The GOP needs a fresh face for 2012

[danarhea]

Right now, the 4 leaders for the Republican nomination in 2012 are Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Polls at this time show them all losing to Barack Obama, and this is at a time when Obama's polling numbers are the worst ever. Imagine what a shellacking the GOP would get if Obama's numbers improve even a little. Even if Obama's numbers stay where they are, he still wins. Let's look at each of the four candidates just a little:

1) Huckabee - In a matchup against Obama, he comes closer than the other three, but some of his statements will be used to smack him hard during a general election. I was actually going to vote for him in the 2008 Republican Primary, but when he said that the Constitution needs to be changed for Jesus, that did it for me. The Constitution is just as sacred to America as the Bible is to Christians. If not for this horrible gaffe, he might actually stand a chance. At this time, his favorables are only 39%, but his unfavorables are only 29%, which leaves a lot of room for improvement. However, IMHO, that won't be enough.

2) Gingrich - My favorite of the 4, Gingrich is a political genius, who brought about the Contract With America in 1994, thus sweeping the Democrats out of the House for the first time in Decades. Gingrich is a thinking man's thinking man, who, with his background in history, is able to strategize a plan better than almost any other man on Earth. However, he has baggage... Very serious personal baggage.... that will make his chances of winning in 2012 almost nil. I still like the man, and the political principles of small government he still stands behind, but the unprincipled episodes in his life would come back to haunt him, as well as the Republican Party, in 2012.

3) Mitt Romney - Those who bristle against Obama Care are certainly going to remember Romney Care, when Mitt brought it to Massachussets. Romney is also too Liberal on other fronts to be able to bring enthusiasm to the base. And then there is Romney's Mormon roots. True, this shouldn't matter, but it already matters quite a bit to many fundamentalist Christians, who wouldn't vote for him, even if he actually turned out to be the return of Jesus Christ. His favorability to unfavorability is 30/31, which is mediocre at best.

4) Sarah Palin - The worst of the lot. Her unfavorables among voters top out at 52%, which dooms her from the start. Put that together with the perception that she is a complete idiot, a perception that is shared by most Americans, and you have a recipe for total disaster in 2012 - A Nixon / McGovern race in reverse.

It is time for the GOP to clean house, and offer up something new. The Four Horsemen (or three horsemen and one horsewoman) have run all they are going to, and are now ready for the glue factory. So who does the GOP put up in their stead? That's what this thread is for - Speculation on rising stars in the Republican Party who will have the ability to be the standard bearer for the GOP, and take back the White House.

Time to name names.

I am going to come up with 3 prospects.

1) Tim Pawlenty - He accomplished a lot as the Governor of Minnesota, and is a Conservative who was able to work with Democrats, and even get a few of them to come to his side. Ronald Reagan he's not, but he's a good start.

2) Scott Brown - The Senator who took Edward Kennedy's old seat. Not as Conservative as some other choices, but is dynamic and has charisma, something he will take into a campaign that could very well be successful.

3) Bobby Jindal - Not a great speaker, in fact, during debates, he looks like a deer in the headlights. But Jindal is a rock solid Conservative, who would hold the base, and bring in Independents, just the recipe for a winning run at the White House. If he took some public speaking lessons, and practiced a bit, my bet is that he could upset Obama, and take from the Democrats what Obama is holding onto.

Any three of these candidates, under the right circumstances, have the potential to beat Obama in 2012, while the major four (Huckabee, Gingrich, Romney, and Palin) have odds that range from not that great to zilch. After all, if those four are behind Obama, while Obama is down, they will be lambs headed to the slaughter when election year is upon us, and the excitement begins to build.

What other names are out there, who should enter the Constest for Republicans? Let's hear a few more.

 

[cpwill]

as none of your three prospects are named Mitch Daniels, none of them should be our candidate in 2012.

 

[disneydude]

Palin/jindal 2012!!!

 

[danarhea]

Palin/jindal 2012!!!

Please, no trolling. I created this thread for the purpose of a serious discussion. If you can't contribute to it, then please leave the thread.

 

[danarhea]

as none of your three prospects are named Mitch Daniels, none of them should be our candidate in 2012.

I started this thread for the purpose of discussing potential candidates, so in the spirit of that, tell me about Mitch Daniels, and why you believe that he is the one to pick. Who knows, you might get me to join the bandwagon.

 

[cpwill]

he's the governor of Indiana; won reelection against the headwind of Obama in 2008 and some impressive particular margins:

When Daniels took office, the state had an $800-million deficit. He turned that into a $1.3-billion surplus (although it will be eaten into in the current downturn). Since 2005, he has saved roughly $450 million in the state’s budget and reduced the state’s rate of spending growth from 5.9 percent to 2.8 percent. “I tell you with certainty,” Daniels told his Washington audience, “concern about the debt and deficit has not gone out of style.”

“Mitch the Knife,” as he was nicknamed when he headed George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, has matched his fiscal probity with the restless innovation of a devoted policy entrepreneur. He leased the state’s faltering toll road to a European operator for nearly $4 billion. He created health savings accounts for Indiana’s poor. He deregulated telecommunications. And he attracted business to the state, with Indiana winning more foreign investment than any other state during the past two years.

A populist outcry against the toll-road deal dragged Daniels’s approval rating down to 37 percent at one point, and his tenure seemed a warning against putting a tightfisted technocrat in elected office. But opinion turned. He won re-election by 18 points last year. He won 20 percent of the black vote, and beat his Democratic opponent among voters under age 30 by 7 points.....



he's also a perfect counterpoint for the sure-to-be-central counter-Obamacare Debate:

Hoosiers and Health Savings Account
by Mitch Daniels

When I was elected governor of Indiana five years ago, I asked that a consumer-directed health insurance option, or Health Savings Account (HSA), be added to the conventional plans then available to state employees. I thought this additional choice might work well for at least a few of my co-workers, and in the first year some 4% of us signed up for it...

Unused funds in the account—to date some $30 million or about $2,000 per employee and growing fast—are the worker's permanent property. For the very small number of employees (about 6% last year) who use their entire account balance, the state shares further health costs up to an out-of-pocket maximum of $8,000, after which the employee is completely protected.

The HSA option has proven highly popular. This year, over 70% of our 30,000 Indiana state workers chose it, by far the highest in public-sector America. Due to the rejection of these plans by government unions, the average use of HSAs in the public sector across the country is just 2%...

State employees enrolled in the consumer-driven plan will save more than $8 million in 2010 compared to their coworkers in the old-fashioned preferred provider organization (PPO) alternative. In the second straight year in which we've been forced to skip salary increases, workers switching to the HSA are adding thousands of dollars to their take-home pay. (Even if an employee had health issues and incurred the maximum out-of-pocket expenses, he would still be hundreds of dollars ahead.) HSA customers seem highly satisfied; only 3% have opted to switch back to the PPO.

The state is saving, too. In a time of severe budgetary stress, Indiana will save at least $20 million in 2010 because of our high HSA enrollment. Mercer calculates the state's total costs are being reduced by 11% solely due to the HSA option...

in short; unless it comes out that he believes in nuking Israel and performing abortions live on the white house lawn, he needs to be our President in 2013.

 

[Albert Di Salvo]

....I am going to come up with 3 prospects.

1) Tim Pawlenty - He accomplished a lot as the Governor of Minnesota, and is a Conservative who was able to work with Democrats, and even get a few of them to come to his side. Ronald Reagan he's not, but he's a good start.

2) Scott Brown - The Senator who took Edward Kennedy's old seat. Not as Conservative as some other choices, but is dynamic and has charisma, something he will take into a campaign that could very well be successful.

3) Bobby Jindal - Not a great speaker, in fact, during debates, he looks like a deer in the headlights. But Jindal is a rock solid Conservative, who would hold the base, and bring in Independents, just the recipe for a winning run at the White House. If he took some public speaking lessons, and practiced a bit, my bet is that he could upset Obama, and take from the Democrats what Obama is holding onto.

....What other names are out there, who should enter the Constest for Republicans? Let's hear a few more.

Pawlenty: Standard white bread Republican of the middle America type. The only thing that distinguishes him is his recent boarding of the anti-public sector union bus. He might make a good president, but the skill set needed to get elected is very different from the skill set needed to govern the nation.

Brown: Unacceptable. Partly fact and partly fiction, he's a walking contradiction.

Jindal: Solid. Uninspiring.

Others: Bigfoot.

Conclusion: I don't see anyone worth getting excited about. But Obama is likely to screw things up worse than he has already. Obama's fate will depend on circumstances at the time.

 

[disneydude]

Please, no trolling. I created this thread for the purpose of a serious discussion. If you can't contribute to it, then please leave the thread.

Sorry Dana....I actually like your threads....so I sincerely apologize.

Personally, I think Romney is the best of the bunch. I think he is the smartest and probably the best choice. However, I think you are correct in your assessment.

Out of the three that you posed...I think the only one with an actual shot is Pawlenty. Especially because he likely would carry Minnesota which is a must-win for the Democrats.

Jindal is dead in the water. He shot himself with his state of the union response and likely would not recover from that.
As for Brown. It would be hard for the GOP to back him, especially after the whole "Obama isn't qualified" talking point. They would expose the hypocrisy of their party by doing so.

 

[cpwill]

people don't trust Romney; and Romneycare is too big an albotross. Brown is too left-wing, Palins negatives are too high, Gingrich comes with too much baggage (poltical and personal), Pawlenty doesn't seem to be able to get any kind of movement despite how long he's been running...

Jindal I like; he's smart, and he can hammer Obama on domestic issuse pretty effectively, having specialized in healthcare reform and having been on the front lines of the Obama administration failure with the BP oil spill. I don't think his SOTU response makes him dead in the water, unless that kind of performance becomes a standard.

 

[upsideguy]

as none of your three prospects are named Mitch Daniels, none of them should be our candidate in 2012.

I agree, Daniels is impressive. He might be the one guy in the Republican stable that can get the job done.

 

[UtahBill]

You conservatives better hurry up and choose someone to run against Obama. If you pick one now, he can bomb big time and you might still have enough time to pick yet another loser....
All kidding aside, the GOP has NOBODY at the moment....

 

[cpwill]

well, let's be honest; there is a possibility that the person the GOP picks to run in 2012 will be a fool who would be obviously incompetent in the office.


HOWEVER


there is a certainty that the Democrat candidate in 2012 will be such a fool who is obviously incompetent in the obvious.



i'll take those odds

 

[upsideguy]

well, let's be honest; there is a possibility that the person the GOP picks to run in 2012 will be a fool who would be obviously incompetent in the office.


HOWEVER


there is a certainty that the Democrat candidate in 2012 will be such a fool who is obviously incompetent in the obvious.



i'll take those odds

As with most presidential elections, its the economy stupid. If unemployment remains above 8%, many of the buffoons in the republican stable have a shot (though I think Palin is a complete joke and has zero shot in all circumstance).... but if unemployment falls below 8%, it will be very difficult for any republican to prevail, even the few credible ones. The behavior of the legislative republicans from now to 2012 will also have much to say. They now have power... if they just play politics and offer no new ideas, it will back fire.

 

[UtahBill]

well, let's be honest; there is a possibility that the person the GOP picks to run in 2012 will be a fool who would be obviously incompetent in the office.


HOWEVER


there is a certainty that the Democrat candidate in 2012 will be such a fool who is obviously incompetent in the obvious.



i'll take those odds

So, would you want GWB back? or his brother Jeb?

 

[Renae]

Right now, the 4 leaders for the Republican nomination in 2012 are Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Polls at this time show them all losing to Barack Obama, and this is at a time when Obama's polling numbers are the worst ever. Imagine what a shellacking the GOP would get if Obama's numbers improve even a little. Even if Obama's numbers stay where they are, he still wins. Let's look at each of the four candidates just a little:

1) Huckabee - In a matchup against Obama, he comes closer than the other three, but some of his statements will be used to smack him hard during a general election. I was actually going to vote for him in the 2008 Republican Primary, but when he said that the Constitution needs to be changed for Jesus, that did it for me. The Constitution is just as sacred to America as the Bible is to Christians. If not for this horrible gaffe, he might actually stand a chance. At this time, his favorables are only 39%, but his unfavorables are only 29%, which leaves a lot of room for improvement. However, IMHO, that won't be enough.

2) Gingrich - My favorite of the 4, Gingrich is a political genius, who brought about the Contract With America in 1994, thus sweeping the Democrats out of the House for the first time in Decades. Gingrich is a thinking man's thinking man, who, with his background in history, is able to strategize a plan better than almost any other man on Earth. However, he has baggage... Very serious personal baggage.... that will make his chances of winning in 2012 almost nil. I still like the man, and the political principles of small government he still stands behind, but the unprincipled episodes in his life would come back to haunt him, as well as the Republican Party, in 2012.

3) Mitt Romney - Those who bristle against Obama Care are certainly going to remember Romney Care, when Mitt brought it to Massachussets. Romney is also too Liberal on other fronts to be able to bring enthusiasm to the base. And then there is Romney's Mormon roots. True, this shouldn't matter, but it already matters quite a bit to many fundamentalist Christians, who wouldn't vote for him, even if he actually turned out to be the return of Jesus Christ. His favorability to unfavorability is 30/31, which is mediocre at best.

4) Sarah Palin - The worst of the lot. Her unfavorables among voters top out at 52%, which dooms her from the start. Put that together with the perception that she is a complete idiot, a perception that is shared by most Americans, and you have a recipe for total disaster in 2012 - A Nixon / McGovern race in reverse.

It is time for the GOP to clean house, and offer up something new. The Four Horsemen (or three horsemen and one horsewoman) have run all they are going to, and are now ready for the glue factory. So who does the GOP put up in their stead? That's what this thread is for - Speculation on rising stars in the Republican Party who will have the ability to be the standard bearer for the GOP, and take back the White House.

Time to name names.

I am going to come up with 3 prospects.

1) Tim Pawlenty - He accomplished a lot as the Governor of Minnesota, and is a Conservative who was able to work with Democrats, and even get a few of them to come to his side. Ronald Reagan he's not, but he's a good start.

2) Scott Brown - The Senator who took Edward Kennedy's old seat. Not as Conservative as some other choices, but is dynamic and has charisma, something he will take into a campaign that could very well be successful.

3) Bobby Jindal - Not a great speaker, in fact, during debates, he looks like a deer in the headlights. But Jindal is a rock solid Conservative, who would hold the base, and bring in Independents, just the recipe for a winning run at the White House. If he took some public speaking lessons, and practiced a bit, my bet is that he could upset Obama, and take from the Democrats what Obama is holding onto.

Any three of these candidates, under the right circumstances, have the potential to beat Obama in 2012, while the major four (Huckabee, Gingrich, Romney, and Palin) have odds that range from not that great to zilch. After all, if those four are behind Obama, while Obama is down, they will be lambs headed to the slaughter when election year is upon us, and the excitement begins to build.

What other names are out there, who should enter the Constest for Republicans? Let's hear a few more.

Scott Brown? Mr. Side with the Democrats when we needed him most not too? I suppose for false conservatives Scott's a good choice...


Pawlenty is weak. He's another "I can reach across the isle and work with Democrats". Remember McCain? Yeah.

Jindal has some potential, but he's also said he's not running.

As for the "top four" you listed.

Huckabee is smarmy and has only name recognition, he'll make it no where.

Romney hasnt a snowballs chance in hell. Masscare is his Albatross.

Newt has some good ideas, very vocal, and he's also unstable and I personally don't know many who think he can do it.

Palin has star power, a strong base, and the most assassinated image in modern politics. She needs to really keep moving her image and message to overcome that. (I support her).

What we don't need are liberals with some conservative leanings, like Scott Brown, nor do we need a conservative ideologue, like Newt. Wishy washy McCain like "reach across the isle" might feel good, but that's not the answer either.

We need someone that can LEAD, set a clear agenda, hold strong on core principles yet wise enough to choose the best places to compromise. (sounds a lot like Reagan eh? Wonder why....) And the number one criteria for WHO EVER gets it?

They cannot be a person who believes GOVERNMENT IS THE SOLUTION.

 

[Cameron]

he's the governor of Indiana; won reelection against the headwind of Obama in 2008 and some impressive particular margins:

When Daniels took office, the state had an $800-million deficit. He turned that into a $1.3-billion surplus (although it will be eaten into in the current downturn). Since 2005, he has saved roughly $450 million in the state’s budget and reduced the state’s rate of spending growth from 5.9 percent to 2.8 percent. “I tell you with certainty,” Daniels told his Washington audience, “concern about the debt and deficit has not gone out of style.”

“Mitch the Knife,” as he was nicknamed when he headed George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, has matched his fiscal probity with the restless innovation of a devoted policy entrepreneur. He leased the state’s faltering toll road to a European operator for nearly $4 billion. He created health savings accounts for Indiana’s poor. He deregulated telecommunications. And he attracted business to the state, with Indiana winning more foreign investment than any other state during the past two years.

A populist outcry against the toll-road deal dragged Daniels’s approval rating down to 37 percent at one point, and his tenure seemed a warning against putting a tightfisted technocrat in elected office. But opinion turned. He won re-election by 18 points last year. He won 20 percent of the black vote, and beat his Democratic opponent among voters under age 30 by 7 points.....



he's also a perfect counterpoint for the sure-to-be-central counter-Obamacare Debate:

Hoosiers and Health Savings Account
by Mitch Daniels



in short; unless it comes out that he believes in nuking Israel and performing abortions live on the white house lawn, he needs to be our President in 2013.

I agree, Daniels is the best choice for Republicans, and possibly their only candidate who can win, absent a double-dip recession.

 

[haymarket]

people don't trust Romney; and Romneycare is too big an albotross. Brown is too left-wing, Palins negatives are too high, Gingrich comes with too much baggage (poltical and personal), Pawlenty doesn't seem to be able to get any kind of movement despite how long he's been running...

Jindal I like; he's smart, and he can hammer Obama on domestic issuse pretty effectively, having specialized in healthcare reform and having been on the front lines of the Obama administration failure with the BP oil spill. I don't think his SOTU response makes him dead in the water, unless that kind of performance becomes a standard.

The people who do not like Romney are NOT the independents in the middle needed to win the election who would vote for him in solid numbers - much more than they did for McCain/Palin. Of course, that reality makes him anathema to the right wing of the party - which means most of the delegates that will be at the 2012 GOP convention.

I agree that Bobby Jindal is dead... just not buried yet. Same for Newt. The tea party folks will never go for Pawlenty preferring more of a fellow True Believer.

And now we are back to the eventual nominee - should she want it - the Divine Miss Sarah.

 

[Barbbtx]

Scott Brown? Mr. Side with the Democrats when we needed him most not too? I suppose for false conservatives Scott's a good choice...


Pawlenty is weak. He's another "I can reach across the isle and work with Democrats". Remember McCain? Yeah.

Jindal has some potential, but he's also said he's not running.

As for the "top four" you listed.

Huckabee is smarmy and has only name recognition, he'll make it no where.

Romney hasnt a snowballs chance in hell. Masscare is his Albatross.

Newt has some good ideas, very vocal, and he's also unstable and I personally don't know many who think he can do it.

Palin has star power, a strong base, and the most assassinated image in modern politics. She needs to really keep moving her image and message to overcome that. (I support her).

What we don't need are liberals with some conservative leanings, like Scott Brown, nor do we need a conservative ideologue, like Newt. Wishy washy McCain like "reach across the isle" might feel good, but that's not the answer either.

We need someone that can LEAD, set a clear agenda, hold strong on core principles yet wise enough to choose the best places to compromise. (sounds a lot like Reagan eh? Wonder why....) And the number one criteria for WHO EVER gets it?

They cannot be a person who believes GOVERNMENT IS THE SOLUTION.

The ones in red are the ones I'd be willing to vote for. I'd choose Palin out of the three. However, I'm hoping we'll have even more choices.

 

[cpwill]

So, would you want GWB back? or his brother Jeb?

i'd rather not have either on the ticket, but either would still be better than what we have now.

 

[disneydude]

The ones in red are the ones I'd be willing to vote for. I'd choose Palin out of the three. However, I'm hoping we'll have even more choices.

LOL.....Palin/Jindal 2012. C'mon Repubs....I double dare you!

 

[Renae]

LOL.....Palin/Jindal 2012. C'mon Repubs....I double dare you!

Becareful what you wish for buddy.

A better teaming, though he probably has no desire atm, would be to get Allen West as the VP. Better to save that for 2016 then let him run in 2020.

 

[Chappy]

as none of your three prospects are named Mitch Daniels, none of them should be our candidate in 2012.

I think Mitch Daniels is a good candidate. Here's an excellent interview with him from this week.

Excerpted from “The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell,” transcript, MSNBC, Wednesday, January 5th, 2011, with my emphasis
[SIZE="+2"]O[/SIZE]‘DONNELL: Joining me now in tonight‘s Spotlight, the Republican governor of Indiana, and potential 2012 presidential contender, Mitch Daniels. Governor, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

GOV. MITCH DANIELS ®, INDIANA: Glad to be here.

O‘DONNELL: Governor, the—you‘re in Washington this week to bask in the glow of George Will‘s endorsement for your candidacy for presidency—for the presidency, and to accept an award, a national award for fiscal responsibility. That‘s a bipartisan award.

And one of the ways you achieved that award for fiscal responsibility was raising the sales tax in Indiana. What are you going to say on a presidential debate stage in the Republican primaries when everyone else in the stage is accusing you of betraying the taxpayer by raising a sales tax? …

 

[disneydude]

Becareful what you wish for buddy.

A better teaming, though he probably has no desire atm, would be to get Allen West as the VP. Better to save that for 2016 then let him run in 2020.

Please oh Please. The GOP couldn't come up with a better ticket than that!

 

[Renae]

Please oh Please. The GOP couldn't come up with a better ticket than that!

You have a problem with Col. West?

 

[iamitter]

What about Petraeus?