In this 2012 presidential election, the traditional Elephant is beleaguered. This time it could lose to a Crocodile, not necessarily to a Donkey [see accompanying graphic or photo file].

      There is nothing to write about as to the question whether or not for the Democrats it’s going to be Obama. The ball is in the Republican court. The focus of national attention is there. The whole nation is waiting. It’s up to the GOP voters now which of their five presidential aspirants remaining as of this writing, they are going to pick to face Obama.

       The results of the Iowa and NH primaries are pregnant of irreversible trends as to who the voters are going to deliver -- Romney or Paul. Those trends are unlikely going to change or going to be broken. The days ahead, up to the GOP National Convention where the official Republican Party candidate for president is going to be announced, there is no threat that rears its ugly head against Romney. Neither do I see any possibility that individually, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman are going to outrun Ron Paul who, in “popularity” – not necessarily in “electability” – has the strength and the deafening roar of a lion, and the speed of a jumpy jumping wild cat in the race to the finish line.

       Out of sheer exhaustion [in terms of resources, physical stamina and psychological strength to endure a series of primary defeats], the first to drop off the campaign trail is going to be Huntsman followed by Perry, Santorum and Gingrich in that order. Ironically, their funding power is lined-up in that order too, the weakest starting from Huntsman ending up in Gingrich. Furthermore, the degrees of their “popularity” do not veer away from the reverse order of that same line-up, starting from Gingrich, the most “popular” among the four, down to Huntsman.

      Their “conservative” strengths are almost the same. Among the five of them, to me there is no such thing as “the most conservative”. There is only the degree of strength or weakness of being a conservative. The weakest conservative among them is Huntsman [he once served under a Democrat president]. But it does not mean that the weakest conservative candidate has no strength among the general electorates. He could come out the strongest candidate for the Republican Party because he is actually a “moderate”, not necessarily “hawkish” that most die-hard conservatives are, which is the Republicans’ weakness as far as the general electorates are concerned.

        Gingrich was “hawkish” when he was in the pinnacle of power as Speaker of the Republican Congress. During that reign of almost unchallenged political power, an attempt to “criminalize” undocumented immigrants was the flag-line of the Republican 2004 presidential campaign. Already clearly “hawkish” as that attempt to pass that immigration reform law was, the anti-illegal-alien political pitch was mean-spirited as well. Children of undocumented immigrants – even those born here – were no longer entitled to social benefits, i.e. medical and educational benefits.

        Not just a “hawkish” argument but the inhuman part of that argument was that if illegal aliens residing in the U.S. [there were about 400,000 of them in Sen. John McCain’s estimate] are by law “criminalized”, they can be hunted down and shot dead as “criminals” if they give any hint of resisting arrest. According to some trigger-happy border patrols, that would be the easiest way to reduce the growing number of illegal immigrants.

      That was part of the Republicans’ Contract with America, Newt Gingrich’s brainchild. President George W. Bush and later the then presidential candidate Sen. John McCain who issued a disclaimer denying any part of that infamous Republican mean-spiritedness, suffered a collateral damage. The liberal media started to portray Bush in front page headlines with his head growing the horns of the devil, and like in baseball, GOP presidential candidate McCain tried to hit the ball but was struck out without even having a chance to do a camel walk to the first base.

     The rest is history. The electorates kicked the Republicans out of Congress, and later, Obama was elected president.

       Let’s not forget that the United States of America is a country of immigrants. If Romney is head-to-head with Obama in the coming 2012 presidential election as a mean-spirited Republican “hawk” over this sensitive illegal immigration issue, Obama will beat him hands down.

      Insofar as the anti-Obama government votes are concerned – and there is a huge chunk of it in the pie -- only Ron Paul can beat Obama. Aside from the majority electorates or mainstream votes, Romney doesn’t have what Obama have – the votes of the radical left, and the votes of millions of African-Americans and the votes of Islamic Muslim Americans in the country. These are “privilege votes” reserved for Obama.

      To these type of voters, it was a privilege to be represented by Obama against the discriminating controlling class of today’s mainstream society that Obama is attempting to change. However, Obama splits this advantage with Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate who can get a share of these “privilege votes”.

      Ron Paul will share these “privilege votes” because the radical left benefits from the way Ron Paul disparages the Government for their cause, which is to deface and topple the Government.

      Ron Paul had attacked this nation run by Whites that he said in public, discriminate against African-American and Asian-American minorities [the racist letter blowback]. And finally, many Americans believed Ron Paul is the undeclared “spokesman” of Osama bin Laden’s Islamic war against America. A lot of  terrorist sympathizers are just around the corner silently cheering Ron Paul every time he speaks out his agenda once elected president, urging Americans to leave alone those terrorists, including the now nuclear president of Iran. This was shown in public when in that 911 carnage, Ron Paul openly defended those 911 Al Qaeda terrorists and blamed their horrendous attacks on Americans.

      All of these rival what Obama is currently doing, and has done so far.  He was reportedly baptized as Islam’s disciple while he was a pupil in a Muslim school in Indonesia. Americans believed that Islam is in his heart as he committed himself to turn this capitalist country into Islamic Socialism. He is doing it as a covert Muslim ideologue at heart. Since childhood, Obama idolized his Marxist Kenyan father known to be a dedicated Muslim socialist. He was committed to fulfill his father’s dream to change the world to Socialism.

      Ron Paul’s advantage over the rest of the presidential candidates is that anyone, regardless of color or creed, who hates the Government because of Obama, will not vote for Romney in a heads-up contest with Paul, but for Paul. Only Paul hates the Government that much and castigates the people who run it without mercy … and not one of the GOP candidates are doing that.

       In addition, those anti-Government voters who lost their jobs and their homes in one of the worst economic meltdown in the history of the United States and who now believe that they are facing a bleak future, can identify themselves with Ron Paul. These are the disgruntled segment of society who found their identity on, and their redress with, Ron Paul. These are votes of anger, not necessarily votes that would elect a president.

      However, that’s not the case of the vast majority of the white mainstream votes, where Ron Paul is weak and Romney is strong. Ron Paul’s foreign policy and his version of self-made Economics, do not attract those votes. In fact it is along this line that the vast majority of the American people and the MSM [the Main Stream Media] prejudged Ron Paul as the “unelectable” candidate, and even harshly as “a candidate from the lunatic fringe …” perhaps unjustly or unfairly.

      But regardless whether this prejudging of Ron Paul is fair or just, the Texas Congressman has a radical plan once he becomes president, to restructure – even eliminate – some of the existing institutions that our founding fathers had long established in this country. A United States without international leadership and foreign aid, without a Central Bank, without a Department of Education, Energy, etc. would shock the world. The aftershock of that change would plunge the world into chaos. I am not sure if the American voters are ready for that cataclysmic upheaval.

      In view of the foregoing drastic changes that Paul’s candidacy brings to the electorates as an option to choose from, the other GOP presidential candidates will consider it a death-kiss to the Republican Party, and they will close ranks. Out of the presidential race, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Huntsman will rally behind Romney who badly needs help. To win the presidency, Romney needs their unconditional support, not just lip-support but in action, to divert the votes of their respective backers to him. Only then will he be assured of winning. He will be propelled to victory also by the vice presidential candidate he will choose to run with him, whose qualification and strength will nullify his weakness and fill up his void.