Excuse me, I don't speak English! I find  incomprehensible that the "favorite" to be Red John is Partridge. He doesn't have the characteristic attributed to Red John. No money ( is a simple forensic) or  attractiveness (RJ  seduce beautiful women as Lorelei and her sister) or charisma,he seems the typical freak of classe.You can say that he's acting but characters as Minnelli, Mashburn, Winter or even Mars fit better.

I think Red John is a syndicate - possibly linked to the poker group that Lisbon has been invited too. The fact that Red John is always one step ahead of the authorities, always seems to be well informed (think when he rescues Jane from students and other occasions) obviously has money and connections (think FBI mole in Crimson Hat) and has been able to murder with impunity all these years. I think there is a Red John who may be Bertram or Brett Partridge who originated at Visualize who is the lead actor but only many different Red Johns would be able to pull off and get away with these various crimes and schemes.

I accuse Max Winter based on both Red Carpet Treatment and the following theory proposed on the mentalist wikia:

Red John can be Max Winter (Jack Coleman), also called sometimes “Winters”, the widower of the fourth episode of the third season “Red Carpet Treatment”. Bruno Heller dropped us a hint that Red John likes the cold. And Winter is the season of the cold. Winter is the man who gave the shining new gun as a gift to Jane which was used to kill Timothy Carter in the third season finale. In this case, see how the Winter’s bravura into literally manipulating Jane to kill one of Red John’s shills just like he did with the rest of his League to commit evil deeds for him. Notice the way how is sitting on the sofa with his apparent wedding ring. It just mimics the way Jane sits on a couch when drinking a tea and more importantly how Red John was sitting when he went to visit his paramour Rosalind Harker.  He is a Realtor. So he could have easily set up a phony company like “Cutiron Properties” in the first season’s finale. He is someone who is not afraid of getting his hands dirty. As some point during the episode’s run “Red Carpet Treatment”, in the shooting stand scene with the presence of Patrick Jane, Max displays the bravura of a crack marksmanship. RJKshowed an amazing crack-marksman skill in neutralizing his contenders. So does Max in the shooting stand. Crack-marksmanship at its finestAdded by JoeastorAlso, Max Winter bought a gun from an arms dealer from Manuel Montero, the friend and supplier of Todd Johnson, killed by O'Laughlin in order to frame the murder on Hightower. Montero and Johnson were football players along with O'Laughlin. Red John, during his early years of his career in 2000, has initially hid the body of the former Gulf-War soldier and amputee turned policeman Carter Peak, the first male victim and the husband of Janet in a construction site of a shopping center; Is the same  shopping mall  where Janemet Carter ? Max and his son, Jackson, built model airplanes in the workshop-garage. The Las Vegas Zone (with Debonair way, a word used by RJK) is a kind of construction site finished, foreclosed and abandoned, like the house where they find Kristina. Keep in mind that Max is a Realtor.