cheney, Petraeus, barbour
1. Cheney has so many negatives that he would be a joke if he were running for President. He has said that he is unelectable. He's not much of a politician.
If he wanted to run for President of the United States, then he would have done so in 2008 against Obama on his "merits" as President.
2. Petraeus has a job to complete, and that may take too long to give him time in which to campaign. The last career military man to win the Presidency (Eisenhower) did so seven years after the end of "his" war. 2016? Maybe. Earlier? Forget it.
3. Barbour? Think carefully about Mississippi. The state has no political pull. What is it -- Mississippi is one of the States that has most often voted "wrong" since the Civil War? Mississippi is a political lagger and not a leader, and its 6 electoral votes aren't much of a prize. Mississippi is far from a microcosm of America, having no really-large city (it would be about the tenth-largest city in Texas, and many suburbs in California and New York dwarf it. The sort of campaigning that Barbour does in Mississippi just wouldn't work against the master of urban and suburban campaigning. A politician wins Mississippi by winning the white vote, which explains someone like Trent Lott or Thad Cochran who can win while losing 90% of the black vote -- which just won't work north of the Ohio or west of the Rockies. That's theoretically possible in almost the whole US, but that's not how people vote -- as Obama showed in 2008 (not to mention such persons as Ed Brooke, Tom Bradley, and Douglas Wilder).
Mississippi fittingly has two hissing sounds in the state name as far as its politics go (I concede that the virulent racism and KKK violence of the early 1960s is dead there, which is a huge improvement). The state is one of the most corrupt (if one looks at the rate of criminal convictions of elected officials) because of the racial division among voters. In that state the Republicans are effectively the White People's party and the Democrats are effectively the Black People's Party, which ensures Chicago-style machine politics even in hick towns. When people quit voting on ethnic lines and start voting on issues, integrity, and political talent, then Mississippi will take the second step out of the political gutter. When it's no longer possible for a white candidate to win Mississippi while losing 90% of the black vote, Mississippi will be a far better place in its politics.
