For the benefit of readers who like me are totally confused and confounded by the race to find the Republican nomination for president, here is my sincere effort to try and make some sense of it all.

Mitt Romney retains strong support amongst people who live in Salt Lake City, love healthcare plans, can’t stand the Tea Party and don’t take the Republican Party all that seriously. He is the one candidate whose support in the Tea Party has been absolutely constant but five votes is not considered enough to make that much difference.

Michele Bachman started off as the darling of the Tea Party but turned out to be more of a right-wing extremist than even they bargained for. Commentators think there’s a good chance she’ll explode for a second time which is the reason so few people turn up at her meetings.

The Tea Party lapped up Rick Perry and he soon became their flavour of the month. Then they got the message he wanted to vaccinate them all and send them to Iran on a nuclear mission from God. During the TV debates he gave the impression that he didn’t know what he was talking about much more convincingly than the other candidates.

Then the Tea Party turned to Herman Cain because Obama couldn’t put a different colour on his policies. However he’s suffering because he seems incapable of harassing women as much as they’re harassing him.

The campaign has now entered a new phase as the Tea Party consider whether they wouldn’t have been better off with Sarah Palin after all.

Newt Gingrich is surging ahead because he’s never been to a Tea Party meeting and he’s changed his mind about all the things he’s said in the past especially the brainless ones. The Republican Party has growing confidence in his candidacy because they’ve found a woman he used to know and she’s prepared to say he never harassed her at all.

Ron Paul’s vote remains consistently strong amongst libertarian pimps and drug dealers after he promised to legalise prostitution and drugs.

Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman remain in the wings ready to surge the moment they can convince the Tea Party they’re not in favour of invading Iran and vaccinating the mullahs. Furthermore they are a reasonable fall-back position in case people start forgetting who the leading contenders are.