No relevent Republican candidates in 2012 for President.

[Callie Del Noire]

Looking over the link that Valerian put up on another thread, this one here. (The poll is @ the 44 minute mark or so)

I looked at the dispersal of the 'potential' candidates and was depressed greatly by the 'Big 3'. I mean.. come on. Romney/Huckabee don't appeal wide enough, and Palin is.. I'm sorry, she's the biggest mistake to consider for President since Dan Quayle.

I mean looking at the spread..there are WAY too many potential candidates. Someone in the party needs to stand up and say 'I'm sorry..you've proven you can't pull it off' to Huckabee and Romney and a 'please don't' to Palin.

Time for the Republicans to push the deadweight and 'not possibles' out of the way. Too many of the 'old crowd' don't want to let the younger generation (the 50 year olds..lol) a chance to move up.

[Callie Del Noire]

The reason I am worried about this is that I've seen when one party has an unassailable hold on the majority that issues that should be discussed, debated and mediated aren't.

IE. You get folks like Nancy Pelosi working their angle without regard to others. (I use her because I couldn't throw up a republican equivalent AT this moment typing. I am sure there are plenty)

My belief has always been the general good of the public at large comes from the process of electing someone and having to build a concensus. Without a strong viable candidate that isn't going to happen.

[Trieste]

I doubt Mitt Romney will seriously appeal to the right wing anytime soon. He was the asshole who shoved through broken healthcare legislation just to be able to say he was responsible for mandatory healthcare in MA.

Shot himself in the foot with it, it appears, but the ricochet hit the rest of us in MA, the bastard.

[Callie Del Noire]

Yeah, but look at how big he is in the polls. Like Palin and Huckabee.. he's not a good canidate really but he's too big a tool to step aside.

[Oniya]

Yeah, but look at how big he is in the polls. Like Palin and Huckabee.. he's not a good canidate really but he's too big a tool to step aside.

Why does the phrase 'Bull Moose' come to mind?  I'm more and more convinced that people (candidates and voters alike) should self-identify a little more precisely than 'Democrat' and 'Republican'.  Heck, do away with the old names all together, come up with a handful of new party names and make people look at where they stand instead of seeking out the good old (D) and (R).

[Trieste]

The Anti-uterus League should be one.

[RubySlippers]

There is one - Jeb Bush the former governor of Florida he has the name and was a passable governor overall if a Republic one.  Add in another hitter like a woman governor or a woman who has held a military position of stature from a draw state you could have a fight on the presidency.

I only prey they choose a ticket with one of these two and Palin to give Obama the best chance to stay in we need to protect the health care reform that is the only issue I care about.

[HockeyGod]

I would not recommend giving anyone from Minnesota a second glance. We've got Brainless Bachmann and Pawlenty. The big saying during his administration - Minnesota used to be the land of plenty, now it's the land of Pawlenty. Successfully led to the first state shut down ever. Now that's a leader!

[Jude]

If the official Republican party ticket includes Sarah Palin in any way, I guarantee you Obama will have a second term.  I'd bet my genitals on it.

[Shjade]

Why does the phrase 'Bull Moose' come to mind?  I'm more and more convinced that people (candidates and voters alike) should self-identify a little more precisely than 'Democrat' and 'Republican'.  Heck, do away with the old names all together, come up with a handful of new party names and make people look at where they stand instead of seeking out the good old (D) and (R).

I like this idea, 'cause frankly, when under those umbrellas, neither party is appealing.

[Oniya]

*nods*  My point being that a) the parties are fragmenting enough that a 'new party' with a semi-popular candidate could actually have an influence on the electoral numbers, and b) the D&R's have gone so far from what they were originally, that Abe Lincoln probably wouldn't recognize a modern Republican, and Grover Cleveland wouldn't recognize a modern Democrat.  The names are placeholders now, and not very good ones.

[Callie Del Noire]

*nods*  My point being that a) the parties are fragmenting enough that a 'new party' with a semi-popular candidate could actually have an influence on the electoral numbers, and b) the D&R's have gone so far from what they were originally, that Abe Lincoln probably wouldn't recognize a modern Republican, and Grover Cleveland wouldn't recognize a modern Democrat.  The names are placeholders now, and not very good ones.

True, though both sides like to 'claim' their forebears in speeches even when anyone with two living brain cells knows said person would disagree with the useage.

[Will]

*nods*  My point being that a) the parties are fragmenting enough that a 'new party' with a semi-popular candidate could actually have an influence on the electoral numbers, and b) the D&R's have gone so far from what they were originally, that Abe Lincoln probably wouldn't recognize a modern Republican, and Grover Cleveland wouldn't recognize a modern Democrat.  The names are placeholders now, and not very good ones.

While they certainly fail to describe the positions of the people they label, I wouldn't go so far as to call them placeholders.  They represent two groups of people with an interest in keeping each other in power, at the expense of the other.  There's no reason to start up your own party if that just decreases the amount of support you have.

And that seems to be more important to them than the issues at hand, anyway.

[Noelle]

I don't think using past standards for terminology is the best idea in determining if today's usage is appropriate. Language isn't a dead, static thing -- it evolves constantly to fit our needs and shifting attitudes, technology, and current events. It's not like either platform can run on the same issues for centuries, either -- upholding slavery or women's suffrage isn't exactly on the plate anymore, and in time, I'm sure a lot of present-day hot-button issues that seem to define parties at times will no longer be relevant, too.

[Jude]

Bit of an aside, but I'd like to throw in a little bit of a reality check for Reagan conservatives (but not anyone on this thread in particular).  You like to claim that you can't spend your way to prosperity and that racking up debt doesn't improve our economy, but under Ronald Reagan (who you claimed stopped a recession through conservative principles) the US added roughly ~1.8 trillion dollars in debt to an already 1 trillion dollar deficit.  Keep in mind that this was back in the 1980s so if you adjust that for inflation it's quite a bit more than what it seems.

Next you like to talk about how the head of the unions are parasites that exploit the workers via union dues and then bargain pay-raises out of corporations with unscrupulous methods so that they can increase their own revenue and live a lavish lifestyle.  I hate to break it to you, but before Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, he was President of the Screen Actors Guild.  They are a union.  Kind of paints his union-busting activities in an interesting, blatantly hypocritical light you might say.

Finally, you claim that by returning to conservative principles as communicated by Ronald Reagan our country will prosper.  Problem with that is, George W. Bush was basically the second coming of Reagan in a much less charismatic shell.  Bush campaigned on being a Reagan conservative and basically agreed with him on everything.  Conservatives often like to point at his spending habits as a way of claiming that the two diverged, but both men increased the debt by the trillions (though Bush more than Reagan -- I think, I didn't adjust Reagan's debt for inflation).  Try and name a few principles on which they differ; you're going to have a hard time.

So please, Republicans, if you're going to run for President on the basis of "no spending," integrity, or "returning to conservative values" don't call yourself a Reagan Conservative, don't say you're going back to the Gipper's Golden Age of America.  Just come up with some straightforward ideas, tell us what you're going to do, and stop cloaking it in symbolism.  It's time Conservatives stop relying on the goodwill that our nation felt for a dead guy 25 years ago.

Please, please, please come up with some new, good ideas instead.  Give me a fresh face with logically sound ideas that can make a single speech without talking about abortion, gun control, gays, or god and I just might consider voting against Obama in 2012.

[Revolverman]

To Follow up on Jude, Money, and how bad Reagan was, He was also the president who sold weapons to Iran (That death to the great Satan Iran?) so he could funnel money to the Contras in Nicaragua after both congress told him no more money, AND after it was found they were moving cocaine into the US.

That while Reagan was sinking billions into the US Drug war, paving the way for the US to be the most incarcerated nation on earth.

[gaggedLouise]

If the official Republican party ticket includes Sarah Palin in any way, I guarantee you Obama will have a second term.  I'd bet my genitals on it.

I agree, though I wouldn't quite follow in on the staking of my genitals. Palin is the most disastrous candidate any of the two major U.S. parties have nominated for a presidential election in the last twenty-five years, and the thought of her getting anywhere near the oval office would send chills down the spines of at least two out of three U.S. voters - and pretty much everybody outside the USA. She's such a fake - she may connect splendidly with part of the right-wing core republicans but she's unfit for the office and she doesn't stand a chance of getting elected. And as a VP candidate she's impossible after the 2008 campaign. No one on the central GOP level. I think, would want her name on the ticket.

I read Going Rogue and kept thinking "how can anyone in politics that's this ill-informed and unable to scrutinize her own arguments feel so entitled to be treated like a VIP?" Okay, of course when she wrote her book she was trying to throw off the burden of responmsibility for mistakes made during the campaign, but it seems to me she just assumes that if what she says is good enough to work as talking points on Bill O'Reilly's show, where she won't get any hard questions, then it's good enough for any kind of debate, event or conference, and anyone asking for moie is just making a personal put-down of her and her kind. That really won't work all through a presidential campaign, certainly not against Obama.

[Callie Del Noire]

I agree, though I wouldn't quite follow in on the staking of my genitals. Palin is the most disastrous candidate any of the two major U.S. parties have nominated for a presidential election in the last twenty-five years, and the thought of her getting anywhere near the oval office would send chills down the spines of at least two out of three U.S. voters - and pretty much everybody outside the USA. She's such a fake - she may connect splendidly with part of the right-wing core republicans but she's unfit for the office and she doesn't stand a chance getting elected. And as a VP candidate she's impossiblke after the 2008 campaign. No one on the central GOP level would want her as a co-runner on the ticket.

UNFORTUNATELY the party leadership is rife with fringe conservatives who think she's the second coming and she's got TONS of visibility with her TV presence. And these nut jobs have the balls of the leadership in a bag somewhere and have them thinking that is where their voting strength is. Go figure.

[gaggedLouise]

UNFORTUNATELY the party leadership is rife with fringe conservatives who think she's the second coming and she's got TONS of visibility with her TV presence. And these nut jobs have the balls of the leadership in a bag somewhere and have them thinking that is where their voting strength is. Go figure.

Palin may be a cynical countryside populist and many of her supporters may be subpar in political IQ, but considering how high-visibility tea party candidates like Chris O'Donnell and Carl Paladino (both of them strongly backed by Palin)  bombed in the elections last fall, I reckon the GOP leadership will fight to the death not to have Palin on the ticket. They _know_ she is unsellable to a safe majority of the American voters - and that she would become one of the best arguments the Democrats could ask for.

[Callie Del Noire]

Palin may be a cynical countryside populist and many of her supporters may be subpar in political IQ, but considering how high-visibility tea party candidates like Chris O'Donnell and Carl Paladino (both of them strongöly backed by Palin)  bombed in the elections last fall, I reckon the GOP leadership will fight to the death not to have Palin on the ticket. They _know_ she is unsellable to a safe majority of the American voters - and that she would become one of the best arguments the Democrats could ask for.

I'd like to agree.. really, but she's got an 'in' with the old school members of the party and they don't want to lose power. I saw it when my brother ran for office on the state level  and I saw it in the candidates they backed in several other states. Younger, more savvy candidates seem to scare them since they don't 'belong' to the party in some areas. Some, HORRORS, aren't career politicians and have actually EARNED their own money before trying to run for office. That was one of the big things the folks at the state level kept throwing at my brother when he ran. 'Outsider', 'inexperienced' and the inference that he was a 'mock republican' because as a trial lawyer he backed DEMOCRAT judges over ones he'd never dealt with. Well duh! If you know what works with a judge, are you going to risk something that puts your client's welfare at risk?

A lot of good potential candidates on either party aren't coming forward because the 'old guard' won't step aside. That and they dont' want every damn little mistake they ever made microscopically examined by the media. Colin Powell wouldn't run because he didn't think it was worth it due to the strain on his wife.

[Elle Mental]

Granted that he may not even run and that he is completely unelectable as president, but Ron Paul would honestly be the most entertaining candidate for president, in 2012. Whether you like his political outlook or not, is there really anyone that could be preferred over the list that we have going with Huckabee, Romney, Palin or even Trump?

I don't know...I'm just disenfranchised.

[adifferenceinsize]

Granted that he may not even run and that he is completely unelectable as president, but Ron Paul would honestly be the most entertaining candidate for president, in 2012. Whether you like his political outlook or not, is there really anyone that could be preferred over the list that we have going with Huckabee, Romney, Palin or even Trump?

I don't know...I'm just disenfranchised.

I'd put myself in the camp with Lawrence O'Donnell that the best bet the Republicans would have against Obama is Tim Pawlenty. He's set himself up well as someone who can do the good ol' Right-Center jig, and he's the only one of the pack who doesn't have a glaring weakness that would make the general election particularly contentious. Against Obama, you'd basically have to repeat the Republican 2010 formula of "referendum on things the voter doesn't like" rather than having a particularly powerful figure at the helm in opposition. A Trump or Christie makes it too hard to ignore the fact that the other vote isn't "NOT OBAMA" through sheer dint of their personalities, while the others have flaws the Democratic party can use to make the election a choice of shit vs. crap.

On the notion of Sarah Palin running... no. She and Newt Gingrich are among those who have figured out that there is a LOT of money to be made in the perennial could-be-candidate racket. Actually running again would wreck that now that she's a known figure, whereas toying with the notion as long as possible gets to let her sell books and collect donations that aren't as strictly controlled as when she actually runs for an office.

With that note, there's something to consider when talk of a third party or independent movement kicks up. There's a very fundamental problem with our politics, beyond the talk, the rhetoric, and all that, right in the base mathematics. See, what we have as a two-party system comes right out of the game theory for our voting system. Because one person must obtain a majority vote to be elected, especially in larger reaching offices like senatorial or presidential bids, the mechanics of our system force any vote into effectively a two-man contest by default. The theory of Nader or Perot spoilers come through based on this, and even the mish-mash makeups of the modern political parties reflects the harsh reality that because the US doesn't have a parliamentary layout to its representative bodies and runs a single straight vote system for elections, the ideal situation for everyone is to be one of the two stable competitors. Worse, even if an independent candidate can usurp one party or split the difference between the Republican and Democrat in a state vote, the oddities of the Electoral College make it nearly impossible for anyone to win in the modern era outside of the two-party situation. In short, always root for an insurgent candidate on the opposing side of an election, because the sheer weight of the system atop our voting system makes them just implicit help for your side.

[Oniya]

With that note, there's something to consider when talk of a third party or independent movement kicks up. There's a very fundamental problem with our politics, beyond the talk, the rhetoric, and all that, right in the base mathematics. See, what we have as a two-party system comes right out of the game theory for our voting system. Because one person must obtain a majority vote to be elected, especially in larger reaching offices like senatorial or presidential bids, the mechanics of our system force any vote into effectively a two-man contest by default. The theory of Nader or Perot spoilers come through based on this, and even the mish-mash makeups of the modern political parties reflects the harsh reality that because the US doesn't have a parliamentary layout to its representative bodies and runs a single straight vote system for elections, the ideal situation for everyone is to be one of the two stable competitors. Worse, even if an independent candidate can usurp one party or split the difference between the Republican and Democrat in a state vote, the oddities of the Electoral College make it nearly impossible for anyone to win in the modern era outside of the two-party situation. In short, always root for an insurgent candidate on the opposing side of an election, because the sheer weight of the system atop our voting system makes them just implicit help for your side.

This is precisely why I brought up the Bull Moose in my earlier post.  In 1912, we actually had a popular third party candidate in Teddy Roosevelt.  As a result, the Republican party split their vote between Roosevelt and Taft  (Roosevelt actually did slightly better than Taft), leaving Wilson with a 'majority' vote of 41.8%.  The thing is, if the existing parties don't get their act together, the American public might actually decide to vote both of them out of office.

[adifferenceinsize]

The thing is, if the existing parties don't get their act together, the American public might actually decide to vote both of them out of office.

Maybe, but highly unlikely. First is the momentum problem. We saw this recently with Obama in the primaries... at first, he wasn't doing especially well in primaries in large part because people were afraid by voting for him instead of Hillary Clinton or Edwards, they'd be tossing their vote. However, as Edwards became less relevant a candidate, people became increasingly willing to throw their lot in with him until we got where we are today. This problem is several orders of magnitude worse in the case of a general election where so much rhetorical baggage is bound up in the concepts of the two main parties that people will be far more hesitant to risk their vote being a spoiler for their opposing choice. In this regard, there are solutions, but the cases of Roosevelt or Perot show the peril of running from the sides of the political spectrum; if you are fighting more directly in the spheres of belief of one candidate, then you inherently end up making it easier for the opposing candidate. Therefore, any outsider must essentially find a way to roughly split the difference between his major party foes. Conveniently, the ramshackle belief systems in both parties make it possible to create a logical party framework that can steal some from both sides of the aisle, essentially jamming wedges into both parties' central coalitions.

Assuming our hypothetical Third Manderson can come up with such a base of belief to fight from, there are still several systemic issues. Since there's generally a lot of natural voting weight in favor of incumbents (thanks "The Devil You Know"), the best chance for this run is after a president's second term, so we're looking at 2016 at the earliest, barring an Obama nuclear train-wreck in the next year or so. That's convenient, since you need a lot of time and resources to make the bid anyhow. Given how each state's requirements for running for president differ, but generally are not overly friendly to non-party candidates, you will need to do a lot of work to get on the ballot. Then there's an issue of money and vote-gathering engines, the two main reasons the parties in power are so tough to knock off. The 2008 election showed that there is a lot of potential out there to mobilize new resources to get voters behind you, but exploiting this effectively is no small achievement without stealing a bunch of people from both parties with experience in setting up the fundamentals which still matter. An Obama-style or Paul-style money collection scheme can do a lot from public support, but without personal fortune or lobbyist VC, traditional ad venues will be the playthings of your rivals on both sides.

I'd personally love to see something like this materialize, but I'm hesitant at my most optimistic in expecting it in my lifetime.

[Callie Del Noire]

I think most of the senior republicans are waiting till 2016 when they hope they are facing someone like Clinton. Who I'm still surprised has stayed on board and not looked for a way to 'bow out' with honor so she can run against the President. She's got to have been given some MAJOR promises for her to behave as well as she has.