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Possibly, but such a candidate also runs the risk of violating St Ronnie's 11th Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican").  Republicans are generally good little soldiers.  "Get behind the Fuhrer and march!"  That kind of thing.  They're not likely to appreciate Governor Deliverance taking shots at the others, but if he could sell it as "They've all sold you out," he might just take off.

Certainly Newters and Bible Spice are both disasters waiting to happen in 2012.  I think Newters will come to the realization that he's basically McCain without the occasional bouts of sanity and with even more moral failings to trip over (calling your wife the c-word is nothing in comparison to dropping the divorce papers on your cancer-stricken wife's bed in the hospital with your mistress on your arm).

Caribou Barbie is going to run, and she'll almost certainly be facing off against Multiple-Choice Mittens.  It's going to be comedy gold.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 10:56:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh I hope we can more or less write off the repugs for 2012, tho I still worry that Obama's win was distressingly narrow considering McCain was so utterly unsuited to the presidency.

But any signs of who the phoenix might be who arises from the smouldering wreckage of "republican carscrash 2012" and leads them into 2016 ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:06:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"Republicans - vote for us because we're against stuff."

I'm not even going to think about 2012. I think any Dem who's thinking in terms of a permanent Democratic majority is deluding themselves, but it's going to be at least a couple of unusually interesting years before the dust settles and we can see how well Obama is doing, and how organised and coherent the opposition is going to be.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:12:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Agreed.  Even if Obama does remarkably well, I think talk of a permanent majority is silly.  It's fundamentally a competitive political system.  I think we're in for a good run over several cycles (won't win them all but the direction will be towards our thinking), but the pendulum will inevitably swing back down the road.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:26:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
With the Liebervote, don't count on the Dems avoiding a civil war of their own.

If Obama is looking even slightly vulnerable in 2012, don't be surprised if Clinton runs against him and destroys the party.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 02:36:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Not worried about Hillary.  The whole point of putting Clinton in the Cabinet is to get her out of the Senate so that she can't fuck anything up.  (She wanted a special committee on health care, but Kennedy wouldn't give it to her.)  There's no real point to her being there anymore, even if she wanted to run in 2016 (highly doubtful), since SecState would be the better gig.  State wouldn't be my first choice for her, but she'd be awful at DoD, and all of the others are too low-profile, so I guess State is the one by process of elimination.

No civil war brewing over Lieberman.  Only 12 of our people had our backs.  Leahy and Sanders, obviously, and probably that guy from one of the Dakotas.  But even Kerry and Durbin fucked us.  Dodd fucked us.  I'm sure Feingold fucked us, since he's all about his little group of campaign-finance buddies (even when they break the law like his bestest buddy St John).  Then obviously Bayh, Warner, etc, will all fuck us.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 02:51:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Obama -> change -> it's (not) my party. Cry if you want to.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 03:13:18 PM EST
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I must agree with the sentiment expressed by kavips that Drew originally cited:
The real contender (if Republicans actually want one) turns out to be Huckabee.. The longest lasting contender to McCain....  Who, just incidentally, has spent the last 8 months writing a book about..... the future of the Republican party.....  (Can you say......."Perfect timing"?)  All:  "Perfect timing...."

TIME covers it, _you can get a brief synopsis here) but in Huckabee the Republicans have something every other candidate lacked...  A human being who listens to people, thinks through his argument, and responds with a real answer... maybe not the one you wanted to hear... but you know its real and you know that is what he will do....

Huckabee is a whole human being with excellent "people" skills.  He is a fundamentalist and he calls out the self anointed leaders of the religious right on grounds that will resonate with that base.  The question that remains is whether he can move to the center sufficiently to broaden his appeal without alienating his base.  He will be helped in this in that he is and will be perceived to be a genuine believer.  That will give the base a comfort level with him that will allow him to better position himself for a general election than McCain ever enjoyed.  He could be for real.  Sort of a Republican version of Jimmy Carter.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 02:50:35 PM EST
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Indeed. He was one of the few politicians of any party to come out with a nuanced and fair comment on Jeremiah Wright; I nearly fell off my chair when I read that.

Then I fell off my chair again when the reps didn't kick him out of the party for that.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Wed Nov 19th, 2008 at 02:59:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Obama's win will widen out to about 7 points in the end, I'd guess.  That's not narrow at all looking at recent history, and 53% is the largest majority taken by a non-incumbent since Eisenhower.  We'd all love a ten-point win, but that was never realistic, and a seven-point win is very respectable, especially when the candidate is a black guy with a name that probably strikes most Americans as vaguely Muslim.

2016?  Who knows?  Assuming for the sake of simplicity that Obama wins a second term, I'd guess Bobby Jindal would be an obvious contender.  I don't like his chances, honestly, since he's both Indian and Catholic (brown + wrongcult != GOPnominee) in a party that is almost entirely white and Evangelical.  Imagine Alan Keyes and Mitt Romney all rolled into one, and then add exorcisms to his resume.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:21:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Newt 2012 - less McCain, more insane.
by Nomad on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:08:31 AM EST
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St Ronnie's 11th Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican")

As in my not at all impartial dictum:

A conservative is one who sells the mistakes of yesterday as solutions for tomorrow.

What conservatives want to conserve is the illusion of a past golden age, so that all the problems that were hidden behind the façades can be ignored.

The only thing conservative politicians want to conserve is their power - secured and expanded by all means.

The only moral all conservatives follow: forgive the sins of fellow conservatives.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Nov 18th, 2008 at 02:04:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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