DANE A. VANDERVELDEN
STAFF WRITER

If you haven’t been following the current political machinations of the 2012 presidential election, you haven’t been missing a whole lot.

As voting citizens of the United States it is paramount to be at least moderately aware of what is happening.

For November elections, the pool of Republican presidential hopefuls is down to four men: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. The opportunity to challenge presidential incumbent Barack Obama is surprisingly still up for grabs, despite Mitt Romney’s early lead in the polls.

Ron Paul, despite his devoted following, has effectively been written off as even a potential dark horse winner. He is in third place behind Gingrich and Romney.

Paul’s numbers are lacking; in the Nevada primary he spent an estimated $869,650 in campaign advertising, according to the New York Daily News.

Gingrich is the initial forerunner behind Romney, has lost his title of “most viable threat to Romney’s candidacy” to the quickly rising Rick Santorum. Santorum, former Senator of Pennsylvania, has been dominating all three of his opponents in the three latest nomination contests.

Romney still leads despite these surprising losses. The Latter-day Saint from Massachusetts has acknowledged these harsh defeats and has indicated that the next few months will not be easy ones for his campaign, but he believes that he will eventually rise as victorious once the nomination process is complete, Reuters reported.

As the Republican dog fight trudges on, Obama waits for his opponent. Obama is hardly the face of hope that he was four years ago, and questions about his failure to create enough jobs and controversial “Obamacare” healthcare may deny him a second stab at bringing about the change he had promised.