When did Gov. Jeb Bush run for president in the primaries or as a running mate to a presidential candidate? Your theory founders there. And who in hell wants Gov. Mitt Romney, again? Then former Vice President Richard Nixon was a decent retail politician, and worked hard to regain the nomination after eight years. Who else can you think of that pulled that off, much less won election to the White House, on the GOP side? Your theory actually points to Gov. Palin or Sen. Santorum having a shot at the nomination, rather than Governors Bush or Romney, with Rep. Ryan being the only other likely person, save for Vice President Dan Quayle. Hearing any rumors about him?
Jeb Bush (and GW bush) got to work on Bush 41’s campaign in 1980 and 1988 and 1992. He also got to see alot of what DC is about when GH was VP for 8 years and potus for 4 and then his brother was potus for 8. He has been vetted by the democrats when he ran for gov of FL and lost and when he ran twice more for gov and won.
Plus, the volunteers, donors, experienced staff and gope all know him very well and are holdovers from potus 41 and 43. He has that infrastructure to start with.
For example, in Ohio, Obama never closed his 2008 campaign office. He had the money to keep his entire infrastructure in place in key states. This showed up in 2012 when Obama won Ohio by 2% less in 2012 vs. 2008, yet he lost neighboring Indiana by 14 points to romney when he beat McCain in Indiana 49-48.
Jeb will have a lot of 41’s and 43’s infrastructure still intact. Same with Santorum having his people intact from 2012, same with romney and same with Ryan.
The next gop nominee will be one of those four.
The real battle is for who will be “NEXT” in line after 2016. In 2020, next will be the vp nominee, Jeb, or the guy who finishes next in 2016.
It is the same in virtually any field. You usually get to the top by being “a 20 years of hard work, overnite success”. Getting to the top is not easy. You usually have to fight and slog through preliminaries and then you get to the quarterfinals and then the semifinals and then maybe you get to be NEXT.