Posted on 03/02/2011 3:25:26 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Unless you have been involved in an airplane crash in the mountains and have had no food for days –– and some would argue even then –– cannibalism is a bad option. So why has it become such a popular pastime for the Republican Party?
The candidates who are admitting they might run against President Barack Obama in 2012 have almost no chance at competing with him –– much less making him a one-term president.
If the Republicans are serious about beating Obama, they need a conservative who can exist closer to the middle of the political spectrum.
Ron Paul has the same chance as I do at beating Obama in 2012. And Herman Cain? Really?
Those are the top two choices of the tea party patriots. Even Sarah Palin –– who took the tea party from a grassroots movement to a political force –– came in a distant third among those in the straw poll.
The recent The American Conservative Union’s CPAC straw poll also skewed further right than normal.
To win the White House back, the GOP candidate will need votes from independent voters and even a few Democrats. None of the announced candidates can pull those votes.
Even Palin would have a hard time getting more than 40 percent of the vote. She would certainly do as well or better than any of the other candidates announced; she just seems too polarizing to win.
And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie showed why I don't think the Republicans will actually nominate a potentially successful candidate in 2012.
Christie took on Palin this weekend. He gave her "advice" that she needs to have some "unscripted" moments. Isn't it the Democrats job to attack Republicans?
Palin doesn't do many interviews that aren't in a controlled setting on Fox News. That is going to be an issue if she really runs. Her strength will be as a kingmaker, and the candidate she chooses to back will have an immediate and impressive bump in the polls.
But Christie going after her on national television gets to the heart of the matter. Republicans are cannibals. If one becomes too popular, the others tear them down.
I think part of the problem is that there are so many popular conservative voices on Fox News and talk radio, and they all need to hold onto their share of the ratings.
Politicians really have to verbally jump off a cliff to get noticed by the talking heads. They end up saying crazy things and becoming the darling of some of the programs and the target of the others.
Contrarianism and extremism draw an audience. They don't elect presidents.
The term RINO –– Republican in name only –– is the worst thing to happen to Republicans since Richard Nixon left office. It puts a catchy tool in the bag of those looking to bring down their GOP rivals.
I worry that even if a more moderate Republican makes it out of the primary process, then Paul, Palin or someone else from further right will take up a third-party challenge.
Bill Clinton would never have been elected without Ross Perot's help. Running a third party candidate from the far right in 2012 will be the best way to let Obama complete his remodeling in the West Wing at the White House.
LLS
On top of everything else... the author is a bush!
LLS
This is a load of horse manure. In the first place, all the evidence argues that RINOs are losers.
How did Gerald Ford do?
How did Juan McCain do?
Mitt Romney never got over 20% in the primary polls last time. And he will certainly do worse this time.
Sarah Palin would do very well. She has proven herself several times in elections. The reason she didn’t do better as McCain’s V.P. is that her “handlers” wouldn’t allow her to do press interviews, and put her on two programs where they knew that liberal interviewers would distort what she said by selectively cutting it. Which is exactly what they did.
But she did tremendously on the stump, and continues to do so wherever she appears.
I think some RINOs would do a lot better than McCain. I prefer a real conservative but ...I prefer a RINO to Obama.
I remember the lesson some of us learned from Ross Perot! A third party would give us four more years of Obama and I think that would be the final nail in the coffin of life as we know it!
How's that different from Democrats?
The term RINO –– Republican in name only –– is the worst thing to happen to Republicans since Richard Nixon left office. It puts a catchy tool in the bag of those looking to bring down their GOP rivals.
Except politicians don't use the word -- at least top level politicians don't.
Politicians really have to verbally jump off a cliff to get noticed by the talking heads. They end up saying crazy things and becoming the darling of some of the programs and the target of the others.
Which explains why McCain, Huckabee, and Romney weren't the leading candidates last time out? Of course such moderates were. That drives a stake through his theory.
There is a small grain of truth in it. A politician can take out a rival in the early primaries and caucuses by appealing to true believers, but that's only a small part of the road to the White House. There are more states where that doesn't work, so politicians tend to avoid doing or saying "crazy" things and pander to the middle. If electoral laws were changed things might approximate the writer's picture of Republican politics, but so far, at least so far as the Presidential level is concerned, it's all wrong.
It's inevitable that whoever the next President is at some point he or she will be derided as a RINO or whatever the Democrat equivalent is, but I don't think whoever wrote this has a very clear grasp on the electoral process.
Like it or not,charisma is important to attract ignorant voters...or, the majority of voters, IMO.
The only way the GOP can lose is to nominate a RINO!
Trying to worm a RINO in. They are one of the reasons we are in the fix we are. No thanks.
Say what you want to about how you think "Palin can't win" - but remember, McCain had to have Palin tour with him instead of the conventional system of spreading the ticket around the country, covering twice the ground. McCain had to have Palin with him because without Palin he couldn't draw flies.
You'd like to say McCain did poorly because Rush wasn't behind him - but Rush bit his lip and backed the ticket to the hilt. Even after McCain, by saying that Obama could be trusted with the presidency, had proved beyond cavil that he was an incompetent campaigner who would not win without a political miracle.
Well, while you are polling, tell your focus group that Eric Holder says that white people don't have civil rights and then ask them whether they would vote for Obama over Palin. A RINO will head for the tall grass the very instant that the Democrat-sympathizers known as "the MSM" cries "racism." Palin will stand and fight.
There is no other way to win.
I think Bachmann or Cain have just as good a chance as anyone else. With $5 gas and 10% unemployment we could probably run a corpse in 2012 and win. I’m not advocating a corpse people.
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet. We should nominate another Goldwater! That would show them!
The GOP is at the crossroads of survival just as they were at the time Perot came along. The party permitted Rinos to take it over and we have essentially a one party political system that does not represent anyone but the elite, foreigners and special interests.
They are out of touch with Americans and American life. Just like their were before Perot. They are not going to get a majority on a yet another rino. We need someone who is more National and appealing to the base and independents.
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