The dreaded Jonah Goldberg has an entertaining column about the 2012 Republican presidential primary. He thinks Huckabee won’t run. He believes that Romney, Gingrich, Palin, Pawlenty, Santorum, Bolton, Daniels, Cain, Johnson, Paul and Thune will all probably run, and that Romney, Palin, Gingrich, Pawlenty and Daniels will be the front-runners.
I’m a Bolton man myself, but Herman Cain is intriguing too: he’s the former Godfather’s pizza CEO who wrote the “Christ was the perfect conservative” post that many of us enjoyed. He’s African-American, and if that post is any indication, he is very well-spoken.
The 2012 Republican primary can’t get here fast enough for me. I know in the end that all my favorite whack job candidates — Palin, Bolton, Cain, Santorum — will get crushed and that we’ll be subjected to endless gushing about the moderation and good sense of Romney, Thune, and possibly Daniels. But I can dream, right?
Tara the antisocial social worker
I’m hoping for Christine O’Donnell, in a campaign run by mice with fully functioning human brains.
Or Michael Steele, the only candidate who could actually lower the percentage of African-Americans voting Republican – possibly into the negative numbers.
It’ll probably be Zombie Reagan, though.
cleek
i don’t have any faith in Goldberg’s crystal ball.
New Yorker
Doesn’t that mean he’s a sooper seekit Kenyannazimuslimcommunistatheist who wants revenge on the west for colonialism?
I just don’t see any GOP primary voters pulling the lever for a black dude. Maybe they’d allow him to be VP.
gbear
But what about Tim Pawlenty?? He’s still working so damned hard to establish his credentials with the religious right. Someday they’re going to notice him and realize he’s their number one man – not nearly as pathectic as he seems.
Tim is just going to keep on fucking over MN until they pry the pen out of his hand and throw him out into the snow.
Joey Maloney
You know that, do you? I think the Teatards are going to swamp the Iowa caucuses, and everything’s going to be very very weird after that.
Linda Featheringill
What a collection! Of course, people were probably saying that about Democrats a few years ago.
Of that group, I think that Bolton doesn’t have a chance. Too many people don’t even know who he is. Santorum might not do so well with the middle states.
I’d like to hear Cain speak. Actually, I don’t know Daniels, either.
Romney is not crazy and is not stupid but I don’t know if he can overcome the religion thing.
On the other hand, all of this looks like it could be entertaining.
gbear
What is it about pizza chains and religious conservatism?
kdaug
@Tara the antisocial social worker: Yurp. Dream ticket? Bolton/O’Donnell, with promises to make Palin Defense Secretary.
The white knuckles of the rest of the world would outshine the sun.
Then they could harness that energy to free themselves from post-peak oil, and we could drill, baby, drill our way to freedom!
Mark S.
Dear God what the fuck was that?
It reminds me a lot of “Jesus Was a Marine,” written by some Townhall or Renew America nut who obviously had never been in the military (or met Jesus, for that matter). I can’t find it, but it also doesn’t help that I can’t remember which of those dipshits (Doug Giles? Dr. Mike?) wrote it.
me
I just don’t see Palin running. She’s trying to acquire money, not spend it.
majii
Cain can definitely throw his hat into the ring, but he’ll get little support from those of us in the African American communities across America because of the lies he’s told about President Obama. The other candidates in the GOP can expect the same. We know instinctively that these candidates care very little for any American outside of their own insular group of wealthy “elitists.” We also know that they tend to underestimate our intelligence in choosing politicians for whom we are willing to cast our votes, which is the reason the GOP continues to fail in their efforts to attract more African American into their party. It will remain this way until they stop the stereotyping and outright racism that they give their silent consent to by not having the courage to confront the members of their party who do it.
Many Americans may not realize it, but members of the African American community have always been the object of racism and discrimination from other African Americans, usually those who have attained a certain level of success, like Cain, Steele, Elder, Blackwell, Harry Jackson, Keyes, Alveda King ( to whom I’m related,) Christie, and others. I have also achieved much in my life, but I’ve never forgotten what the first 18 years of life in America was like living under segregation.
These individuals experienced the same things I did because they’re in my age group, so I don’t understand how they can discriminate against gays, lesbians, atheists, immigrants, Muslims, and a whole host of others. Their experiences living under segregation should have had the opposite effect and provided them with a unique insight into the plight of any group in America that has members who are not being treated as human beings and is being discriminated against in one way or another, but I guess money and fame trump basic human decency.
Hawes
Huckabee’s the only one who scares me in that list. He’s smarter and funnier than the rest and can sound credibly populistic if he needs to.
I hope he doesn’t run. I shall enjoy the pinched meanness of Newt Gingrich vs the mix of warmth and cool that is Obama.
Ann B. Nonymous
Have the stealth anti-Arab campaigns against Mitch Daniels begun yet? It won’t truly be 2012 unless there are chain emails about Daniel’s obvious taqiyya Presbyterianism.
Linda Featheringill
I googled Herman Cain. He might be a better candidate than we might think. He looks good [important for a politician]. He has a radio show and so probably has a good speaking voice. If he is logical in defense of his positions, he might cause a stir.
eemom
ya know, now that you mention it, the next 2 years might not be so bad after all.
I generally hate, hate, HATE the ever-expanding 2 year gazillion dollar monstrosity that is a presidential election, but there is going to be some serious comedy to be had here. I mean I thought they had a smorgasbord of freakazoids back in ’08 — when McCain, mind-boggling as it is to recall, actually did come across as the closest to sane of the bunch…….but that slate had nothing on the clown brigade coming through this time. Bolton ALONE is worth like ten Guilianis.
ETA: that said, if I never hear the words “Palin” and “run” in the same sentence again, I will die a happy woman.
monkeyboy
@Linda Featheringill:
I haven’t listened to any of The Best of Herman Cain – Radio and Video!, but you are welcome to. Or you can “listen to Herman LIVE Monday through Friday from 7pm-10pm. “
scarshapedstar
@Linda Featheringill:
Somebody’s gotta say it.
The GOP is not going to pick a black guy.
Not because it would be hypocritical (given all the “Obama as a witch doctor with a bone in his nose” / “Will they still call it the White House?” stuff) but because they hate black people.
Mark S.
Shit, I could actually see Newt emerging out of that heaping pile. God he’d make a terrible fucking candidate.
MikeJ
@kdaug: Scarily enough, they’d get 47-49% of the vote. And that’s barring something bizarre that swings things to the generic republican happening.
I just don’t think anybody who voted for McCain would have any problem with Bolton or O’Donnell.
valdivia
not to thread-jack but I need some tips here totally OT. I just noticed one of my cat’s ear had it’s tip sort of torn off. He had a red thin scab and when I looked at it up close you can see a tiny bit of his ear-tip is a little torn. do any of you guys have had anything like this happen? should I take him to the vet? he seems totally oblivious and as happy as ever.
Dennis SGMM
@Hawes:
Agreed. Huckabee would have most of the religious right from the outset and his ability to sound like a populist could be a huge asset if, as seems likely, unemployment is still high in ’12.
Robertdsc-iphone
@Ann B. Nonymous:
Daniels has the unfortunate issue of being short.
I am still “entertained” by the characterization of Barbour as Boss Hogg.
Linda Featheringill
@majii:
Interesting.
In my comments about Cain’s candidacy, I was speaking as a white woman. I never thought about how he would be viewed by the AA community. Well, how would I know, anyway?
Tara the antisocial social worker
@Hawes:
Huckabee is this year’s McCain. No matter how batsh*t or mean he gets, the press fanboys can’t stop talking about what a great guy he is. This is the guy who equated same-sex marriage with beastiality and child molesting, and who said people with AIDS should be imprisoned (his euphemism was “isolated”).
I’ll bet if I said that sort of stuff about Huckabee, Tweety and company wouldn’t think I was very nice.
Tara the antisocial social worker
Re Gingrich: Do you suppose he’ll be on wife #4 by 2012, or will he be up to 5?
(I’m still stunned that there were 3 women willing to marry him at all.)
Chris Wolf
It’ll be Chris Christie.
Anya
@Linda Featheringill:
He might not be crazy or stupid, but he plays one convincingly. Did you see his START op-ed?
scarshapedstar
@valdivia:
Can you post a picture? Sounds like it could have been anything, but if it is a wound from a fight then it will get infected.
Joey Maloney
@valdivia: Oh, sure, I’ve had cats that liked to go out and get in fights and they would get their ears torn up all the time.
Put some hydrogen peroxide on the wound to foam out any dirt, then dab some Neosporin on it a couple of times a day until it heals. As long as there’s no swelling or pus, you’re fine.
Cats heal really really fast and that can be a problem, paradoxically. The skin can heal over a dirty wound, and then you get a closed infection that can abcess and then it needs to be lanced which is gross. And treated with antibiotics which is expensive. And the cat doesn’t much like it.
alwhite
@scarshapedstar:
I think you have that backwards – they would LOVE to pick a black guy just to show us all how much they care (see Steele, Mikey). Or a woman (and I am sticking with my claim that Caribou Barbie won’t actually run because it would impact her income).
I am expecting a (sorry, no pun intended) dark horse. A governor like Piyush Amrit Subhash Chandra Jindal. Boy Blunder proved that stupidity and incompetence is no impairment. This would allow them to sell the story that they are not racist. It could be Herman.
So, was that “he is articulate” line an intended joke or just accidental?
kdaug
“My opponent has repeatedly said he would like to double Gitmo, whereas I am on the record stating I would increase Gitmo by an order of magnitude, and open a chain of gulags in Siberia as well. His weakness on national security is, frankly, breathtaking. Coupled with his desire to blow up only the top half of the UN, and to neglect the complete destruction of the entire building and the twelve blocks surrounding, proves he is unfit to be president in these uncertain times.”
Good times. Looking forward to the primaries.
valdivia
@scarshapedstar:
@Joey Maloney:
thanks both of you. He is an inside cat but he and his brother sometimes get aggressive with each other so that could have happened in a fight at night. will do as instructed and try to get a pic too.
alwhite
@Mark S.:
I think he would make a great candidate – and a really shitty President.
Joey Maloney
@alwhite: This would allow them to sell the story that they are not racist.
Yabbut, the problem with that is they are racist. At least, enough of them are that no way is a colored fella going to win a primary. Not even if they think it’ll piss of the libruls.
lacp
@Tara the antisocial social worker: Yup. It’s gonna be some one-two combination of Huckabuck and The Man Called Petraeus. And I can seriously do without the “insights” of a stool specimen like Jonah.
Mike in NC
Bolton may give the wingnuts starbursts and all that, but the guy has never run for – much less won – any elective office whatsoever. Forget about him. The nominee in 2012 will be someone familiar, like Huckabee or Romney.
What I don’t understand is why Erik Prince (the guy behind Blackwater/Xe) never got into politics. He’s filthy rich, a charter member of the religious right, and has all sorts of ties to Wall Street and the US Congress. Plus he’s an ex-Navy SEAL who unleashed his hired guns in Iraq to butcher Muslims. That alone would get him millions of votes from Real Americans.
alwhite
@valdivia:
I assume you don’t let him go out so this happened in the house?
I can’t imagine a mouse taking a big chunk but maybe he ran into one real bad mamajamma mouse. Or maybe he got it caught in something.
Keep us informed
Hal
My own personal theory is that Huckabee will only run if he thinks Republicans have any real chance of winning the Presidency. If he doesn’t run, it’s not a good sign for the other candidates.
scarshapedstar
@alwhite:
I understand the “see, we have a black guy too!” theory. But I think Michael Steele will remain as the Official Token.
This party knows who butters their bread, and it ain’t the people concerned with diversity.
valdivia
@alwhite:
yep, inside cat and if this wasn’t his brother, than maybe some mean ole mouse! the joke here is that my cats would probably go and hide under the bed if they were ever confronted with anything bigger than a fly!
he has the sweetest disposition and really seems not to have noticed the thing was dangling a bit on the tip of his ear. But I will clean it up now and see how it goes.
thanks again y’all!
monkeyboy
@monkeyboy:
I listened to some Herman Cain and I can’t see him as being acceptable to white Republicans.
1) He has an obvious black accent and uses some peculiarities to black English.
2) In this Herman Cain at the FairTax Rally in Atlanta 5-24-06 (YouTube) his public speaking style contains a lot of Black Preacher which is off putting to white Republicans.
I see no role for him in national Republican politics except maybe as an pet black to be occasionally exhibited.
Joey Maloney
Everything I’ve ever read about Prince tells me he wants to be the power behind the throne. No way he has the patience and the salesman chops to run for elective office. He does what he’s good at, and that always seems to involve automatic weapons.
I’ll tell you this, if he ever does run for anything, I would NOT want to be the hapless Democratic intern that captures his Macaca moment on video. Poor sucker’d never make it out of the parking lot.
alwhite
@Joey Maloney:
I think they might if it is the right kinda colored guy. Like Bobby, he is born again from non-Christian to one of them. Alan Keys is in this mold but not bright enough to pour sand out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Steele got a pass from the party leaders and that could be a key for a guy like Cain, if the movers and shakers can keep him alive why the 12 dwarfs pick each other off I could see them being quite please & the teatards falling in line.
GL
Talk of Herman Cain running reminds me of the logic that the GOP used to parachute Alan Keyes into Illinois to take on Obama in 2004.
TimmyB
The GOP will nominate a nut-job to be president. And I think it will be Palin.
The GOP primary is now the tea bag primary. Good luck to any partly rational person winning that thing.
The only hope a partly rational person has to win the GOP primary, and I know it’s contrary to the advice given in “Tropic Thunder,” is to “go full retard.”
Maude
@valdivia:
I had a cat that broke his tail. I put triple antibiotic on it and it healed just fine.
MikeJ
@alwhite:
Condoleezza Rice.
alwhite
@valdivia:
OH! I didn’t know you had other cats! To quote Rosanne Roasanna Danna “THATS DIFFERENT!” I am often amazed when our cats don’t kill each other. Even when they appear to only be playing. At times when they seem actually angry at each other they have removed fur and drawn blood.
Cat Lady
Keep your eye on whoever starts showing up on Fox that doesn’t already have a show. The money boys know Palin can’t win, so they’re going to have start trotting someone out fairly soon. They would love it to be the Mittster, but I think that ship sailed, and he’s got Romneycare hanging around his neck like an anchor. Mitch Daniels looks like a homelier Peyton Manning, and that won’t work on TV either. Bolton is a grenade with the pin already pulled and he’s got the W taint. To me, it’s Thune. He’s got an empty suit, an empty head, sun chapped looks, and Bobo’s already got the suck up columns ready to go.
Elisabeth
I’m keeping an eye out on Mitch Daniels; he’s got the mid-west thing going on. If, and that’s a big if, he can do well in early primaries/caucuses he might pull an Obama and come from behind. I’d think he’d do well in a GE.
kdaug
@MikeJ: Too soon. The conflation with Bush/Iraq is still ripe. Give her eight years, she’s good to go. Would not be surprised at all to see her in 2020. [Insert obligatory “hindsight” joke here]
Davis X. Machina
@gbear: Even the smaller ones. Papa Gino’s owner/founder was the ATM for the nutty wing of the Massachusetts GOP for years.
fucen tarmal
i think the republicans love the idea of an “identity politics” candidate, so they can unload all the pent up rage they have at being tabbed old and white, by anyone who bothered to notice they are old and white.
but their perfect minority would be rendered incapable of actually holding the office a couple of weeks before the election, in some massively sympathy inducing manner, only to be replaced by the perfect stooge who will do exactly as the money machine demands, but who would be utterly unelectable if left to face the rigors of an actual campaign.
they get the ignoramus they want, the sympathy, and the chance to take all the “pay back” shots they can, all in one.
Anoniminous
Huckabee will run.
In 2008, He won the Iowa caucus and came in a respectable third in the New Hampshire primary. In total he won eight states: Iowa, West Virginia, Nebraska, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.
(For the record: Romney won eleven states: Maine, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.)
Huckabee almost has to run to keep his name recognition up, his volunteers excited, the funding coming in, and his hat in the ring. Losing a GOP primary isn’t the kiss of death: Dole consistently lost and yet got the nomination, eventually.
So, by actual results, you’d have to place Huckabee second in the field behind Romney. Which isn’t a bad place to be. He can be the scrappy underdog which gives you all kinds of good press.
Davis X. Machina
@Chris Wolf: Chris Christie, running as just the man to manage the war on public employees.
I expect he’d do rather well. Crab-bucket syndrome (If I don’t have a job, then you don’t get to have one either) is bi-partisan — see discussions here on public-sector pensions — ostensibly race-neutral — but you know who those employees all are, wink, wink — and not closely identified with any particular area of the country. It’s not obviously part of the religious wars, either.
Ressentisment light — all the rage, without all the baggage.
GOP R&D may have finally developed the new product they needed, now that the patent on fighting nearly pointless wars in nearly unreachable places has expired, generics are available, and it’s in all the shops now, not just the GOP.
valdivia
@Elisabeth:
I would agree with you except that he is *very* short. Standing next to Obama it will not look good. Plus he has the Arab-American thing that will taint him in the primary.
kdaug
@Cat Lady: You win.
Tabula rasa, photogenic, no demonstrable scandals.
Not sure how he plays against the O, but it will definitely be interesting.
Maude
@Davis X. Machina:
I think his thug act is going to cause him trouble next year in NJ. The loss of those millions and the other hateful agenda items he is going for could sink him.
Next year might be a scandal year. He isn’t smart enough to get away with things.
Anoniminous
@me:
I can’t see Palin doing the grassroots campaigning necessary to win Iowa or New Hampshire. For one thing, she has to eat into Huckabee’s existing organization in Iowa and Romney’s in New Hampshire. That’s really tough especially since the operators in those states are savvy enough to read polling and know she’s toast in the general.
kdaug
@Davis X. Machina: Too fat. Shallow, but true.
kdaug
@valdivia: Also shallow, but true.
Bill Murray
@Cat Lady:
and he’s fundamentalist and a former lobbyist, whose first act as Senator was to increase funding to a government program, allowing his former lobbying client to fund a $2.5 billion project. He’s everything the Republicans love.
Tonal Crow
I still maintain that the GOP’ll nominate Palin. After Congressional Republicans are forced to compromise on things like the debt limit, the teatards will revolt and demand even greater levels of extremism. And who will benefit from that more than Palin?
Davis X. Machina
@kdaug: Haley Barbour’s got some manatee in the family tree, but you don’t see him hanging back as a result.
Christie may turn out to be scandal-plagued, but at least he’s not tainted by his decade-long, completely inept prosecution of various members of the Duke clan.
I think the GOP have to nominate from outside the South and Southwest. The brand is becoming too closely identified with the region. While this may sometimes be something you can overcome (Mountain Dew) too often it’s the kiss of retail death (Moxie).
danimal
We’ll see one nutjob and one mainstream candidate emerge from the Iowa/NH carnage.
And then Palin will jump in.
Nothing has more comedy potential than the 2012 GOP presidential campaign. Buy popcorn futures NOW!
James E Powell
@me:
I just don’t see Palin running. She’s trying to acquire money, not spend it.
Palin loves the money, but she needs the attention. I do not think she can live without it.
She cannot say that she is not running because she has to keep the dream alive for her followers. They believe if Sarah Palin wins the presidency she can restore America to the racially pure theocracy intended by Jesus and the
Twelve ApostlesFounding Fathers.If she takes herself out of the race, the dreamers will move elsewhere. They can live without her, she cannot live without them.
The best plan for her would be to run a media-heavy, organization-light campaign, to quit after being savaged by Republican “Big City” elites, and to don the cloak of permanent victimhood.
She could be the right-wing Oprah, with the show, the magazine, etc., but my sense is that she doesn’t want to work that much.
feebog
I think it will be the Huckster, by default. The GOIP usually puts up a candidate who has already run at least once. Only Romney and Huckabee fit that bill. Romney just won’t get past the religious test, and the rest will fall out pretty quickly. It will be fun to see Barbour, Bolton and Gingrich try to outdo each other.
valdivia
@kdaug:
:) yep, but that is how the visceral image will play and it is indeed what drives a lot of those so-called indys.
lol
@Anoniminous:
Huckabee wants to win though and he can afford to wait four more years for his moment. The point made above of it being a very bad sign for the GOP if he doesn’t run is a great one.
Of course, he might be making the same mistake Cuomo and other Dems made when they decided to pass up challenging Bush Sr but on the other hand, I don’t see Obama riding 90% approval ratings anytime soon.
Nellcote
The question is Who does the Chamber of Commerce support? The great money dump of 2010 was just practice for 2012.
henqiguai
@majii(#11):
What’s also seldom discussed is that, contrary to the bulk of the American electorate, African-Americans are both quite accustomed as well as quite comfortable voting for candidates not of their ethnic persuasion; black folks vote for white candidates without thinking about it. Whites, not so much. This thinking is never factored in when doing the calculus of ethnic voting preferences.
Anoniminous
@lol:
Defeating a sitting US president is the hardest job in US politics. So there is that.
I’m thinking Huckabee is almost forced to run. To win a presidential nomination you have to have the organization and in a primary that means volunteers. It’s really tough to keep people ‘on your team’ if you don’t show up for the game. People will wait four years. Asking them to wait eight is … well, they won’t do it.
kdaug
@James E Powell:
This rings true – a martyr sacrificed on the mantel of the Establishment.
henqiguai
@Tara the antisocial social worker (#25):
I made a comparable comment about Gingrich at work Thursday. The response was “…have you seen those women ? Between the three of them their combined IQ is probable in the single digits”. Really ? I never bothered to look.
Elisabeth
@valdivia:
I don’t know ~ it could also play in his favor by showing Obama, again, as an exotic elitist. I’d have to do some homework on Daniel’s background but I have a hard time getting past the fact that he’s been governor of Indiana. Could help in OH, MI, WI, MN, even KY. I don’t know. All of it, of course, depends on the primary/caucus calendar. Whatever states go first will likely tell us who the party leaders are looking at as front-runners.
PS
As Zhou Enlai supposedly said when asked about the significance of the French Revolution: It’s too soon to tell. Incumbents do have a huge advantage, but that’s why Bill Clinton manage to snag the nomination against Bush the Elder (the better-known potential candidates dithered), and look what happened to him. That said, I think Obama will cruise to re-election, failing a surprise disaster, and the Republican power brokers will recognize that early and essentially run a candidate like Bob Dole — someone who gets resumé credit for being the nominee but doesn’t really have a hope. Or they could nominate a clown. Preferably from the lower 48, I’m tired of the act from up north.
Capri
@Robertdsc-iphone:
Heck, Daniels isn’t even the front runner in his own state. That honor goes to straw-poll winner Mike Pence.
Pence just might be the only politician dumber than Bachmann
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Bolton would be the dream candidate in that he not only talks the talk of blowing up the world for freedom, he gives the impression that he might actually do it. So he’s too crazy to be elected, and if he was elected we could look forward to being put out of our collective misery a few months later. Win-win.
In reality, I’ll be surprised if Romney doesn’t run away with it, even though social conservatives don’t like him. But as you say, we can dream.
FlipYrWhig
I loved the comparison on a recent Steve Benen post: Chris Christie as Rex Ryan.
Also, watch out for Marco Rubio.
FlipYrWhig
@PS:
But who fits the bill there? Jim DeMint? Barbour is the guy who’s been around a while collecting chits, who has no hope of winning and no shot at building future candidacies.
long ago
“he is very well-spoken.”
naughty naughty, dougj.
mclaren
Sorry, DougJ, that’s nonsense. First, Romney is completely out of the running. He’s a Mormon and the fundamentalist evangelical base of the Republican will never vote for a Mormon, ever, period. So he will never get the nomination no matter what he does. If lightning struck every other Republican candidate dead and only Romney remained, every Republican primary voter would write in “HANNIBAL LECTER” rather than vote for Romney.
So Romney’s completely out. Forget about Romney.
Tim Pawlenty has walked back so many of his far-right positions that the base will never go for him either. (Pawlenty might make a decent general election candidate for the Republicans because of his relatively moderate stance on issues like abortion, but this makes him radioactive for Republican primaries. And that’s the entire problem for Republicans: they need someone so far right s/he can appeal to the Republican base, yet with sufficiently broad appeal to be competitive in the general election.) Huckabee is out because of his little problem with that paroled rapist.
So who does that leave?
Nobody. A couple of bozos no one’s ever heard of. To give you an idea of just how popular Palin is, her children get more name recognition from likely Republican primary voters than Daniels or Thune. Barbour appeals to such a narrow sliver of the electorate that there’s no way he can get the nomination. The Republicans need a national candidate and they know it.
Palin will be the nominee. Take it to the bank.
And if unemployment remains above 8% in November 2012, which every economic forceast suggests, then Palin will be the next president.
Don’t tell me Palin is too stupid and too incompetent and too crazy and too ignorant to become president — everyone said that about Reagan. Democrats were dancing in the aisles with glee when Ronald Reagan became the Republican primary choice for president in 1980. They stopped dancing in 1981.
Palin is just the latest in a long long line of insane ignorant halfwits who were proclaimed “far too extreme and too right-wing to become president” by the cogniscenti…and then did.
Mike in NC
Gov. Chris Christie of NJ is currently getting dissed a lot for basically being a fat slob, and most Americans probably wouldn’t be too enthused about electing another William Howard Taft in this day and age (when the Villagers think how a candidate looks is just as important as what they advocate).
But then again, (1) the average American is also overweight, and (2) Christie could enlist Huckabee — who lost about 100 pounds himself while governor of Arkansas — as a sort of person trainer. Jesus, the media would eat that stuff up.
Christie/Jindal in 2012 is a long shot but by no means out of the question. Nice urban/north and rural/south balance, too.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yes but did he serve on the Danville train?
I can’t believe nobody got that one.
The Dangerman
@feebog:
Cross Hucks off the list; anyone with his fingerprints on the pardon of a four-cop killer is toast from the start. He may run, but it’s just a matter of time before he’s extra crispy and tossed to the geese.
PS
@FlipYrWhig: Short answer: I don’t care! Slightly longer one: They’ll be having this conversation for the next several months, if not longer. Let them think and talk and spin their wheels. It is just about possible that someone could emerge we’re not thinking of yet. And, as I say, they could always throw in the towel, let a clown get nominated and humiliated, and then move in after that to rebuild the national party for 2016.
Anoniminous
@mclaren:
If it wasn’t for the paroled rapist I’d bet Huckabee would win. He’s got the jive-assed line of white Southern bullshit down pat and he has been running a below-the-radar PR campaign.
Normally it’s easy to pick the GOP winner: find the oldest white guy in the race with the best connections in the party. Since Eisenhower it’s been: Nixon (1960), Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Daddy, Dole, McCain, who all fit the bill. The two outliers are Goldwater and Bush Junior.
This time it’s damaged goods (Romney, Huckabee) and a sterling collection of lack-witted third-raters and has-beens.
Got no idea who is going to wind-up as their nominee.
PS
@mclaren: Palin is too stupid and too incompetent and too crazy and too ignorant to become president. Yes, I do tell you that. Also: Many people did say that about Reagan in 1968, the first time he ran for President. Some people still said that about Reagan in 1976, even though at that point he had completed two full terms as Governor of California — in 1980, not so much.
catclub
@Cat Lady:
I’m with you on Thune, although he seems the most likely to turn out to be the Fred Thompson of 2012 – of the others listed.
Although Newt might take that role.
Who will take the Rudy Giuliani role – frontrunner until people actually meet him?
valdivia
@Elisabeth:
that could help in neighboring states in theory, I agree, but I don’t think it will help with him. Obama being taller than him will not be seen as an elite thing it will look ridiculous like when Kucinich was on stage. The height thing plus the fact he has already been President for 4 years will totally diminish Daniels vis-a-vis Obama. As KDaug said, it may be vapid, but that’s how it will play.
Edited for Clarity.
jon
Palin will not be the nominee. The power brokers of the GOP will not allow it, so they’ll work behind the scenes as they did in 2000 to make sure the nomination is wrapped up good and early and not with someone who is sure to lose, as Palin would be. The question is, of course, who? And how will they keep Palin on board?
The answers are Jeb Bush and she’ll be up for the Vice-Presidency again.
change
McLaren gets it. Palin will win it, going away, the nomination and the election.
Liberals and the media will hate it.
change
@jon:
You have the right ticket, but backwards.
Palin/Bush 2012.
Yutsano
@change:
You’re half right. But you still haven’t bothered to mention how she gets past a 50+% negative view from the American public. I’m sure you’ll get right on that.
change
@Yutsano:
Look at what mclaren said. Unemployment will be over 8% in 2012. The economy puts her over the top.
Get used to saying “Madame President”, Marxist.
Cacti
Never heard of this Cain fellow, but I hope he throws his hat in the ring. Because if there’s anything black voters like better than a white political agenda, it’s when a black face gets put on a white political agenda.
See: Thomas, Clarence
I think it will go over even better than Sarah Palin did with the women voters.
Yutsano
@change: You go with that. No really. Imagine putting a quitter who isn’t even popular in her own state against a popular sitting President. It just galls you that he’s more popular than Saint Sarah doesn’t it? That’s why you project this fantasy of electability. She didn’t do anything even when she WAS a half-term governor of Alaska. Empty platitudes only get you right wing votes.
change
@Yutsano:
Popular? hahaha.
Again, as McLaren pointed out, unemployment will still be 8%+ in 2012. That will easily put Palin over the top.
Hopey is toast.
redoubt
@monkeyboy: Herman Cain got 26% of Georgia GOP primary voters for an open Senate seat. In 2004. He’s never in his life held elective office.
And Godfather’s is terrible. (I live in Atlanta. They know nothing about pizza here.)
Cacti
@Yutsano:
I think of Palin as the right wing Howard Dean in terms of actual political clout. She has a group of supporters that are a lot more loud than they are numerous.
Case in point, her hand picked Senate nominee in Alaska captured a whopping 34 percent of the vote in the general.
Yutsano
@redoubt: I heard tell Everybody’s down that way is decent. Didn’t get a slice meself when I was down that way.
@Cacti: I lurve how the right wing thinks Sarah Palin frightens us. She’s only frightening in that she carries whacked out ideas in her head. She doesn’t have the political power to bring them to fruition, In fact, right now, basically, she has none. Except in their cute little right-wing brainz.
agrippa
@change:
lol.
you want 8%+ unemployment so that Obama may lose
brilliant