Assuming John McCain loses this thing, my guess is that the 2012 Republican nominee will be someone most of us have never heard of. Why do I say that? Because every Republican we’ve ever heard of is pretty much disgraced at this point. If that were not the case, the Republicans would be going down with a candidate they love, not one they hate.
So, guess away. What backbenching House member or little known governor will be the Republican standard-bearer in 2012 (assuming McCain loses this thing)?
Schwarzenegger, if he is re-elected Gov expect to hear noises about how we need a constitutional amendment.
Also, Bloomberg if he is re-elected.
Then Granholm would make a serious bid for VP, assuming Biden doesn’t come back.
you can run for three terms in California?
no. thankfully he can’t.
Huckabee. Of course I expected him to be the nominee this year…. You all see how that turned out.
Possible.
My thinking is that eventually the more sane conservatives need to wrest control of their party back from the crazies. Getting badly beaten is really the first step in this process.
If they don’t do this, then the Republican party will just wither away to become a regional party. Ultimately there would be a 2nd party for the sane conservatives.
Agreed. When staunch republicans are voting for Obama because they’re scared of Palin, it’s time for a big change in the party. These people are tired of having to explain that just because they’re Republicans, they’re not fundamentalist nutjobs. I can definitely see a moderate Republican from a midwestern state rising up.
If Repugs had some sense they’d get behind Governor Rell.
No question, if this election goes big for the Dems, the GOP will have to make a decision on whether to be a perpetual regional party or to rebuild, starting in the upper Midwest, the suburbs, and the Northeast. Gov. Rell could help, but it is almost impossible to see the remnant of the GOP (almost exclusively from the south, border states, and plains states) learning their lesson in the first election cycle.
Romney, Gingrich, and Palin…I’d bet on Gingrich, who will lose of course, but it will be good for the guy’s ego.
I predicted last year that Gingrich would be the nominee. If not Gingrich, I predicted McCain. I still think Gingrich would have beat McCain if he had gotten in early enough to raise money.
There was a point in the absolute nadir of McCain’s campaign (Sept. 2007?) when I thought Gingrich had an opening. But he didn’t take it. I knew there was no way that Romney or Huckabee could win, for different reasons. The base would never embrace Romney and the money would never embrace Huckabee. McCain had the press, and that was enough, with the money to match.
People may forget that Jeb’s last name is Bush, too.
NO MORE BUSHES and NO MORE CLINTONS!!!!
Some of us will NEVER forget the Bush name, not if a thousand years have passed and our DNA gets reconstituted.
:ptui!:
They’ve been grooming George Preston Bush, but it isn’t going to work. If they had governed moderately well, perhaps they could have inserted the idea of hereditary rulership into American consciousness… but all the Republicans did was steal the national wealth while using the religious nutjobs as distraction. Now the nutjobs want to turn America into a theocracy and the moneypants don’t know what to do. Clowns ought not ride tigers.
Money buys power.
In a dictatorship.
Are we prepared to go the way of the Roman Empire, to rise and fall within decades rather than centuries? At least they started with some competant families who managed well before the corruption and insanity settled into their bones!
The Republican Party will probably split to survive. Does anybody remember Aron Ralston? He had a choice: to die where he was, trapped on the bottom of that canyon, or cut off his arm. It took him 5 days to make that decision. When his knife was too dull, he had to break both bones in his forearm. Deliberately. The Republicans are trapped. Can they muster the grit to free themselves?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5956900/
Yes, dynasties suck, but I’m just sayin’. I think at some point Jeb or George P will run. Whether or not they achieve their party’s nomination is a whole other thing, though.
Pawlenty or (eeeeech!)Thune? Just thinking of “popular” but little known (nationally) republicans up my way.
Thune strikes me a politician with a future. Pawlenty? I see him as a sacrificial lamb.
You are definitely right about Thune, and probably right about Pawlenty. I suppose he will become even more irrelevant if Minnesota goes Obama and Franken wins.
Thune’s lobbying background and rumored ethical indiscretions here in SoDak make him an attractive candidate for the right, no?
Palin.
She’s running for 2012 right now with both of her pregnant feet. Otherwise why undercut the Michigan thing?
there are good reasons to undercut the Michigan thing but I think it is because she is dense.
I don’t see Schwarzenegger going anywhere, even if he was a native-born citizen. His track record here in California has not been very good.
I have never understood all the talk of the Governator. I mean really, it would take amending the Constitution… For goodness sakes, these idiots in office now have chosen to ignore it, and that has proven way easier than I anticipated, but to amend it? For Arnonld? I just don’t see it.
Id make almost any wager that it won’t happen.
Hey Boo – Totally off topic, but do you have any idea what has happened with Senate Guru?
very strange that you should ask. I’m worried about him. We all know him through email, but he is anonymous, and he has fallen off the face of the Earth. I almost sent out a global email an hour ago to see if anyone really knew who he was and whether he was okay.
Yea, I am just a periodic commenter (here probably 12 times a day though) I read his site all the time as well, and was starting to get worried….. Thought you may have some inside-scoop.
I am actually rather sorry to hear you don’t know either. I was hoping he just got burnt out or something.
I went ahead and asked around. So far, no one knows. Others had obviously been wondering as well.
Richard Lugar (nope, he’s 76)
Chuck Hagel (62, 66 in 2012 – a possibility)
Peter T. King (64, 68 in 2012 – on his purported fiscal conservatism
Ron Paul will be back
Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones
Gov. Mark Sanford (SC)
Gov. Charlie Crist (FL)
Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA)
Chuck Grassley (65, 69 in 2012, nope)
John Ensign, (50, 54 in 2012 – likely)
John Kyl (66, 70 in 2012, nope)
George Voinovich (72, 76 in 2012, nope)
Gov. Mitch Daniels (IN)
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN)
Kit Bond (69, 73 in 2012, nope)
Michael Bloomberg
Jeff Sessions (62, 66 in 2012)
There’s the start of the brainstorm of the potentially ambitious. So many of the Congresscritters are either headed for defeat or have aged out.
Keep a close eye on Daniels. He’s a slippery little weasel. In less than four years, he’s managed to privatize several major former state functions and lease the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign consortium for 75 years. He threw out collective bargaining for state employees his first week in office. If he’s ever close to the presidency again, say goodbye to the national forests.
I know he doesn’t look it, but Ron Paul is 73 years old. I don’t think he’ll be running for president at 77, and if he does he’d have even less success than this year.
The GOP candidate would almost assuredly be someone younger than 60, unless they want to throw another Bob Dole/John McCain type sacrificial lamb up there.
If there is a Democratic tsunami in November, it’s going to be fun to watch the deliberations over on the Right. Hopefully they will choose to respond to their worst regressive urges and make themselves even more unelectable than they are already. But maybe a halfway sane variant of Republicanism will arise. In any case, I think the DNC will be in a good position to do some strategic thinking about destruction of the GOP brand for the long term.
The only thing that wretched party has going for it at the moment is that there are still a fair number of voters who believe in ancient myths like Republican competence at money management and foreign affairs. Once the rug is pulled out from under those notions, there isn’t much of a foundation left for the GOP to stand on.
Palin.
I can hear the spin now.
Watch.
AG
When Harris ran statewide for Senate, she got whomped, even in some solid Republican areas. I expect that there are a significant number of Republicans who wouldn’t treat Palin seriously either if she makes a run for president.
If she ran, Palin would be in the same league as Quayle who failed at his own run for president (twice?) even though he had actual experience as VP.
Can you imagine her in a real presidential debate, with actual follow-up questions? No one would take her seriously. And after this election (if McCain loses) I think her reputation is going to be garbage.
Going around calling Obama a terrorist ally is not the way to win over mainstream Americans.
Oh it isn’t?
Since when?
Wake up.
AG
It’s the blatant transparency of the lie. Even my Republican friends have gotten disgusted. (That however will not prevent them for voting for their GOP).
And my progressive friends are using terms like “Bushevist-Palinist socialist” and McKKKain.
This time, the Republicans are on the far left end of the bell curve. Nixon, Reagan, and Cheney were not so stupid, which is why they were so sly about it. There is a big difference in ordinary folks’ mind between “wanting the terrorists to win” (a policy) and “pallin’ around with terrorists” (a personal decision and commitment). And most folks are not believing that Obama was a precocious eight-year-old with a hard hat.
It ain’t over yet.
No knockout punch has been delivered.
I personally do not believe that Obama has much of a a knockout punch. He’s a pure boxer.
The Rats, on the other hand?
All they have left is a puncher’s chance. They will wing punch after punch. If one connects? Watch out.
This will be an interesting round tonight. If McCain doesn’t start whaling away soon…he’s through. Maybe he’s just going through the motions already. It looks like it to me. He’s a pro…he has to know what is up. Either he cares enough about winning to mount one more real attempt or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t tonight, then he either doesn’t give a shit and he’s just letting his rookie VP mate get some media time or he knows about some October/November surprise that he thinks will either give him the presidency or render the whole election moot.
Tune in.
Whadda buncha maroons!!!
AG
Dirk Kempthorne: current U.S. Secretary of the Interior (since May 2006), previously served as Governor of and as a U.S. Senator from Idaho. Very ambitious. I’ve no doubt he’s staking out a future for himself politically. He’s stayed out of the limelight during his time as Interior Secretary, presumable realizing that an association with W wouldn’t be a big help to his political future. One to watch.
But here are a few off the top of my head:
Gen. David Petraeus
John Thune
Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Mitt Romney
Tom Ridge
Gov. Mark Sanford
You’d think they would want a candidate with some sort of foreign policy experience, putting Petraeus, Ridge, Thune (who sits on Armed Services committee) on top.
I know putting Petraeus on the list seems loony, but if Obama ends the Iraq War and Petraeus resigns by 2010, he could make a strong run if he so wished. The GOP loves their big military daddies.
jeb bush (yeccckkk!)
actually a devastating loss might be an opportunity for moderate repubs to seize their party back after 20 years of exile.
Her Excellency Governor M. Jodi Rell
Tom Ridge
It will be Petraeus without a doubt. McCain talked him up in the first debate, as did Palin. You will hear his name again tonight.
Excellent point. Strongly concur.
breathing fire and spewing about the urban cultural elites who have taken this country away from the good people grown in small towns.
I also think we’ll see Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota, making a very serious run, assuming of course he has no real bad skeletons in his or his wife’s closet. I doubt there are any there, but you never know.
Bloomberg of course, though he may position himself for a run as an independent in 2016.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone emerge from Wisconsin. Some real conservatives there with a tradition of grassroots politics.
Northeast Republicans have been decimated, but you can’t count out Christine Todd Whitman.
Keep an eye on Jennifer Beck, a first term republican State Senator from NJ. She has game, smarts and charm. And is pro-choice to boot. Could be the face of the republican party of the future if she can get past the crazies.