Mike Pence

It's never too soon to begin speculating about the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Today's peg: The fundraising figures released over the weekend by the likely candidates' political action committees. The big winners were Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Romney's PAC raised $2.9 million in 2009 and has $1.1 million on hand. While she got off to a relatively late start, Palin raised $2.1 million and has slightly less than a million on hand. Coming in third was Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who raised $1.3 million and has slightly more than $800,000 on hand.

Mike Huckabee lags behind in the money race--while he raised the same amount as Pawlenty in 2009, he has less than $200,000 on hand. Even so, Huckabee leads the early polls: according to this Public Policy Polling survey, he even leads President Obama by one point. Obligatory disclaimer: Polls mean absolutely nothing at this point in the game. Remember: Rudy Giuliani led the national polls throughout 2007.

She may have $5 million in the bank, but she knows it won't save her if she's part of reconciliation on health care:

A new Rasmussen poll on the 2010 Indiana Senate race shows Republican congressman Mike Pence leading Democratic senator Evan Bayh 47 percent to 44 percent. Pence is the only Republican leading Bayh in the poll (though Bayh doesn't get more than 45 percent against any potential GOP challenger).