I was sure Romney would win the nomination last time. He still seems like the only plausible candidate.
It’s hard to say, since the Republicans have changed the rules, and the gameboard is still in flux.
In 2008, McCain won the nomination because he was a moderate, a whole bunch of conservatives split the conservative vote, and Guiliani chose the worst presidential primary strategy in about a hundred years. This happened because most states were ‘winner take all’ states, where whoever won the state got all of the delegates.
(Note: the plurality approach of dividing the delegates based on the vote share also proved to be a clusterfuck that resulted in a special meeting to figure out how to award Florida and Michigan’s votes, proving that both parties can fuck up primary season in entirely unique ways).
If we were playing by the same rules, I’d put my money on Romney, since he’s the only serious contender who could congeal the moderates while Huckabee, Palin, Bachmann and everyone else currently pandering to the Tea Party splits the votes. I also tend to think Romney’s the only one who has a chance in hell against Obama, unless the economy falls entirely in the crapper.
But we’re not. It appears that the RNC has decreed that states that vote before April will have their delegates divided based on voting plurality, and states that vote after April follow the ‘winner take all’ rules. To make matters more confusing right now, we still don’t have a firm primary schedule - the various states are still sorting that out. Note: the game designer in me hates this, since I’m pretty sure it’ll result in a lot of confusion and chaos.
But it will likely change the dynamics of the race quite a bit. Previously Romney would probably win a couple of early contests and be so far ahead that no one else can catch up. Now, when he wins, we can likely expect the conservatives to rally around a single candidate by the fourth or fifth contest, and that candidate I expect to be the nominee.
While its hard to say exactly how the final primary season will lay out, the first four will likely still be the same: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Nevada and NH favor Romney. I suspect it will come down to who wins Iowa and South Carolina. The general consensus is that both states have more social conservatives than tea partiers, so my called shot is that Huckabee will win the two states, concentrate support from the other conservative candidates, and then romp through April once it becomes a winner take all ordeal.
But who knows. If the economy keeps on its current trajectory, the heavy hitters (Huckabee, Palin) could choose to wait until 2016 to run against an unknown, rather than tarnish their brand in an almost certainly losing campaign. This doesn’t mean the GOP has no hope, of course. 1992 was a similar campaign cycle, and most of the candidates (including Clinton) were considered also-rans, since when it was time to declare your candidacy, Bush I’s approvals were sky-high. If you’re a, say, Mitch Daniels second-tier candidate, you’re actually hoping that the economy has a good year in 2011 to scare away the big guns, and then goes into the shitter early in 2012. If that happens, its anyone’s guess who comes out of the pack.
Nice writeup.
I feel kind of bad that Romney is the best Republican on the scene.
Don’t worry. No matter who is nominated, the press will bend over backwards to convince you that the race is a close match against two worthy opponents. Close elections sell newspapers and earn TV eyeballs. For evidence look at how the press treated Obama vs. McCain (people saying McCain was within striking distance when all polls showed he was getting smoked), Obama vs. Clinton (the press completely ignored that Clinton was all but mathematically eliminated for a good 2 months before she left), and Kerry vs. Bush (the pop vote was close, but the electoral map never really was, and that’s all that matters).
That being said, I don’t expect that to happen if Bachmann’s your nominee. There’s only so much crazy you can paper over.
I pray for some combination of Palin, Bachmann, and Trump. Any one of the three on the ticket would be like a dream; a combination of two of them, sheer bliss.
Palin only has support of 10% of the electorate folks, so she shouldn’t even be in the picture. Remember she quit the governorship to go out and make money. That basically destroyed any chance she had of being a credible candidate. There are important Republicans who are terrified she’ll get the nomination.
*one caveat: if Obama appears unbeatable, then they’ll happily throw her to the wolves.
Why can’t Sarah run as a third-party candidate?
Maybe she can be sponsored by a cable network.
It’s going to be Romney. It’s the boring answer, but it’s the correct one.
Gingrich has too much baggage, is past his sell-by date, and has never entered an election outside his old Georgia district. Huckabee has too much baggage – expect the “he pardoned a criminal who went on to kill four cops” attack ads to start the day he announces. He also has no support amongst big donors, and has so far taken no steps indicating he’ll run.
The crazies will split their vote between Palin, Trump and Bachmann. Furthermore, Trump and Palin will quickly exist the race; they’re in it to publicize their TV projects, not because they actually want to run the country.
The Santorums and Barbours have no national name awareness and are running this time for the same reason Romney ran last time: to set themselves up for the next election. (Not that either one has any chance in hell of winning a national election, but this is the story they are telling themselves.)
So it’s Romney, more or less by default.
Well, I don’t really identify with either of the parties to the extent that I consider either of them “my team”.
I pray for some combination of Palin, Bachmann, and Trump. Any one of the three on the ticket would be like a dream; a combination of two of them, sheer bliss.
Why would you want terrible candidates to run?
Donald Trump, Tied for 2nd in GOP 2012 Field, giving an interview so wacky I think I checked three times whether it was actually Time.com:
http://thepage.time.com/2011/04/06/trump’s-hawaii-investigation/
DONALD TRUMP:
Let me just say something. There’s nobody more militaristic than me, but it’s also called attack the right target. Iran is going to take over Iraq, because we have de-neutered Iraq, you know that, in terms of their military. They’re gonna take them over very quickly as soon as we leave. If that’s gonna happen, they’re gonna take over the oil fields. The second biggest oil fields in the world. And if that’s gonna happen, I say we take over the oil fields…I would take over the oil fields, because otherwise, Iran is gonna take over the second biggest oil fields in the world. I would absolutely, without question, not leave that section of that country. I would take the oil. To the victor belong the spoils. You know, in the old days, you’d have a war. And you’d be in there. And you’d win. And you’d take over the country. Whether it’s oil or gold or whatever. You take over the country.
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
Okay. Are you saying if you were President, you would take us out of Afghanistan?
DONALD TRUMP:
Well, nothing’s simple. Because I don’t believe in foot soldiers. They get blown up on streets. But I do believe in airplanes that are 50,000 feet up. And when we see through intelligence what’s going on, knock the hell out. Oh, by the way, I’m much more militaristic than Obama. He got the Nobel Peace Prize, but, you know, I think they’re probably rethinking that one, every time he seizes a country. The problem is he seizes countries, but he doesn’t win….I’m not gonna have soldiers walking down on the street and get blown up and get shot at by snipers and killed, so we have to call the parents and say, “Your son was just killed on a street in Afghanistan.” But those people will have a lot more problems with me than they’re having right now. But I do it through the air and we’re not gonna have casualties.
…
DONALD TRUMP:
The Constitution of the United States…great document. And you agree with it?
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
Yeah, sure.
DONALD TRUMP:
It says you have to be born in this country. Essential. Have to be born in this country, okay? If he wasn’t born in this country, he has conned the whole world.
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
But you’re saying it’s a con. That’s what you’re saying.
DONALD TRUMP:
I’m not saying anything. I’m saying–
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
Sure you are.
DONALD TRUMP:
I am saying I want to see the birth certificate. It’s very simple. I want to see the birth certificate. How come his own family doesn’t know which hospital he was born in? How come-- forget about birth certificates. Let’s say there’s no birth certificate. How come in the hospital itself, okay? This is one of the…in the hospital itself, there’s no records of his birth. In other words, it doesn’t say how much they paid, where is the doctor, here’s your room bill.
There’s nobody more militaristic than me!
Lol, wtf does any of that shit mean?
I gotta figure he’s just drumming up publicity for himself, rather than seriously taking a stab at the presidency.
Agreed. No one is that stupid, or at least no one capable of running a business on the level he has. I mean seriously…running a country through air power? He just can’t be serious.
Romney might be the default choice, but I think it’s going to be difficult for him to get out of the primaries given that other candidates will immediately attack his MA healthcare stuff that looked quite a bit like the evil Obamacare legislation.
Right now, I’d put my money on someone not that well-known nationally.
Exactly. Plus, Romney oozes insincerity like flop sweat. I don’t see how the religious right would ever trust him.
I’d lay money on a dark horse, I guess. Every candidate seems to have a fatal flaw.
The funny thing is that Romney’s insincerity is what makes him tolerable, to some degree. That’s what makes me think he doesn’t really buy into the more ridiculous talking points, he knows he just needs to get some base voters.
What the fuck does “de-neutered” mean? If he had just said “neutered” it might have made some kind of sense, barely. As it is, when we see through intelligence what’s going on, knock the hell out.