For political junkies, it doesn’t get much better than the horse race under way in the GOP primary. And what about President Obama’s prospects? Will he be able to energize his base amidst the many challenges he’s facing? To help us get a handle on what’s behind all this wrangling, we asked Middlebury political scientists Matt Dickinson and Bert Johnson to share their thoughts on the campaign so far. Here’s what they had to say: