These are my links for March 14th from 11:15 to 11:45:

• President 2012: South Carolina GOP primary filled with uncertainty – By this point every four years, South Carolina expects to see a flood of White House hopefuls crossing the state, from its low country swamps to its upstate farms to its coastal communities.
  This time, there's been a mere trickle.
  Republicans weighing presidential bids have all but ignored the state that in modern history has played an outsized role in GOP nomination fights: Since 1980, the South Carolina primary winner has emerged with the conservative seal of approval and eventually clinched the party's presidential nomination.

  Blame uncertainty.

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  Nothing is certain until Sarah Palin decides to run or not. If she does not then DeMint will have to decide whether he will back romney again or not.

• Why Republicans should run in 2012 — to lose – The Ides of March are almost upon us, but few potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates seem to have their eyes fixed squarely on the White House. As Salon's Steve Kornacki argued recently, the most obvious reason for the largely vacant GOP field — sorry, Herman Cain — is that the prospects of a Republican beating a once-again formidable Barack Obama seem rather bleak. The 2012 Republican nomination may be a prize not worth winning.

  Because the nomination isn't worth winning, however, doesn't mean it is ill-advised for Republican hopefuls to run in 2012. In fact, if three historical patterns tell us anything, the smart play for any Republican who hopes someday to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office is to run in 2012 — but to lose the nomination.

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  Correct but win the U.S. Senate majority = correct GOP strategy

• Big GOP donors taking time to get into 2012 race – The potential White House candidates need cash.
  But donors aren't eager to shell out until the hopeful prove they're credible.
  Which they can't — until they have the cash lined up to start their campaigns.
  This helps explain why the 2012 Republican primary race has yet to begin in earnest.
  "It's a little sluggish. The major donor folks are sitting back a bit," said Rob Bickhart, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman helping ex-Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
  "The major donor folks, I think, are a little slower getting started because the whole process was slower to get started," said Bickhart, who helped raise money for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney four years ago. "The last one started, it seemed, after World War I and folks were just exhausted."

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  Read it all

• Mitch Daniels: Candidate or influencer? – Add it all up and it seems as though Daniels wants to wake up the party — and the 2012 candidates specifically — to the dangers posed by placating social conservatives in the primary fight at the expense, literally, of the economy.

  It’s possible, of course, that Daniels is simply priming the rhetorical pump to cast himself as the truth-teller in a field of candidates who will tell primary voters what they want to hear. But, if that’s his game, it’s a dangerous one, as GOP primary history is littered with men and women who thought they break down the foundational pillars of the nomination process.

  Maybe Daniels — a high-level political and policy thinker — can change all that if he runs. But, as of today, it doesn’t sound like he wants to.

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  I think he would make a decent candidate but I do not see the "fire in the belly."

  And, it is kind of a shame.