Best Republican ticket for '12?

[pbrower2a]

I may be way off here, but I wonder if Mel Martinez retirement might be the prelude to a 2012 White Hourse run.  If you look at the '08 electoral map, the first thing Republicans have to do is take away Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada from the blue column, and Martinez seems the most obvious choice for that purpose, not Romney and certainly not Huckabee or Palin.  So, if Republicans take away those four states, and if we give North Carolina and Indiana back to Republicans by default (they were won by microscopic margins by Obama this  year). then winning Ohio and Virginia or even only Ohio and New Hampshire would be all that is required.  So, I think Martinez is the most sensible Republican choice to head the '12 ticket for Republicans, and anyone can be put in the number 2 slot of he is there.

Unless the United States should annex Cuba before 2012, then Mel Martinez, born in Cuba, would not be eligible to be President of the United States. It's the "natural-born US citizen" clause in the Constitution.

See also Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[pbrower2a]

I think that the Republican ticket will look something like this:  Romney/Huckabee

Sarah Palin will not be on it because she just lost with McCain!!!!  I wouldn't pick her as a running mate, why?  She just lost. 

Losing is one thing. Looking bad while losing is really bad.


She is the Lena Lamont of American politics.

[pbrower2a]

The ticket has Crist and Romney on it in either order, but I think the ticket with Crist at the top does better.  Crist puts Florida back in play and can appeal to moderate Republican voters in Virginia, Ohio and the rustbelt, while Romney can play economic attack dog and perhaps draw some Western voters back.  I don't see anyone else on the horizon strong enough right now.  I don't know if Crist-Romney will win, but they put the most back in play on the electoral map.  But, who knows?  No one thought McCain was going to be the nominee four years ago, so...

It will still be difficult with voters in core states for the Democratic Party unlikely to move. McCain was the moderate GOP candidate in 2008 with the bonus of a war record, and he still lost. That could reflect the cultural swing in America more than anything else. has Nevada become a core state of the Democratic Party? That's one that the Republicans must win back, too.  Maybe Romney has a fair chance in Nevada because he is Mormon and Nevada has lots of Mormons.

Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, and  Arizona are must-win states for the Republican Party, and if they are all 50/50 chances in late October 2012, then the situation will be much as it was in 2008. Effectively that is one chance in 256 by the crude calculation of chance (Indiana does not go for Obama unless Ohio also does, and North Carolina doesn't go for Obama unless Virginia also does, and that's before I even discuss Georgia, so I don't count them), and if Obama pulls away in any one of them -- it's over. Note well that I add Arizona because without McCain, Arizona would have been a battleground state in 2008; the Favorite Son effect is good for about ten percent of the vote.

Crist/Romney could be the strongest ticket. 

[pbrower2a]

That is the solution -- someone who will have credibility in 2016 even if Obama trounces him in 2012.

For the GOP, the 2012 Presidential contest is likely a losing proposition. The best that the Party can do in 2012 is to showcase someone as a potential challenge to Obama's successor. Joe Biden might be unelectable in 2016 to the same extent that Obama might prove unbeatable in 2012. The Democrats might have a knock-down, drag-out primary campaign in 2016 that leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the supporters of the losers of the primary campaign and makes independent voters look closely at the Republican nominee as an alternative. Something might be unsettled in the international scene (let us say that theocratic Iran threatens our good democratic friends in Iraq or Pakistan) or the economy could be faltering. If the GOP candidate in 2012 seems to suggest "Good, but we know what we have with Obama", then that is far better than what we had in 2008 from the GOP -- "It's too bad that he didn't get elected in 2000 or 2004 instead".

The Religious Right and its pet politicians have absolutely no answers that America will be able to accept. It will be a long time before such non-starter issues as school prayer, an abortion ban, or an outlawry of erotic materials will be relevant. The Religious Right has passed its peak.     

[pbrower2a]

The economic downturn, at least as measured by the DJIA, began in September 2007. No economic meltdown in the last 100 years has lasted as long as the 1929-1933 one. Should there be an economic downturn in 2010 it will be a new one.

The economy will be picking up, and probably faster than it would without FDR's deposit insurance, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and LBJ's Great Society -- all of work automatically. Had McCain been President, such would also be so. 

[pbrower2a]

McCain was a moderate candidate. He was a conservative not anchored down to conservatism. ANd the Best Candidate the GOP has ran in years, mind you.

Yes, McCain was a moderate... before he decided to run as a conservative during the general election. His choice was probably tactical, to gain the support of the conservative republicans - and it worked -, but nevertheless, he was unable to free himself of this conservative ideology. When republicans will understand that "real America" have had enough of conservatism ?

The Hard Right has been in charge of the GOP since 1994...  and it had so consolidated control of the GOP that even if a moderate like McCain won the Republican Convention it would still be in control of the party. When the Republican National Convention of 2008 became a theater for the Hard Right instead of the John McCain show, the nominee's candidacy was cooked. The party leadership never toned down anything even if such would suggest that moderation could take hold. The message became clear: vote for John McCain and get the same old party leadership calling the shots.   

It was the nomination of John McCain, so it should have been his show, right? Nobody had any question after the Democratic National Convention that Barak Obama was the star of the Democratic Party, and that what one saw was what one got.