't at the debate.

Perry, a Texan at heart, would "probably be at the shooting range." Paul would be either with his family or "reading an economics textbook." Huntsman'd be on the phone with his sons.

And Gingrich? "I'd be watching a championship college basketball game."

The NCAA championships aren't until April - and Gingrich had to correct himself: "Championship football game."

Santorum and Romney, too, said they'd be watching football.

By Alan Fisher in Americas on December 29th, 2011

File 57156
Reuters photo

It is just six days to the Iowa caucus, the first real test of the seven Republicans hoping to win their party’s presidential nomination for the 2012 election.

Karl Rove, the man who masterminded George Bush’s election victories, has described the current battle for the heart of the Republican party as “the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race I’ve ever witnessed”. 

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