Who shall be the candidate of the Republican Party?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by LordShiva

The one on the right looks ****able. The other one though...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rudy will be out early. Could be a choice for Veep, but it's hard to imagine he'd settle for it.

Berz is right: Hagel could screw things up for McCain by being McCain for the Iraq-weary. That, plus McCain's age and his well-documented temper (the Dean Scream will have nothing on some of what will come out of McCain) makes McCain far from a shoo-in.

That leaves a baggage-laden McCain vying with a bunch of white guys nobody much cares about. What makes the GOP race interesting is that it might not coalesce around a front-runner early on (unusual for the GOP), which means whoever gets the nomination will have to spend even more money that expected, and arrive at the convention bruised and bleeding from the typically nasty turn GOP primaries tend to take. The very process of choosing the GOP candidate may be part of why they lose in the end.

[Imran Siddiqui]

No way Rudy goes far, even with Fox News behind him. Rudy is pro-choice after all, and has dressed in drag on stage, doing some self-depreciating humor. Also, IIRC, he happens to be fairly progressive for Republicans on homosexual rights.

Hagel finds himself in an interesting position. Aside from the War on Iraq and Immigration he is a very conservative Senator. However, on those two issues he is very left-leaning (wants to end the War on Iraq and seems to favor a path for illegals to become legal). Its a similar position McCain was in in 2000, being more conservative than Bush but being portrayed as a left-winger.

McCain has become the ultimate flip flopper, and after being the straight talk guy, that'll kill him in the end.

[Admiral]

I still think that McCain, Romney, and Guliani will end up going down in flames, leaving someone with bona fide conservative credentials like Huckabee to be the nominee.

[Berzerker]

Duncan Hunter, he's a pro-war Hagel, both served in Vietnam

[Solly]

Originally posted by Oerdin


The one on the right looks ****able. The other one though...

The one on the right reminds me of someone I knew at uni. On the right again

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Duncan Hunter, he's a pro-war Hagel, both served in Vietnam

Who the **** is Duncan Hunter?

I just wiki'ed him and... a Congressman? Not even a Senator? No way he gets through.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

What's unclear to me is how the GOP field is shaping up in terms of constituencies. The Dems seem easy to read; they break down into 5 camps:

The Progressive candidate (Obama)
The Paleoliberal class warrior (Edwards)
The Moderate (Hillary. Yes, Hillary)
The Moderate who doesn't have Iraq Baggage (Vilsack, Richardson)
The Experience Candidate (Richardon here, too, with Dodd and Implodin' Joe Biden)

That's an easily-understood breakdown with ready-made constituencies. I confess I don't see the GOP candidates being categorized as easily -- which, in teh age of the soundbite, might be a problem.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Who the **** is Duncan Hunter?

I just wiki'ed him and... a Congressman? Not even a Senator? No way he gets through.

People are talking about Guiliani who was just a Mayor.

JM

[BeBMan]

Dis

[Timexwatch]

Giuliani might get it, if only because it looks like McCain is starting to tank in the early polls. From a beltway perspective, only McCain, Romeny and Giuliani have built some sort of infrastructure. Nothing seems to have surfaced in terms of a Hagel organization. Brownback, Hunter and the rest are non-starters. Huckabee looks interesting, but at this point all he's been putting out there is "blah blah blah, lost 100 pounds, classic conservative" which makes his Jared the Subway guy with a bible.

My money is on Giuliani, but only if he starts getting serious about it soon.

[Lorizael]

So have we come to a decision yet? Who shall be the candidate? When do we let the RNC know?

[Kidlicious]

Boy the Republicans look really screwed from this point. How old is McCain? Would he wait 4 more years?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Doddler


The one on the right reminds me of someone I knew at uni. On the right again

Is that you in the middle?

[lord of the mark]

First off, do people really care THAT much about the Mormon thing? When Romneys dad ran for prez in '68, it didnt come up at all, AFAIK (George Romney was sunk by a gaffe)

Second - look at how, say, Kos, treats a Ben Nelson "we give him more slack than Lieberman, cause he had to win in Nebraska" Think the GOP voters arent able to see that Giuliani had to win in you know, NYC? Babylon on the Hudson?

Third - I dont see McCain as flipflopping so terribly. Hes more flipped on rhetoric - in 2000 he dug into the fundies, and now he makes nice. But on policy, he was anti-abortion in 2000, and hes a moderate on judgeships now. I dont see him as a real flipper.

I dont know if he'll be able to keep his temper under control. Hes done a pretty good job of it the last few years, subject to extreme provocation (I mean heres a man who really cares about victory in Iraq, saw Rummy tossing it away, and managed to be civil in his calls for Rummy to resign)

I agree that hes very tied to the surge - if that fails robustly, hes history. On the other hand if it succeeds a big piece of the right and center will see him as prescient (the ones whod hate him for supporting the war anyway probably wont vote GOP anyway)

Hagel, AFAICT, aint such a maverick. Not on judicial nominations, not on global warming. Not on anything except for policy, and there he hasnt really done anything maverick till recently (when it was politically safe) hes mainly been gone on talk shows and thrown hints of not liking neocons.

McCains real problem with the GOP is still McCain Feingold, again something on which hes been consistent - this bugs the hell out of the deeply partisan GOP right, and they wont forgive him. Not sure how that partisant issue will play among ideological GOP constituencies (There arent that many high Tory George Will type voters)