By JOE GAROFOLI, San Francisco Chronicle

LAS VEGAS - With no state income tax, a palpable mistrust of the federal government and a what-happens-in-Vegas attitude on social issues, Nevada's Republican presidential caucus on Saturday would seem to be a contest that libertarian-leaning, small government-loving Texas Rep. Ron Paul could win.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is at the top of every pundit's short list to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, in the belief that having a Latino in the second spot on the ticket will attract Latino voters who have been fleeing the GOP in recent years.

President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech was widely described as populist for its focus on economic fairness and its demand that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes.

The political landscape was supposed to be significantly reshaped after 1992, known as the "Year of the Woman," when voters sent an unprecedented number of women to Congress.

It wasn't. After several years of incremental increases in the number of women serving in office, their numbers leveled off a decade ago and dropped in 2010 for the first time in 30 years.

Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican running for president, has something that his rivals in the Iowa caucus don't have: a positive image on social media.

Newt Gingrich the history professor could teach a semester-long course on the improbable fall and rise of Newt Gingrich the presidential candidate, who leads the polls in Iowa and key early primary states of South Carolina and Florida.

SAN FRANCISCO - Another slice of President Obama's liberal base has become frustrated and disappointed with him: a growing number of leaders in California's $1.5 billion medical cannabis community.

Supporters of the state's network of medical pot businesses, like some members in the gay and environmentalist voting blocs, think Obama has not lived up to his campaign promises.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is nearing a very real deadline for figuring out how to evolve into a long-lasting, influential social movement: winter.

SAN FRANCISC) - The protest known as Occupy San Francisco is Mark Schwetz's first demonstration. After watching protesters mass against Wall Street excesses in New York last week, the soft-spoken 36-year-old carpenter's apprentice wanted to share his story of how a middle-class guy lost his home.

If Anthony Weiner is to be believed -- and his credibility is dubious after lying about sending sexually suggestive online messages before admitting it Monday -- the married New York congressman did not have physical contact with any of the six women he "sexted."

That would put the 46-year-old Democrat at the vanguard of a new type of political scandal: the sexless sex scandal.