Pataki or Gingrich would have won in 2000 had he run.
GOP 2000 primaries were pretty bland.
Gingrich is mercurial and so unreliable on many issues, but he would have still been much better than either Bush or McCain. Pataki is a RINO liberal like Rudy Giuliani, and would have been worse than either Bush or McCain. In almost any other state, Pataki would have been a Democrat.
GOP 2000 primaries were pretty bland.
On another thread, someone remarked that it was as though we didn't have a primary in 2000 at all, we just woke up one day to find another person named George Bush handed the nomination for the second time in a decade. That sounds about right. Like Hillary in 2016, it was more of a coronation than a primary. I knew W would be bad news with his talk of "compassionate conservatism" and his soft spot for Mexican illegals, but I wasn't prepared for just how bad he was going to turn out.