Michael Barone explains John Ellis' strange blog post

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We didn't quite know what to make of this post by John Ellis on his Ellisblog! website when we first read it. This part of the post seemed clear enough:

The basic math is simple. If she gets half of the female primary voters and caucus attenders to support her, then she standing starts at roughly 25% of the total vote. Throw in a third of the male vote and she's at roughly 40%. Forty percent wins the Iowa caucuses, handily.

Which then sets up New Hampshire as the place where the not-Sarah candidate emerges. In all likelihood, that will be former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who finished second in NH in 2008 and who will spend whatever it takes to win there in 2012.

Assuming that the race is then reduced to Palin and Romney, the next critical state primary is South Carolina. At that point, I don't think the specifics really matter. The fact is that the Republican Party of 2012 is not going to nominate a Mormon as its standard bearer. And the more important fact is that the base of the Republican Party doesn't just favor Sarah Palin, they love her. She is their standard bearer. And they will not -- this time around -- be denied.

But Ellis goes off world with this concluding paragraph:

What this means is two things: (1) the pressure on former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to run for the GOP presidential nomination will increase as the year moves along, and (2) the likelihood of a strong independent party candidacy increases as Palin's support within the GOP broadens. Oh, and it also means one other thing: President Obama is not doomed.

Jeb Bush? Ellis had us scratching our heads in wonder of where that notion came from. Fortunately for us, Michael Barone was able to put it all in perspective:

Why is this interesting? Well, John Ellis, with whom I worked on Fox News’s 2000 election night coverage, is Jeb Bush’s first cousin.

To quote Monty Python, "Say no more. Say no more."

- JP