The Week of ’12

HALPERIN’S TAKE: Ten questions to ponder as the week starts:

1. Will Jon Huntsman’s Tuesday formal entry get him more in the CW conversation than he is now? (For instance, in a typical example, his name was not uttered on the “Fox News Sunday” roundtable discussing the race.)

2. If Michele Bachmann keeps up the level at which she is currently performing, just how high can she go in Iowa and national polls?

3. Can Tim Palwenty close the second-quarter fundraising sprint powerfully enough to avoid an eye-snappingly low number?

4. Is the weekend Romney-abortion flap going to die in the new week – or escalate?

5. Did Politico’s acknowledgment that it got some negative information about Huntsman’s family business from a rival campaign* signal the start of something big (in the media and/or between rival campaigns)?

6. Once Huntsman announces, will the DNC change course and begin to batter him as much as they do Romney and Pawlenty?

7. Does Rick Perry’s pondering freeze the race in any meaningful way?

8. Will Republican congressional budget negotiators factor in at all the impact a deal with the White House could have on their presidential nominee?

9. Will anyone figure out how Huntsman finished second in the Republican Leadership Conference straw poll in New Orleans – or will it just be lost to history?

10. Will any of the candidates with a motive to take down Bachmann (Pawlenty, Santorum, Gingrich, Cain) make a move this week?

*Who wants to guess which campaign it was!!!!??!!!