Preliminary Primary Forecast

Now that the Republican nomination field is mostly set (except Sarah Palin hasn't announced she isn't running), I can make an initial forecast of the Republican nomination.

Iowa Caucus
1st: Michele Bachman
2nd: Tim Pawlenty
3rd: Mitt Romney
4th: Newt Gingrich
Assumption: Mike Huckabee will endorse Tim Pawlenty before the Iowa Caucuses.

New Hampshire Primary
1st: Mitt Romney
2nd: Ron Paul
3rd: Newt Gingrich
4th: Michele Bachman
Wildcard: will the Tea Party voters make a strong showing in New Hampshire or will more traditional conservative dominate? I'm guessing the latter.

South Carolina Primary
1st: Mitt Romney
2nd: Michele Bachman
3rd: Tim Pawlenty
4rd: Newt Gingrich

I still expect Romney to be the nominee but the question is how long the nominating contest goes on. I expect it to whittle down to Romney vs Bachman fairly quickly. How long Michele Bachman can resist the pressure to fall into formation?

Bring home the troops.

It is past time to remove U.S. troops from Korea. Sixty years of war is enough. South Korea is a developed country, with strong trade ties to China, the real threat in the the region. The South Korean Army is strong enough to handle the threat from the ramshackle DPRK Army, even without China's likely opposition to any substantial attack by the North Koreans.

The U.S. could save money by moving the troops back to the U.S. and putting them in the rotation to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given all the various missions the U.S. military has been given, our present forces have been stretched thin. It is not realistic to trim defense spending unless we also begin to prioritize missions and trim those that are less pressing.