There are those who say that it is simplistic to assume that Perry will beat Romney because Perry pisses off liberals more than Romney does. Let’s review the events of the past few weeks: Perry accused Ben Bernanke of treason, denied that global warming was happening, spoke out in favor of creationism, and look what happened (warning: Newsmax link, via Steve M.):
A new poll shows Texas Gov. Rick Perry with a double-digit lead nationally over the current 2012 frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
The poll, which will be released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling (PPP), is not being detailed in advance, the New York Post reported. But PPP’s Director Tom Jensen confirmed Perry’s double-digit advantage to the Post.
Rick perry takes lead over romneyIt will be the second poll of Republican primary voters by the Democratically-aligned polling company to show Perry with a lead nationally since the three-term Texas governor entered the contest.
A Rasmussen Reports national poll out Aug. 16 showed Perry leading Romney by 11 points, 29 percent to 18 percent.
Six months til Iowa, Giuliani led at this point too, blah blah blah. I don’t see how Romney survives without going native, and I don’t see how an awkward mild-mannered investment banker can go native in this environment.
Davis X. Machina
President Howard Dean.
Just sayin’.
xian
romney is too fake to outcrazy the true believers and keeps hoping the “conservative elites” will save him. looks like Jeb’s the white knight du jour.
jacy
I have honestly given up on trying to predict who’s going to be the last freak standing. You know why? It’s futile to predict what crazy people will do. As far as I can tell, it’s all through the looking glass from here on out.
Violet
@xian:
Ha ha ha ha ha! As if Good Hair Bush 2.0 wasn’t bad enough, they want someone with the actual Bush name and family connection to run? Good times.
Perry is the flavor of the month. Not saying he won’t win the nomination, but he’s the hot new guy in the race. The honeymoon period is still an issue.
schrodinger's cat
No one can outcrazy Bachmann, because I don’t think she is faking it. Perry sounds as insincere as Bush did, I don’t know what people see in him.
Hunter Gathers
Romney’s too much of a gutless weirdo to go after Perry directly. He’s much more comfortable going after Obama (and sticking his foot in his mouth every single time he does it). And if he does muster up the intestinal fortitude to attack Perry at one of the upcoming debates, Perry will crush him under his jackbooted heel.
Brachiator
I wouldn’t call it “simplistic.” How about stupid?
With liberalism being rolled back at both the state and federal levels, why would anyone care about whether liberals were pissed or not? It’s not like liberals are going to do anything about it, except whine.
Meanwhile, people whose lives are diminished by all the bullshit the conservatives are churning up would probably like to live in that privileged world where all you had to worry about was somebody pissing you off.
As to who is mas macho, Perry or Romney, wake me when there is an actual primary, and when it’s time to do some serious mobilizing to defeat whoever the GOP spits out onto the national stage.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Being in Texas, the one thing that scares me the most about Perry is that the Republicans here couldn’t even find someone to replace him with, and they tried. Twice.
trollhattan
Mittens has kept himself in the public eye pretty much continuously for, what, six or seven years running for preznit? Talk about oatmeal fatigue.
Perry’s “new and fresh” on the national scene, i.e., new to those who haven’t been watching his Texas horrorshow, especially the killin’ (executions) and Gawd botherin’ and dirty industry enablin’. Sane folks will soon perceive him as Dubya Mk.II and slowly back away whilst reaching for a brick, and his poll numbers will ease off.
All this is not necessarily good news for Mittens, who nobody seems to like or trust, but IIRC McCain wasn’t all that hot in the polls with over a year to go before the ’98 election.
PeakVT
How many months is it to the last important primary?
Wag
Perry=McGovern
Rhoda
Mittens isn’t going to DeMint’s confab either, so that makes two states he seems to be surrendering. He can’t stay in NH alone and win this thing. Then again, he has a huge problem with the republicans base. Gallup, in those bad for Obama polls show Romney loses more R’s to Obama than Perry. And that is before the campaign against Mittens starts.
Thoughtcrime
@trollhattan:
Some helpful hints for Mittens:
http://www.chronicallyunemployed.com/main_stuff/writing/vocation.htm
Villago Delenda Est
Rick Perry may be a Jeebofascist nutcase, but his sincerity comes across, no matter how synthetic it is, much more plausible than Romney’s.
They both may have hair, but Romney is this guy who sells you undercoating.
Thoughtcrime
All the tea in China can’t get Mittens the GOP nomination.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
Perry’s also the guy who is friends with the mechanics and tells them it’s okay to “create a little incentive” for you to have to bring your car back again and again for service.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: “Perry sounds as insincere as Bush did, I don’t know what people see in him.”
And this is the key problem. I (and probably you) did not see what people saw in GWBush in 2000. We just have no idea what goes on in other peoples’ heads.
Makewi
Even Ron Paul is starting to look favorable compared to captain spends-a-lot.
Blue Neponset
That is a national poll. If there were a poll showing Perry winning the NY, IL and CA Repub Primaries then I would be super worried about Dubya 2.0 winning the Repub nomination. As it is, I don’t think it is time to get panicky about this.
Thoughtcrime
Oh, he give me moonshine whiskey
Oh, he give me southern love
Deep in the heart of Texas
There beneath the stars above
Oh, he give me southern comfort
Oh, he give me moonshine love
Deep in the heart of Texas
There beneath the stars above
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Oh, no question there, but he’s better at dealing with the marks than Oven Mitt is.
Dollared
Long. Drawn-out. Bloody. Pyhrric. Dirty. Vicious. Well covered. Exhausting. Maker of lifetime emnities.
I don’t ask for much.
jl
Not sure surveys this early mean much, or for that matter, surveys of the teabagger GOP primary crowd mean much either, whether late or early.
This kind of Christian wants to fire and replace the current preacher man (person) at frequent and regular intervals. Familiarity breeds contempt and boredom, or reveals some evil flaw on a quarterly basis.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
My Dad and I had an argument about GW in 2000, I was just flabbergasted about the entire situation, particularly in Florida, and he was all “well, there’s nothing you can do about it, besides, he’s a good man”. This caused me to blow a gasket…this asshole is a damn deserter from the military, and was an officer to boot. I told my dad that he was NOT a “good man”.
Five years later, after everything that had happened in the meantime, my Dad told me that he was wrong about GW and I was right all along.
We can’t know what’s going on in other people’s heads…so many saw GW as “a good christian” and used that to wave away all the evil he was responsible for.
JC
Why would the Republican base, NOT vote for Perry, over Romney?
Really, why not?
Strikes against Romney:
Mormon
Moderate
Multiple choice Mitt reputation
One term governor of small, liberal Northeast state.
Compare to Romney:
Christian Evangelical
Came from nothin’ Texas boy. And really, he DID come from nothing. Unlike Bush.
Three wins in a huge conservative state.
Consistent in his policies, that also line up with the base.
You tell me – why would anyone choose Mitt?
Alex S.
@xian:
I’m repeating myself here but I think that the only likely white knight, and the only one who could unify the republican factions, and the only one who could seriously threaten Obama’s reelection, is Jeb Bush.
Big Baby DougJ
@Thoughtcrime:
Streamline promenade, streamline promenade
Yutsano
@Dollared: A furious torrent of feather and fur worthy of our esteemed blog overlord Tunch.
I’ll make popcorn. :)
El Tiburon
Romney should run as a Democrat.
Bet that douchenozzle would win the entire goddamn thing.
The Dangerman
Right now, Perry is the preferred flavor of the ABR (anybody but Romney) crowd; wait until Sarah jumps in the race in about a week (roughly timed to coincide with a hurricane going by or hitting DC).
Romney has no chance, but neither does Perry; eventually, his complete and total unelectability will swing numbers to someone else (not saying that’s Palin, but she’s probably more electable than Perry).
catclub
@The Dangerman: “(roughly timed to coincide with a hurricane going by or hitting DC).”
lol
cat48
So far, Gov Goodhair is not well liked by Hispanics and Independents. So, he’s my favorite Teapublican right now. Bachmann seems to be losing support to him in the last 2 polls I’ve seen.
Dollared
@Yutsano: Hey, I hear I owe you for one Costco size martini, plus tax and tip.
Thanks for covering for me. We’ll have to set another meetup (some day when the roads are actually open), so I can repay the favor.
jibeaux
@JC:
Because if the end game is beating Obama, they may be tempted by the guy who polls better with independents. This approach requires pragmatism and a willingness to compromise, not hallmarks of the Republican primary voter, however. Hence, the uncertainty.
Mark S.
@The Dangerman:
Boy, I don’t think so, at least not now. Maybe when people get to know Perry a little better, and realize that he talks and thinks an awful lot like Bush.
Bulworth
Romney is also not attending DeMint’s “Kiss The Ring” (via TPM) ceremony in SC. Apparently he’s waiting for Bachmann and Perry to punch themselves out.
gocart mozart
@The Dangerman:
We need Trump in it to shake things up.
Thoughtcrime
@Big Baby DougJ:
Gonna put on his hot pants
And promenade down funky broadway ’till the cows come home
http://mbouffant.blogspot.com/2011/08/rick-crotch-perry.html
Ian
@Makewi:
Congress does the budget, not the prez. Spending is their issue. Or are you in the crowd of Father-in-Chief
FlipYrWhig
@Mark S.:
He talks and thinks an awful lot like Palin too.
Violet
For more info on Perry, check out Texas Monthly’s Perry Trove –everything they’ve ever written on Perry.
SiubhanDuinne
Somebody on either MSNBC or CNN this morning (they have consecutive channel numbers, and I wasn’t really paying much attention) seemed to be giving Marco Rubio a pretty thorough tongue bath and was just panting for him to
declare his candidacyride to the rescue on his white horse.Yutsano
@Dollared: It’s all good. There’s actually a whole story as to how it all went down but I’ll hold that for an open thread later tonight. I was actually waiting for the right moment to tap you on the shoulder, but SoBeale beat me to the punch. We need to just do the meet-up thing again on our own anyway, we had so much fun it should have been illegal! Maybe we can get Kay to visit…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Dangerman:
They have to chose someone since they haven’t been able to run the zombie of Ronald Reagen yet. It’s starting to look like with the GOP the nominee is who they hate the lest and Perry has the biggest block GOP voters who don’t hate him.
Big Baby DougJ
@Thoughtcrime:
It is surely a measure of my premature senility that I find those lyrics poetic.
Blue Neponset
@Ian: The President sends a budget to Congress each year. LINK
The President can also veto spending bills as Clinton did in 1995.
cmorenc
@El Tiburon:
One of the most maddening things about Romney is that his original version (as Mass governor) would have made him an appealing “moderate” democrat, who (had he stuck to that) could have credibly switched parties to the dems using the rationale “I didn’t leave the GOP, they left me”. The only reason he lost the Senate race to Kennedy was that he was running as an R against such a capably entrenched, potent legend in a heavily democratic state, and he probably would have succeeded as a dem candidate in many other states.
But noooo, instead he has tried to morph himself chameleon-like in the ever-more radically reddening colors of the GOP base that increasingly only accepts bona fide true believers. In the process, he’s revealed himself to be a political phony, trusted by no one outside the commercial wing of the GOP (and more adopted as the most reliably malleable alternative than trusted by them).
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
Or what passes for “thinking” on the part of Palin.
KG
I keep watching the statewide polls, and the ones coming out with Perry in them, don’t bode well for the GOP in the general. Obama actually leads Perry in Texas, doesn’t really move any blue states into the “in play” category, and runs somewhere between Bachmann and Romney in competitiveness.
As far as the primaries go… I don’t know. Perry looks like he might win Iowa now, Romney still holds NH and Nevada. South Carolina is going to be important, but I don’t think it’s going to decide it. Oh and Romney still holds Florida against Perry.
End of the day, I just don’t think the GOP really has the heart to pick a guy out of turn again. They know, deep down, that’s what happened in 2000 and that it was a disaster, they just won’t admit it.
gocart mozart
@Mark S.:
Actually he’s not as smart as Bush! Check out the vid at Cesca’s blog. Dumbya vs Dumbya-er
Ian
@JC:
Because they want to beat Obama
gocart mozart
The Republicans should just cut to the chase and nominate a sack of cow manure with a dog eared copy of the King James Bible as V.P. and get it over with.
Violet
@KG:
It’s Romney’s “turn” based on him coming in second in 2008’s primaries. But an argument could also be made that it’s Palin’s “turn.” She was second in line last time around.
Ian
@Blue Neponset:
I stand corrected. Thank you
kindness
Naaa. See, if Perry prays hard enough the baby Jebesus is going to come down from on high and stuff all the ballot boxes with his name & he’ll be King of all of us….I only have one question with respect tho this scenerio…Is the baby jebesus going to bogart that high or is he going to share it with the rest of us?
catclub
@cmorenc: This is convincing as soon as one forgets the ‘changes parties in mid-stream for
pure self interested reasons’ part.
Switchers are generally ( Strom Thurmond excepted) extremely unpopular with _both_ sides. Note success of some senator from pennsylvania.
dmsilev
Headline in today’s The Onion: “White-Hot GOP Race Down To Two Mentally Ill People, Person Who Lost Nomination Last Time”.
Can’t argue with that, really.
Mark S.
@gocart mozart:
Is that the abstinence one? I thought he sounded almost exactly like Bush when he would get stumped on a question. You know, where you can see the overweight hamster who hadn’t worked out in years desperately trying to get back on the wheel.
Wiesman
I have no idea who will win the GOP nomination. How’s that for compelling addition to the discussion? I think the people who are counting Romney out (GOS, et al) are giving way too much credit to the effect that Rush/Beck/Hannity have on the people who actually vote. Remember that AM radio hated John McCain in 2008 too, and he won.
I know that the Teavangelicals have changed the dynamic in the last 4 years, but I’m not convinced the PTB within the GOP will actually let someone like Perry or Bachmann get the nod.
If Romney wins (and I think it’s the most likely scenario) he could easily defeat Obama because the GOP base will fall in line, hold their noses, and vote as they’re told. The economy will still suck because Eric Cantor and McConnell will still be doing everything possible to ensure it does. No one in the media will bother to point that out.
However, if Perry or Bachmann do manage to become the GOP nominee, expect the DNC’s keynote speech to be given by a sad Jon Huntsman. You heard that here first. (Probably.)
Violet
@catclub:
Both Perry and Romney have switched parties, so that kind of evens the playing field. Other candidates can make a big deal of it about both of them, though.
JGabriel
@Mark S.:
Riddle: Why does Bush hate Perry?
Answer: Because he makes George look intellectual.
.
Makewi
It’s exciting because whoever the GOP nominates will almost assuredly be the next POTUS. I’m hoping for Bachman.
Derf
That means Romney will have to crank up the crazy as well. You can bet your bottom dollar on it.
gocart mozart
@Mark S.:
Yes, but don’t you think it was even worse than Bush would have done?
Derf
@Makewi: That’s either a lame attempt at sarcasm or a lame attempt at trolling.
Xenos
@Makewi: Now you are just joshin’ with us.
If Obama wins re-election, a rebuilt GOP could rise again and become a successful political party. If Bachman becomes president in 2012 she will certainly be the last Republican President of the United States.
Brachiator
But the wild card is that GOP voters firmly rejected Romney in 2008, who dropped out of the race by what? early February.
But it’s all different now. Supposedly. Wise pundits and Fantasy Political Football League players all agree.
But let’s play. Suppose Romney, unlike Hillary and Rudy goes from being the pseudo-inevitable choice to the actual nominee. Will the GOP then embrace its Inner Freak with a Perry or Bachmann or similar type as the VP candidate?
Danton
Daily Kos has a video clip up right now of Perry telling a bunch of Iowa Republicans that he’s going to eliminate Social Security and Medicare.
Yeah, that’s going to go over big.
JC
@JGabriel: Sweet joke. Scary as well, but sweet joke.
David in NY
Two questions:
1. Remember, Palin was everbody’s fave for about five minutes in 2008. Is Perry just having his fresh-new-face Palin bounce?
2. So, is his being the winner good or bad for the Democrats?
Dennis SGMM
@Danton:
It’s going to be a tough sell in Florida too.
Makewi
If the GOP nominates someone folks here would even begin to consider moderate then they will lose. If they nominate an actual conservative, or one who seems as one (see Bush), they will win. Bachman has a real shot at it, because confidence in captain Malaise is low and getting lower.
trollhattan
@Derf:
Considering it doesn’t even know how to spell “Bachmann” I’d not give it further attention.
JGabriel
@Derf:
Makewi is a long-time troll who hasn’t been around much recently.
So … the latter rather than the former.
.
The Dangerman
@Mark S.:
They will get tired of that ABR flavor of the month; I’ve yet to hear him challenged about his views on SS and Medicare. As soon as he is, he flatlines.
After the flavor turns sour, Sarah will be more electable than Perry; Perry actually has positions/record he has to defend, while Sarah is little more than a political centerfold.
The Dangerman
@Xenos:
FTFY
Dennis SGMM
@JGabriel:
Don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. Around ten minutes ago he started posting about how much he likes pie.
PK
You should ask john cole. He voted for him twice and then turned around and became a democrat. I saw GB and saw an empty headed twit who was not fit to breath. A lot of others apparently saw a dreamboat. I saw Obama and thought “not insane”. A lot of liberals saw an answer to all their prayers.
Chyron HR
@Makewi:
Is that the guy who goes around to all the closed factories and complains about how terrible America is, or the guy who holds the prayer rallies and complains about how terrible America is?
ET
I don’t know who will get the Republican nomination. All I do know is that after beating each other up for months someone will and whoever does the GOP will get behind like the previous months never occurred. They will swoon and swagger and say this person is way more qualified than Obama (even if glaring problems arose during the primary season). I don’t know what this means for those few moderates that are still around and still hold out hope for the GOP and a candidate they could vote for. I do think a majority of Republicans will get behind “their guy” because that is what Republicans do, but I am sure there are a few who will just stay home think “a pox on both your house.”
Personally, I don’t know that any of the candidates are particularly good, and I think Republicans have a sense of this as well. You can see it when a new darling shows up shows up like Might Mouse singing “here I come to save the day.”
Villago Delenda Est
@The Dangerman:
Those soft and fuzzy sweaters,
too magical to touch
__
To see her in that negligee
is really just too much
Judas Escargot
@Xenos:
(Minor edit.)
ETA: Dangerman beat me to it!
Brachiator
@The Dangerman:
Very apt description.
Paul in KY
@Alex S.: Jeb has a crazy wife. I don’t think he really wants to get her into the pressure cooker.
scav
@The Dangerman:
The way we get a new one every month, it seems like they all are.
catclub
@Wiesman: “Remember that AM radio hated John McCain in 2008 too, and he won.”
I remember that too, but didn’t they LIKE Romney then?
Did they like anyone else? Tom Tancredo perhaps?
Pat Buchanan 16 years later? I got nothin.
catclub
@Paul in KY: “Jeb has a crazy wife.”
New euphemism for Latina?
catclub
@ET: “Republicans will get behind “their guy” because that is what Republicans do.”
Unlike Hillary and all the PUMA’s who sat out and gave the election to McCain in 2008.
Both sides do tribalism fairly well. I did not say identically.
Paul in KY
@catclub: No, she is crazy. She is also latina, I believe. Had a shoplifting problem as well.
Think of a Republican version of Kitty Dukakis.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Paul in KY: Yea and look at all this commie stuff she’s into:
JPL
@The Dangerman: If Bachman wins the United States will never be the same.
gocart mozart
@Paul in KY:
Wouldn’t that still make her more sane than the primary voters?
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
You mean like her crack fiend daughter, perhaps?
ppcli
@Xenos:
Fixed
EDIT:
Damn, I am way late to this party. Dangerman and Mr. Escargot ate all the hors d’oevres.
Paul in KY
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Show me a Governor’s wife that doesn’t have some of that going on. Did I piss you off by giving my opinion of Mrs. Bush?
Paul in KY
@gocart mozart: Yes, it would.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Paul in KY: Not at all, I just thought all that stuff was interesting. Had nothing to do with your view.
Origuy
@Paul in KY: Wikipedia doesn’t mention shoplifting, just a Customs infraction. She didn’t declare everything she brought back, because she didn’t want Jeb to know how much she bought.
karen marie
Have there been any polls measuring apathy among “moderate Republicans? Does anyone know whether nomination of a member of the lunatic fringe, like, say, O’Donnell in Delaware, suppressed Republican turnout?
Joel
At this point, the republicans might as well go with this kind of primary.
marv
@Thoughtcrime:
Thanks – I’m pretty new to this site and thought the title of the post had to be a Van Morrison reference, but wasn’t sure.
JPL
Jeb’s wife had a little problem forgetting to declare several thousand dollars of goods with customs. The repubs would say this is a plus.
kindness
I figure it’ll be Perry and he’ll lose in a thrashing to Obama.
I figure Perry because Evangelicals who seem to be running the Republithug party now would not vote for a Satanic worshiping Romeny, no matter how much Mormans appear to look like Evangelicals look like. They are still a cult worshiping group who can’t be trusted (in Evangelical’s eyes). Perry, well, he has him some major brass huevos. And as we all know, Republithugs don’t miss a chance to swoon for big brass balls. It won’t matter that most people see Perry as a stupider dubya, the primary voters will be falling all over each other to be on the receiving end of those vaulted huevos. It’ll be embarrassing to read but the Village Elders are some of the best fluffers around.
Obama….he’ll keep being ‘the adult’, he’ll keep pissing off the liberals & we masochistic libs will sheepishly vote for him even though he isn’t close to Howard Dean’s shadow….Well that and we don’t want to be thrown in a gulag for ever & ever if Perry becomes King. Enlightened self interest with a dash of masochism.
Tonybrown74
@Makewi:
OMG! This isn’t snark … you’re actually serious!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Paul in KY
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Good. I’ll probably be pissed at you once UGA gives us our annual butt whipping (since we got you last year, I know what’s coming).
Paul in KY
@Origuy: I think that was what I was thinking about, darnit. I still think she is considered somewhat emotionally fragile & Pres. politics is a pressure cooker 24/7.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Paul in KY: All these morons can talk about are the damn Nike Combat Uniforms. I sold my Boise tix and covered my season tickets so now we just have to sit back and wait. One the positive side, for me, they put the Big 10 network on our cable so I can follow my Illini!
Yutsano
Malaise is low and getting lower…I dunns think this means what you think it means.
/Inigo Montoya
rikryah
if Mittens can’t take care of Gov. Good Hair, then he shouldn’t get the nomination
Lolis
@Tonybrown74:
Makewi advocates the dumb logic on the Republican side that must make Team Obama pretty confident.
aisce
anybody who seriously believes that sarah palin or michelle bachmann has, or will have, even the remotest chance of winning the nomination has no business commenting on politics, even in an amateur, internet messageboard capacity.
you might as well believe that space aliens from omicron perseii 8 will be landing in lower manhattan tomorrow morning and that the mayans will be right about the whole 2012 thing…
Paul in KY
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): That Boise game should be very interesting. Last time you played them, you wiped the floor with them. I know they remember that. Good luck.
Xenos
@aisce: Everybody knows the Omicron Perseids are landing in midtown, dumbass.
Makewi
@Yutsano:
You have to read all the words, not just the shiny ones. It’s how communication works.
@Lolis:
Bachman 2012 – At least she isn’t Obambi!
Derf
@efgoldman: If you say so my little groupie.
Mnemosyne
@ET:
People keep saying this, but I don’t think the Republicans have nominated a surprise candidate since Eisenhower. They’re very big on following in order. GWB jumped the line by virtue of being the son of a former president, but other than that, the Republican candidate is always the next guy in the hierarchy.
It’s possible that the dynamic changed with Palin’s nomination in 2008, but I haven’t seen any signs of that. Romney will be the nominee because he’s next in line.
FlipYrWhig
@kindness:
Well, Dean is a budget-balancing, pro-gun, rural state governor who supported civil unions instead of full marriage equality and said he wanted the Democrats to be the party of guys with Confederate flag stickers on their pickup trucks — so “libs” had to be somewhat selective to fasten upon him as their standard-bearer anyway.
Tom Q
@Mnemosyne: You don’t allow even the possibility that the dynamic was changed by last year’s Senate primaries? The establishment candidates got their asses thrashed almost unilaterally (Kirk early in the season, Ayotte in NH and McCain — sitting Senator, somewhat different case — were about the only establishment candidates who survived serious challenge). I grant there’s a turnout difference between off years and presidential years, but I wouldn’t underestimate the power of the GIP id running loose.
I also think McCain’s 2008 securing of the nomination was far more tenuous than people believe (certain more tenuous than Dole’s ’96 path). McCain had a much-split group of righties dividing the vote, allowing John to win delegate-rich winner-take-all primaries. And even when he had the nomination almost in hand, he was losing as many primaries as he was winning — a far cry from what happened to Dole or Bush (or the earlier Bush), around whom the party enthusiastically rallied.
Romney largely one-on-one against Perry would be a death match, one in which I don’t think the establishment would be favored right now.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“However, if Perry or Bachmann do manage to become the GOP nominee, expect the DNC’s keynote speech to be given by a sad Jon Huntsman. You heard that here first. (Probably.)”
Not unless Obama gives Huntsman the VP slot and Biden bows out. Huntsman’s positioning himself to be the nice, stable guy the GOP returns to in 2016 after it runs off with the crazy bad boy/girl in 2012 and confounds political science models by losing the election despite unemployment >8%.
(If GDP growth in Q2 of is less than 3%, then Obama might seriously consider taking Huntsman as VP. Very Serious People would orgasm at the Bipartisanship.)
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Thank goodness that voters don’t matter.
I understand the thinking behind all this, which is matched only by the certainty about the arrival of the next iPhone and iPad, but still I think it is premature to anoint Romney.
kindness
@FlipYrWhig: You are probably accurate there. Who knows though? I figure Dean might have fought harder on a couple things. But Dean didn’t cut it and Barack did and I’m thankful for that.
btw – some of us libs own guns too. I do, but I also support gun control. There’s a difference.
Rishi Gajria
My guess is Romney changes nothing and goes through the primaries. If he loses, he can run as an independent with the republican establishment’s blessing.
t jasper parnell
While I am sure that someone has already raised this point, I would like to be clear that this statement:
Is utter bullshit. He was an economic hit man; destroying companies and jobs in the interest of neoliberalism and it’s sidekicks Globalization Guy and Outsource the Magic Otter. He is the cause of the problems he now wants to solve by, oddly enough, enforcing more of the problem creating solutions.