I'm not sure Huckabee plays outside the south. But you're right that he's the only likely competitor. keep to the Fen Causeway
Huckabee can't play outside of rural areas. It's not just the South. But a grip on the rural areas is powerful within the GOP.
Palin is going to get part of the blame for McCain's loss if Obama wins. She's going to be ridiculed by the competition. And she's not likely to handle it well. As you know, she's kind of an idiot. She came off as doing pretty well in the Veep debate, but that was only because she had index cards to read from. Take the index cards away, and what have you got? My guess is you're back to Palin the Idiot in that case.
A lot will depend on the state of the country. If the economy turns around by 2012 (and I think it will by then, although 2010 midterms could be a little rough) -- again, assuming for simplicity's sake that Obama wins -- it'll probably be an election much like 1984 -- meaning the Reps will run some "electable" loser whose "turn" has arrived, and who'll get his ass kicked in every critical state.
A win for Obama also means he has four years to keep building his ground game for the general instead of just 6-11 months like he had this year. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
There are now three political parties in the US: Dem's, GOP's, and Obama's.
Will he win there? I don't know. I went back and forth on NC all year, never really willing to believe it unless Obama got into the high-40s and at least tied. Suddenly, Holy Mother of Jesus, the little fucker got to 50. Now I'm a full believer that it can be done. And now he's eating them alive on voter registration. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
By 2012 the only people left registered as republican will be the base
That might be < 5%. The other >95% will be registered independent/unaffiliated, of which some portion will express a preference to opinion pollsters for Palin or proto-Palin or other "maverick"/transmorgifying candidate/progressive.
Are you suggesting 1.The Democratic Party will rule forever?
single party dominance never lasts. The repugs are in about the same level of pointlessness as the conservatives in the UK in '97. I'd be shocked if the repugs didn't recover their wits faster than the brits. keep to the Fen Causeway
How about none of the above.
You refer to options 1, 2, 3? OK. That's hardly an exhaustive list of scenarios. I was kind of hoping, you would develop another along the line of "creative destruction" of the uniparty, implied by the size of independent/unaffiliated and, may I add now, nonparticipating/disaffected voters who refuse to identify with either faction --Republican or Democratic. What change in political sentiment and future partisan organization do these populations represent?
Do you detect any change?
And if "The repugs are in about the same level of pointlessness as the conservatives in the UK in '97" the Democratc and Labour parties are the one party of each state, no? It seems to me that, if "single party dominance never lasts," you expect unaffiliated populations will organize a formal alternative -- an opposition party bearing little or no resemblance to Republican/Tory or neo-con principles of governance?
As the US federal and state legislatures are not parliamentary structures, I would argue that here it will be quite a challenge to escape the paradigm of single party dominance. Media personalities are rather resistant to recognizing multiple parties. I'm sure this has been mentioned in teh blahgs. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
