Replies

Relax.
There’s 2016 to run against Romney.
Right now, let’s get Obama out of the WH.

Who are you trying to kid here?

I keep seeing this bogus argument trotted out about how conservatives can dump Romney in 2016 for a more conservative nominee, and I'm here to tell you (and anyone else who cares to pay attention), that IF 'President Romney' makes even marginal improvements in his first term, that any joker thinking they can challenge him for the nomination in 2016 and WIN is only fooling themselves. The last time a sitting President was denied the nomination of his Party was in 1884 when President Chester Arthur was unable to stymie the challenge of James G. Blaine. Now some clever analysts will suggest that LBJ was denied the nomination in 1968, however he announced that he would NOT be a candidate, and whatever reasons prompted that decision, he did not end up in Chicago being stripped of the nomination.

Now having said all this, I will point out that to successfully challenge an incumbent President requires immense political skill, far greater popularity with the public, LOTS and LOTS of money, AND encouragement from the Party leadership. Look at the 'Rats, was there ever a weaker candidate than that pathetic Kenyan douchebag? But there are no true challengers to his being renominated. Even Jimmy Carter delivered on his bravado to "whip Kennedy's ass" and indeed beat back Fat Teddy's challenge in 1980, not that it did him any good.

Conclusion: unless 'President Romney' is a far worse political operator than 0bama himself, he will be essentially a lock for renomination in 2016, and anyone believing otherwise needs to put down the bong.

unless 'President Romney' is a far worse political operator than 0bama himself, he will be essentially a lock for renomination in 2016, and anyone believing otherwise needs to put down the bong

You are absolutely right. If Romney wins the presidency in 2012, the chances of him losing the Republican nomination in 2016 are vanishingly small.

Let's put an arbitrary number on "vanishingly small" and say a Republican challenger against a President Romney for the nomination in 2016 has the proverbial "one chance in a million".

Now let's look at that number, one chance in a million.

The decimal equivalent of that is: .000001

Now let's talk about the chances of Tom Hoefling being elected president in 2012.

I would say that Hoefling's chances of receiving 270 electoral votes are, at a maximum, a millionth of the chances of President Romney's mythical primary challenger in 2016 taking the nomination away from Romney.

That's at a maximum. I would say the real number is a millionth of a millionth.

Put all those numbers together and you have 1e-18, or .000000000000000001 for Hoefling's chances, or one chance in a billion billion.

Even if someone reliably offered me such astronomical odds, I wouldn't waste a nickle on the bet.

But you're willing to waste the vote that the Founders created for you and that countless men and women in arms gave their lives to protect. That's pretty funny, really, when you think about it.

But, as any of the Founders would agree with, it is your right to flush your vote down whatever toilet you see fit. We are, after all, the Land of the Free. (That is, until Obamugabe gets a second term.)

Conclusion: unless 'President Romney' is a far worse political operator than 0bama himself, he will be essentially a lock for renomination in 2016, and anyone believing otherwise needs to put down the bong.

I agree. If Romney wins (and I believe he will), we are looking at 2020 before we have another chance to nominate a real conservative for the GOP for Romney will be our nominee in 2016 as well.

Let's face up to facts, we blew our chance to nominate a real conservative in 2012. For whatever reason, Sarah Palin blew her chance because had she run, she would have breezed to the nomination. Maybe in 2020, Palin will be ready to run. She'll only be 56 at that time - still plenty young enough to serve two strong terms.

So our only real option at this time is to hope Romney outperforms expectations. Maybe he'll surprise us.

>> President Chester Arthur was unable to stymie the challenge of James G. Blaine <<

Yep, and the REAL reason for Arthur's collapse is that the Blaine supporters on FR did a very effective job of letting everybody know that Arthur wasn't an NBC!

Moreover, when Blaine died, a well-thumbed copy of Vattel's book (in French) was found in Blaine's library!