Now that Mitt “Willard” Romney has managed to emerge as the de facto GOP presidential nominee…
… I mean, of course the primary was rigged. The primaries are always rigged. This is not a surprise. Republican leadership knows that a Santorum candidacy in the general election would sink the party for at least eight years. I do think that there was a clear path for Santorum to seize the candidacy, and if he had acted differently over two weeks in February, he could be on top right now. The thing is, if you’re smart enough, you can accept the fact that the game is rigged, and then manipulate the rigged game to work in your favor. The Obama campaign managed it in 2008. Neither Gingrich nor Santorum (or Ron Paul) were smart enough to do it this year.
… some people, such as Charles Blow, are taking entirely too much joy in the schadenfreude:
The dream is dying. There will be no dynamic, charismatic, Reaganesque Republican presidential nominee this cycle. There won’t even be a consistent conservative. There will only be Mitt Romney.
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With his wins on Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, Romney has virtually guaranteed his lock on the Republican nomination and has practically thrown a bucket of ice water on his party’s desire for a transformative right-wing figure who could convincingly sell its draconian budget priorities and regressive social agenda to an increasingly weary middle…
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That sound you hear is the sound of despair — the hard swallowing and deep breathing by reluctant Republicans crossing their fingers and praying for the best.
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Maybe Romney will pick a game-changing running mate. Remember how well that worked last time?
Yeah, noted sketch comedian John McCain has already shared his opinion concerning such “rogue” choices… (don’t miss the video)
At the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson suppresses his laughter, barely, to handicap potential Romney running mates:
Playing second fiddle to Mitt Romney won’t be easy, but somebody has to be his running mate. Let’s handicap the field:
●Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: The choice who offers the biggest potential reward — for the biggest risk…
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●Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan: A safer choice, yet one that would restrict Romney’s freedom to maneuver during the campaign….
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●New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: A potential game-changer who could save the ticket or doom it — either way, spectacularly…
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●South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley: Given her talent for controversy, I’m begging on behalf of columnists everywhere, Mr. Romney. Please. Make our day.
And Robinson’s rogues’ gallery doesn’t even include two fairly high-profile GOP figures who, Paul Constant of Seattle’s Stranger points out, have already indicated their willingness to serve:
Santorum for Number Two!
A reporter for the Jesus News Network, or whatever, asked Rick Santorum if he’d be willing to serve as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee. Santorum’s response?Of course. I mean, look. I would do in this race as I always say, this is the most important race in our country’s history. I’m going to do everything I can. I’m doing everything I can. I’m out there…
So Rick Santorum would be willing to be the bottom for a man he’s described as a Massachusetts moderate and Republican-in-name-only who created the template for Obamacare. That’s mighty big of him. What a patriot!
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UPDATE: Newt Gingrich “wouldn’t say no” to the Massachusetts moderate if he was asked to be vice president, either. What big hearts these two have!
Heck, let’s include Jim DeMint (R-TeaParty) in the mix. Sober analysts insist that no sane politician would risk a safe Senate seat for the chance to play second banana to the guy who’s going to get crushed by President Obama come November, but then, this is “Senator DeMinted” we’re talking about…
Raven
From the Santorum interview:
Did you known this is the most important election EVAH???
Citizen_X
@Raven:
Isn’t that a ripoff of Reagan spewing about Medicare…nearly 50 years ago?
Egg Berry
@Raven:
Which is why nobody should vote for the Republicans.
Baud
FTFY
WereBear
This reveals so much of the authoritarian mindset. No explanations of how we would be “not free,” no logic, no comparisons. Someone in authority said it, so they just believe it.
They couldn’t tell you how it works without parroting what they have been told. It’s how they hold 18 contradictory thoughts in their head at once.
Their thoughts never touch.
Citizen_X
Ah, yes. From The Great Confusicator, in 1961:
The old bullshit lines never die.
c u n d gulag
I’d love to see a Romney/Ryan ticket.
The two of them will look like the two guys on the centerpiece of a Gay wedding cake.
FSM forbid, though, that they win.
WereBear
Yup. Small and artificial.
Shari
What will they think of next?
Anti-abortion group expands protests to fertilization clinic
c u n d gulag
The Republicans may end up having Susana Martinez as Romney’s VP, in the hopes that she can snag some of the women’s and Hispanic votes that are running away from the party like it’s an ammo-dump that’s on fire.
My dark-horse (no pun intended) for VP is J.C. Watts.
He’s a former College Football hero, and was a solid Black Conservative in the House.
He’s been lobbying since leaving Congress, so he’s had a fairly low profile as the Republicans have declined into dementia over the last few years faster than an Alzheimer’s patient on a Bourbon bender.
magurakurin
who gives a shit(but I don’t say that to discourage conjecture because it is all in good fun) but really what difference does it make?
Romney + (anybody you care to choose) will never get 270 electoral votes.
not gonna happen.
I’m still going to donate as much as I can to Obama and encourage everyone with a pulse to vote for him. But the truth is, Romney really is that bad.
bob h
“..the hard swallowing and deep breathing by reluctant Republicans crossing their fingers and praying for more weak jobs numbers.”
Comrade Baron Elmo
Marco Rubio may be the obvious choice for Romney’s veep slot, many think… but my question is: why on earth would Rubio go for it, assuming that his common sense outweighs his ego? (Never a strong bet with Repubs, I’ll grant you.)
Rubio is still young, and assuming he remains scandal-free, has years aplenty to make his play for the White House. Why play second banana to an empty suit like Romney, who looks very likely to get sliced and diced by the Obama thresher anyhow?
If Marco really wants a shot at the top, he’d be far wiser to bide his time until 2016. A Rubio/Huckabee ticket would put smiles on a lot of grizzled old Gooper faces.
Cheryl from Maryland
@WereBear: and plastic.
Southern Beale
They needed to have that dynamic, charismatic, Reaganesque Republican presidential Dadddy, er I mean primary candidate before they could get that person to be nominee.
The only person who they’d follow around like puppies with their tongues hanging out is Jeb and I do believe it’s too soon after the Bush debacle for another Bush debacle.
Anyway, as for the primary being rigged, the Ron Paul people have been saying this forever. That’s the only reason their crackpot racist anti-Seimitic homophobic extremist hero didn’t win any delegates. The ONLY one.
gene108
@c u n d gulag:
Or Alan West. He’s currently in Congress and a retired Army officer/Iraq War veteran.
I can’t see them nominating Nikki Haley. It’d be a repeat of Palin’s botched nomination, though Haley’s probably smarter and less egotistical in terms of working with campaign advisers to not screw things up.
If they’re going brown, I think Bobby Jindal maybe on the list. Unlike Haley, he’s a very popular governor right now. Second, he’s a very devout Christian, which will help Romney attract folks, who believe (a) religion is important and (b) Mormonism is a cult and not a religion.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Christ – putting Newt as your VP seems like an open invitation to be found some day having accidentally stabbed yourself with a comb while grooming, in the back, 47 times.
Southern Beale
I have a comment awaiting moderation. I don’t know what the naughty word is I used, either.
Ben Cisco (mobile)
@c u n d gulag: UNASS THE AO!
Southern Beale
I think Reince Priebus really stepped in it with his War On Caterpillars crap. Basically he was saying, “Ladies it’s all in your heads this anti-woman legislation being foisted on you around the country and in Washington …”
That was as offensive and infuriating as the legislation itself. But remember: the war on Christians is REAL! Honest!!!!
I think if the GOP continues to lose women voters Priebus will be replaced … with a woman. It worked so well with black voters when they had Michael Steele in charge, right?
Ben Cisco (mobile)
@c u n d gulag: Watts won’t come anywhere near this mess. Near as I can tell, he has stayed well away from the NeoConfederate freak out. That, and he’s young enough to let this train wreck blow by.
Nancy
@Baud: And I just heard on the Driftglass/Bluegal podcast yesterday that some douche in Arizona wants to introduce a bill that would declare a woman is pregnant two weeks before fertilization takes place. Wut?
Can we officially declare that the wingularity has occurred?
And when Romney loses, “they” will say he wasn’t conservative enough besides being a Mormon and “they” will quadruple down on the crazy
Egg Berry
West has a torture problem. Plus, he’s an idiot. Won’t be him.
Nancy
@Egg Berry: And Jindal has an exorcism problem.
ericblair
I seriously don’t know what they’re going to do for the sacrificial veep candidate. Look at the recent history: Dick “Dick” Cheney, and Moose Whisperer. When those candidates were announced, you could practically hear the WTF reverberate from one end of the country to the other, until programming (goopers) or laughter (Dems) kicked in.
Fuck knows what these strategic masterminds are thinking, or who paid off who or who’s got the pictures in the brown envelope in their little club.
SiubhanDuinne
@Nancy:
For the sake of my sanity, I have to hope and believe that this is one of those deliberate, over-the-top ridiculous bills introduced by a Democratic legislator to point up the stupidity of the Thugs. Either that, or an Onion report.
Egg Berry
@Nancy:
As I understand it, the wingularity never occurs, it is always just out of reach.
Nancy
@SiubhanDuinne: Don’t know the details, but we can safely say “We are all pregnant now”—except for you fellas. But remember, “First they came for the pregnant ones….”
And my money for the veep slot is on Martinez of NM. She has a vagina and she’s Hispanic and she has a birth certificate.
WereBear
Yeah, that won’t get you Veep! That’s what Republicans like in their President!
c u n d gulag
@Ben Cisco (mobile):
Help – “AO” – what’s that mean?
SiubhanDuinne
@Nancy:
@SiubhanDuinne:
Holy fuck, I just googled it and it’s true!
So, lemme get this straight. An unfertilized ovum and an unreleased sperm are a viable baby. Kind of like, Sodium and Chlorine are viable table salt. Okay then.
Nancy
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, and portable nitrogen freezing units are in the offing for men in case they should accidentally jack off and kill a baby.
Chris
@Southern Beale:
Ron Paul loses because of what, in the conserva-verse, is called a “blame America first” policy. He could double his support overnight if he just framed it a little differently (e.g. less “we’re doing the wrong thing therefore ISOLATIONISM!” and more “we’re doing the right thing but those stinking darkies don’t appreciate it, so they don’t deserve our awesomeness, therefore ISOLATIONISM!”
Raven
@c u n d gulag: Area of Operations, ie, wherever the fuck you are. I guess you can figure out “unass”?
ColleenMary
@Nancy: The whole pregnant-before-you-really-are thing is a scam (of course), but an interesting one. Counting the age of the fetus from the date of the woman’s last menstrual period (instead of the date of conception) means that outlawing abortion after 20 weeks is actually outlawing it after 18 weeks–which will mean that some women will discover “too late” that their fetus has a terrible abnormality (some prenatal tests can’t be run until X weeks–I don’t know the details).
The “interesting” part is that the lunatics who did this can defend themselves by saying, “Hey, this is how doctors count the weeks of pregnancy!’ and that’s actually true. No one knows exactly when conception occurs, so the 40 weeks of pregnancy is figured from the date of a woman’s last menstrual period.
Baud
@Nancy:
Clearly, the only long-term solution to this dilemma is to implant tiny cameras in women’s fallopian tubes so we have clear evidence of when conception occurs.
dmsilev
@Shari:
That sort of thing has been percolating for a while; it’s what underlay all the screaming and whining about embryonic stem cells and the like. The idea that a collection of a dozen or so cells should be sacred and sacrosanct and so forth is the ultimate end-goal of the anti-abortion types.
Never mind that some reasonably large number of pregnancies don’t make it past that stage of their own accord anyway. I guess that’s “God’s Will” and is therefore OK.
Robin
I usually like reading Eugene Robinson, but I had to stop when he got to discussing Bobby Jindal’s potential, and described him as being “like Romney, a data-driven technocrat”. In what alternative universe are any senior Republicans data driven? They specialize in data-free imaginings about how the world works, and then lie about everything they can.
El Cid
This is really implausible. Newt Gingrich is the smartest, grandest human being and god-leader who ever existed — just ask him.
No, no, Gingrich must have had some master plan, probably working at levels which we mere toadstool-level humans could never even glimpse.
c u n d gulag
@Raven:
Thanks!
As for the “unass” – that part I got :-)
El Cid
@Robin: No, they just use different “data” than we would. Such as, “What Would Republican Jesus Do?”
Bago
@Baud: There are several companies in California that I’m sure could provide that service.
danielx
Um….yeah. Hate to let you down, Mr. Santorum, but thanks to the War on Drugs and the Forever War on Terror, the freedom train left the station some time back – we’re now the land of the spied upon and home of the terrified. And as far as your hypothetical granddaughter goes your definition of freedom and hers might differ just a wee bit, since as far as I can tell your definition of freedom for her means barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Robin:
Unless Jindal has a head-slashing past similar to Romney’s at Bain — “cutting costs” is driven by data right? — I’m not seeing the comparison. Of course the two men have so much else in common: They have both served as governor, both have personalities as dull as dishwater, both are lauded for their intelligence but say mind-numbingly stupid things, both are supported by PACs which they disavow involvement with, etc.
liberal
@Robin:
In the same universe that Alan “#1 guy responsible for the housing bubble” Greenspan was data driven. (That’s one of the claims that people who admire the Evil One make—that he’d pour over trend data to make macroeconomic judgements.)
liberal
@dmsilev:
Yeah, it’s the natural end-point of the view that life begins at fertilization.
Egg Berry
@Robin:
(movie preview voice) In a universe where Ayn Rand is considered good fiction, and Paul Ryan knows economics … (/movie preview voice)
Davis X. Machina
The GOP VP pick will be a dark-ish horse. Western state senator or governor, very conservative, but with not much of a back catalog of You-Tube hits. Probably fairly recently elected, and stuck behind too many walruses to ever make a run on his own.
Someone who’s never getting out of the pack of roughly-comparables unless he’s pulled out of it by someone higher up the food chain. Their John Edwards…
Mike Enzi, say, or Dave Heinemann
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
It’s weird….anyone know why I don’t have the text editing buttons here anymore? I can get them when I visit the site on other computers, but not my home computer. I though it might have been NoScript, but disabling it didn’t change it. The only other thing I can think of is the fact that I’m on Firefox 11 and the other computers I was visiting on were earlier versions.
Emma
@Nancy: yes. That’s my bet too.
rikyrah
I’d love to see a Romney/Ryan ticket.
The two of them will look like the two guys on the centerpiece of a Gay wedding cake.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
chopper
dogg, the biggest reason mittens is this far ahead is newtie’s ego.
that’s really it.
Shawn in ShowMe
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57409507/republicans-affirm-lack-of-interest-in-vp-slot/
It’s just not like our friends across the aisle to shirk their civic responsiblity. For FSM’s sake people, there’s a KENYAN in the White House!!
Shari
@SiubhanDuinne:
Over 6 states passed similar laws last year – all based on the fetal pain concept. Thank the AUL.
askew
Someone much smarter than me at DK suggested Gov. Luis Fortuño of Puerto Rico as a bold choice for Romney’s VP. I can’t wrap my head around the GOP base accepting anyone not from the 50 U.S. states on the ticket, but it would be a game changer.
Ben Cisco
@c u n d gulag: Raven beat me to it.
Sorry, chasing LittleMan all over the joint today…
JPL
@Davis X. Machina: My bet was Bob McDonnell but he has recently become a lightening rod because of his anti-woman views. Dave Heinemann wasn’t thrilled about the pipeline going through his state because of aquifers so it would be difficult to run against the President on that issue.
Shawn in ShowMe
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57409507/republicans-affirm-lack-of-interest-in-vp-slot/
It’s just not like our friends across the aisle to shirk their civic responsiblity. For FSM’s sake people, there’s a KENYAN in the White House!!
danielx
Santorum as Vice President…now there’s a concept. Perhaps Mittens will take a page from W’s book and put Santorum in charge of the portfolio for National Morality, as opposed to National Security. Anybody who uses birth control or engages in anything other than missionary position sex for procreation? Detention camp and waterboarding, coming right up.
askew
@Davis X. Machina:
That leaves a serious gap in foreign policy on the ticket though. And for once, foreign policy is our guy’s strong suit.
I think we are more likely to see a senator than another governor. Maybe Lugar?
JPL
My dark horse for Vice-President is Joe Lieberman because bi-partisanship is good for the country. hahahahaha
bomb, bomb, bomb iran also,too.
MikeJ
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Same here.
Shawn in ShowMe
@JPL:
A lightening rod for who? I thought turning the clock back on women was part of the Republican plafform. Think of the tidal wave of suppport he’d receive from the Phyllis Schafly wing.
JPL
@Shawn in ShowMe: That’s not the wing of the party they want. They have the ant-Obama vote locked up.
Shawn in ShowMe
@JPL:
If there were any moderate Republicans capable of bolstering the Romney ticket, wouldn’t that person have secured the Presidential nomination instead of Romney?
Rommie
I’m really not sure Mittens will pick anyone who’s not pasty white. He’s got enough of a problem in the South on his own, and adding a VP that’s any shade of brown just multiplies that problem.
Perhaps it’s safe to say Romney will win the usual southern states anyway, but it’s also fairly safe to say his base in the states he has to win to get to 270 are just as afraid of the blah, and just as likely to give the leery eye to any running mate who’s anywhere close to near.
Mike in NC
@askew:
He must have a few molecules of self-respect, and therefore be ineligible to run.
JPL
McCain was able to get 46% of the vote even though Palin was a complete farce. How adept does the candidate have to be?
c u n d gulag
@askew:
Luger would be a great choice!
He’s got a ton of foreign policy experience.
He knew the Tsar and the Kaiser personally!
Smedley the uncertain
@SiubhanDuinne:
Seems to be real.
Mike in NC
Meg Whitman for VP? Some selling points for the GOP:
So she’s rich and married to a guy with a “IV” after his name. Kid has a “V” after his name!
Worked for Bain? Holy shit, Willard!
Features, not bugs! On the other hand:
OK, just hire some PR firm to cover up any inconvenient previous stands, then write a book and some op-eds to make yourself not look like a flip-flopper, just like Romney has done.
JGabriel
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Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Kitsch, is dead. In memoriam, here is a 2004 tribute from SomethingAwful.
Here’s one I particularly like: the cow’s startled eyes, and the casual way the farmer holds her tail, really make it a standout homage.
.
Jay in Oregon
“Santorum for Number Two”? Really?
Do people ever think of the snickers a headline like that… oh, wait, it’s The Stranger. Carry on.
Tripod
Ted Nugent.
kindness
I think Sanitorum will be the VP candidate.
Makes sense trying to bring the wingnutz/dominionist faction into the race.
SiubhanDuinne
@JGabriel:
This is good news for Jon McNaughton!
Hal
@Mike in NC:
Forbes has listed Meg Whitman’s worth at
1.31.137 $Billion.Forbes should fix that. 163 million of your own money and she still lost to Jerry Brown. Last I heard she was now looking to challenge Feinstein in 2012.
WereBear
@JGabriel: I do believe I will do little else today, thanks to you and your link-fu!
Hal
I think Paul Ryan is the obvious, starring everyone in the face choice. These two are running around together like secret lovers lately. Hell, everytime I see Mittens making a speech, Ryan’s in the background clapping like a seal. Seems like a trial run to me.
Baud
I’m going with Ryan as # 2. He and Romney seem to have a connection, Ryan is beloved by both rank-and-file and the big money folks, and the Wisconsin connection can’t hurt.
22over7
I think Romney will pick a white guy. Susanna Martinez gets him nothing except maybe New Mexico and its three electoral votes. The R base is not happy about Romney, and nominating a blah or broh person, or a uterine-American, would cause him to lose more than he’d win.
My guess is either Ryan or Santorum.
Lawnguylander
I have no idea who they’ll pick and, in fact, I care much less which evil douche they pick than how they go about nominating said evil douche. I’m talking something like the Reagan-Ford mid 1980 convention dalliance. Only, instead of playing out over the course of a few days with Walter Cronkite, Sander Vanocur and the like commmentating soberly about the idea of a co-presidency, their viewers enjoying the drama immensely, it begins weeks before the convention and it is ugly and horrifying to the people of the nation. The internet just might break and we’d have Rush Limbaugh calling for wingnuts to take to the streets if his favored co-president isn’t given the nod. Could be him, come to think of it. Or maybe Cheney emerges. Like I said, I don’t know.
Not Sure
@gene108: Steve Inskeep had Haley on the other morning. She seemed to be quite an interesting person…at first. Then the conversation turned away from her and her family heritage (they’re Sihks) and her conversion to Christianity and so on to Romney’s recent comments in the War On Women. This is when she shifted to the standard talking points of “the (liberal) media really did him a disservice by (doing what, repeating what he actually said?). That’s when I turned the radio off in disgust.
Frankensteinbeck
The primary was only rigged by the utter incompetence of Romney’s opponents. It’s been a battle between ‘Get out the what?’ and ‘I hear people voting for me is good. Someone look into that.’ The latter, just barely, is pulling through.
suzanne
The “Santorum = Number Two” jokes write themselves.
I’ve thought it would be Susana Martinez for a long time, but I’m not sure who would want to lash themselves to this Train of Fail and be dragged down the track.
Oh fuck, I kinda hope it’s Brewer. It might get her the fuck outta here for a bit.
suzanne
@JGabriel: I commented this morning to my husband that Kinkade’s work is the visual equivalent of the Double Down.
Maybe now those prints will skyrocket in value, approaching $10.
suzanne
@JGabriel: I commented this morning to my husband that Kinkade’s work is the visual equivalent of the Double Down.
Maybe now those prints will skyrocket in value, approaching $10.
Brachiator
@ericblair:
I am not sure of your point here. I actually recall stupidly arrogant LA liberals laughing over the Bush Cheney ticket. And yet these two, with Cheney as the stronger co president, rose to power and have nearly destroyed America. Many of their policies are still in place.
Palin in some ways inspired the Tea Party and accelerated the right’s run toward rigid stupidity.
Laughter and astonishment don’t count for much when Republicans like this continue to win elections and influence voters.
And the GOP will have to double down on this. The VP choice will certainly be strongly anti abortion, possibly a woman, and someone who will come across as being stronger, less wishy washy than Romney. A Dick Cheney in a dress.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: Fabulous comment! I’d have also predicted the same thing for John McCain if he and Sarah Palin had won in 2008.
Anya
How about Mitch Daniels? Oh yeah, he won’t be useful because, aside from being Bush’s Budget Director, and potential tabloid target, he apparently misplaced $526 million of tax payers money. I wonder if next time he’s on Morning Joe, he’ll be asked about this “mistake”?
Palli
@magurakurin:
…and I wonder why Romney wanted “failed GOP nominee for president” on his resume…isn’t “failed GOP candidate for president” good enough?
Brachiator
@Mike in NC: Meg Whitman was a political novice. The idea was to try to foist her on the California voters as a more competent version of Arnold the Guvernator. This failed spectacularly.
On top of this, she has more money than Romney and is four times as cluelessly out of touch as Mittens. It is hard to see the GOP going for an All Stuffy Oligarch ticket.
But it would be fun to watch.
Amir Khalid
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I read somewhere that John Nance Garner’s description of the VP job was bowdlerized by the media of the day, from “… not worth a bucket of warm piss.”
As for Mitt’s VP pick, I suspect:
(a) Whoever it is won’t fix what’s wrong with Mitt. He won’t make Mitt look less like a transparent phony. If he’s a devout non-Mormon Christian himself, he will only make the anti-Mormon bigots wonder why he signed up with a Mormon.
(b) No one who fancies his own presidential run in 2016 would fancy going down in flames with Mitt in 2012.
(c) To beat Obama, Mitt would need a running mate more popular than he is with the general electorate. If there is such a Republican, which I really doubt, why isn’t HE the presidential candidate?
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: It will be a woman.
They will look at how they have messed themselves up with women, and they won’t be able to help themselves. They are so misogynistic that they truly believe running a woman, any woman, will satisfy “the ladies.”
MikeJ
@Palli: Who knows, maybe the horse will learn to fly….
Something horrible could happen between now and November. A nuke goes off in a shipping container in an American harbour, speculators drive gas to $10/gallon, one of Derbyshire’s readers stands his ground when Obama makes a personal appearance. Mitt wouldn’t win today, but anything can happen.
nellcote
@Hal:
Orly Taintz currently in the lead for gooper sen. candidate.
http://www.calbuzz.com/2012/04/press-clips-the-difi-vs-orly-the-taitz-show/
GG
@Nancy: She strikes me as an actual good choice for VP in the context. I hope they don’t pick her, because Martinez is someone who might actually improve Mitt’s chances.
@JGabriel: Now that I’ve stopped laughing enough to type, thanks for the link. Wish I’d seen it sooner. I’m inspired to finish my own “Painter of Blight” photoshop that’s been languishing for years.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
That chorus of no-thankyous reveals what potential running mates really think of Mitt’s presidential chances. No running mate, in pants or in a skirt, could save the Republican ticket. The eminently sane Michele Bachmann? That pillar of probity and competence, Nikki Haley, or her Arizona counterpart Jan Brewer? The acclaimed captain of industry, Carly Fiorina? Or another go for the brilliant Sarah Palin? It is to laugh.
They’ll wind up with their idea of a least-bad candidate, as they have with Romney. It could be a woman, but I think we all agree that that wouldn’t avert the inevitable train wreck.
Nancy
Martinez is actually pretty smart and probably wouldn’t hitch her wagon to a dead horse. And it might backfire on Romney if he chose her. Such an obvious pander might insult more women and Hispanics than it would woo.
Origuy
Meg Whitman is currently CEO of HP (and hence, my ultimate boss.) I didn’t vote for her for Governor, and wouldn’t for anything else, but she’s doing a good job as CEO, IMO. She doesn’t talk like someone who wants to leave the job she just started. I think the failed run for governor put out the fire in her belly for politics.
Gretchen
I think it will be Paul Ryan. I listened to a speech he gave with Romney about how “Obamacare” makes the Catholic Church pay for contraception, and what a violation of religious liberty that is. Then I saw that he only has 3 kids. I grew up Catholic. Families of 6,8,12 kids were very common. Families of 3? Those were the hussies that made my mother say, “and then she goes MARCHING UP TO COMMUNION,” the shameless hussy. Sorry, 3 kids, no contraception, does not compute in the world of the traditional Catholic.
Matt
@Raven:
The only way that statement from Frothy Mix makes any sense is if he’s implying that he needs to be elected HARD, so that he and his buddies can make things SO bad that his Iron Age imaginary friend fires up the Rapture machine.
Patricia Kayden
I’m not ready to gloat about President Obama cruising to an easy victory over Romneybot and whoever he chooses as VP. Would love to see Romneybot choose Ryan or some other unlovable bastard. That would make it easier for Obama.
Hopefully all the block the vote legislation in the Red States won’t discourage Dems from getting out and voting. We need every vote for this election — not just for President Obama but to get back the House.
pattonbt
I still go with McDonnell or Thune. If they add the crazy, they get the same dynamic as in 2008 (having crazy rabid underling unhinged hurting the top of the ticket – losing moderates but amping up the crazies). And if this is time 2 on “going rouge” there won’t be the same honeymoon and excitement as last time with Palin. The media will start immediately with Palin comparisons. And I cant imagine a Martinez or Rubio wanting to be painted as Sarah Palin 2 from the start. “Going Rouge” is dead for this election cycle.
No, I think Romney is boxed into a safe, hard right, telegenic white man from a swing state (or the mythical “west”).
mainmati
@Citizen_X: I think the vast majority of the low information Goopers actually think that they won’t ever need health insurance (therefore they’re free!!! also too!) and will just continue to sally into hospitals for free healthcare! And they will continue to be surprised as they face enormous bills the first time they get hospitalized and/or find themselves unable to get health insurance for the asking.
These people are idiots and happy to drag the rest of the country into the toilet.
Ron
I wish I was as confident as some that Obama will cruise to victory in November. I hope he does, but I’m not sure that it’s a given.