I’d be perfectly happy to see another candidate emerge, now or later. The Republican race so far has been a contest between the weakness of Romney and the weakness of his opponents. Romney looks incredibly vulnerable at the moment in Michigan and even in Arizona, but Santorum may be frittering away his opportunity — and so it goes. If Romney does lose Michigan or Michigan and Arizona, who would be the Republican savior? It would have to be someone who really wants to be president, has a taste for high political risk, and has very little to lose. The party doesn’t seem to have many people with those qualities, or the field would already have been bigger. As for a convention, let’s say Romney leads in delegates but is below 50 percent. Wouldn’t the likeliest outcome in that scenario simply be a Romney-Santorum ticket? To get another candidate, it seems you would need not just a contested convention but one that deadlocks with no way out.
A Romney-Santorum ticket has two candidates with a lot of the same things wrong with them (not real conservatives, far too neocon, too much Big Government in their backgrounds.) Also no sense of humor, no appeal to youth. It would lose by a landslide. Romney would do much better with Rand Paul as VP and a move towards isolationism in foreign policy, thus pulling the Paul delegates to him and appealing to libertarians and semi-libertarians like myself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRand Paul wouldn't offer anything for Romney. For every Paul supporter that he received, he would lose two more social conservatives. You can't be as hostile to Israel as the Paul crew is and still be palatable to SoCons - a group Mitt already alienates.
Santorum/Rand Paul would be interesting, but it would never happen - and even if it did, there is no way even a negligible percentage of those youthful Paul supporters would vote for Santourm.
Bob Barr received 1.3M votes in 2008, which I believe was the best performance by a Libertarian candidate, perhaps ever. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see that double in 2012, particularly if Santorum is the nominee. I don't think Nadar's Green Party performance of 2.8M is likely to be surpassed, but the Libertarian candidate could possibly get close to that number.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIsn't it a little ridiculous to think that someone could come into the contest at this point? I think we are being a bit too hard on the candidates. Obama has strengths but he also has a lot of weaknesses. He's an unpopular president who champions unpopular ideas, his base is lukewarm with him (I have liberals tell me he's a moderate, or even center-right!), and he has few accomplishments to tout so he'll go negative and that will undercut his hope and change image. It's not a lock for the GOP, but it's also not a lock for Obama. If we really believe that our ideals are so much better, then we should believe that we can win in the court of public opinion. Look, for all the hostility of the media, Republicans are still here, still strong, and had a huge sweep in the last election. Sure, there are challenges but we will do better to stay positive and focus on our strengths rather than spend a bunch of time being bitter and complaining.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood grief, what a dud ticket you're suggesting would be likely given the possible outcome. Conservatives have to be "PRAYING" for a top notch VP candidate to salvage some respect for pulling the lever for (fill in the blank).
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Conservatives have to be "PRAYING" for a top notch VP candidate "
I can't think of a single person that would fire up one element of the conservative movement without alienating the other.
Rubio and Ryan probably offer the widest appeal of any of the (VP) candidates out there, but I just don't think either want to be VP, particularly Rubio - at least not yet.
I think of all the possible outcomes, Romney/Santorum probably solves more problems than it creates: It offers appeal for the professional, educated Republican that is more focused on economic issues, and it perhaps sates the more strident social conservatives.
It would be nice if you had a candidate that was a fiscal hawk, orthodox social conservative and appealing to the Paul base. Unfortunately, that person doesn't exist - at least not in this cycle.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with your comments on Rubio and Ryan. I would love to see either one of them on the ticket, but I don't think either one wants the VP slot.
That said, I think there are some people out there who might fire up conservatives. Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, John Thune, Pat Toomey, Eric Cantor, Bob McDonnell, and Bobby Jindal come to mind. Or the nominee could do what Bush did -- pick someone who's in the later stages of his career, such as John Kyl, Haley Barbour, John Bolton, or Tom Coburn.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOne of your former colleagues painted a couple of scenarios regarding the convention.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is the worst election ever. I can't even follow it anymore. 2012 has been nothing short of a disaster. Republicans should simply focus on retaking the Senate and keeping the House.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith Romney at the head of the ticket, neither outcome is likely.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"With Romney at the head of the ticket, neither outcome is likely."
Okay, you don't like Romney. But I can't see him losing so badly to Obama that the GOP House majority would be in danger. Right now Mitt is down five to Barry in the RCP average. A loss like that would probably leave the House majority pretty much intact.
I'm no fan of Santorum's but I doubt even he could lose badly enough to Obama to turn the House over to the Dems. He's down single-digits to Barry right now at RCP. Yeah, the anti-birth-control crusade might cost a few seats but not enough to flip the House.
The Senate is iffier, a lot more state-specific. The Dems have the much tougher map to defend under any circumstances.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith Romney at the head of the ticket, the base stays home. Romney will be lucky if his vote total is down only 1 million from the disaster of McCain. The Republicans will be lucky if they only lose as many seats as the lost in 2008.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"With Romney at the head of the ticket, the base stays home."
There's just no data to support this idea. In almost every matchup against Obama Romney holds Republicans nearly unanimously. So does Santorum, which is why he's even competitive against Barry. Rasmussen has them both down just two against Obama as I type. External Link
The base will vote enthusiastically against Obama if the GOP runs me. (Oh man, horrible thought.) By the way, Rasmussen rates the generic Congressional virtually even, which portends little movement either way in the House. The Dems would need to be well in front to stand a chance of overturning the substantial GOP majority.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConsider this one piece of data. If Romney's the nominee I'll stay at home.
Rather than worrying about a few percentage points of theoretical independents, perhaps people should be concerned about the GOP base? Just sayin...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark, if the base stays home b/c who's on the ticket then they deserve to lose. Aren't we conservatives always going on and and on about how bad Obama is for the country? Hasn't he shown just how much damage he can do in 4 years? His recent actions in complete disregard of the Constitution (recess appointments, HHS mandate) only highlight that we can't have another 4 years of this guy, he's already making himself into a "benevolent" tyrant. Quite frankly you could put Ron Paul on top of the ticket and I would still vote for him over Obama. I sincerely hope the base can see straight enough to vote for whoever the nominee is and put all the rancor of the primary season behind them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo conservatives should continue to support those who spit in our faces, just because the other side hates us even more?
If the Republican party wants the loyalty of the base, they should stop doing everything in their power to offend the base.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo put it another way, if the bus is going over the cliff anyway, does it really matter that much who is at the wheel?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe guy who you want to drive the bus, voted for the largest expansion of the so-called social contract in over 50-years - oh, and it was completely unfunded, adding $7T to the national debt, at least.
Rick Santorum has never seen a social program he either didn't want to expand or create.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd with Santorum anywhere near the ticket, moderates, independents, and even conservatives who share his views but are appalled at his sour Torquemada mien stay home and all is lost.
What the wild-eye partisans of the Not-Romneys can't grasp is how the general public doesn't have the problems with Mitt that they have with Santorum and Newt. I don't like Mitt, but I don't have the rage against him that others who back an ABM candidate have. However, Newt and Santorum OTOH are so unacceptable, I'm actually going to drag myself to the polls next week to vote for Mitt so as to get the message across that both of these clowns need to drop off the face of the planet if we're going to have a shot at saving the nation.
This is reason. Supporting a Not-Romney is madness.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe general public doesn't have the problems with Romney that they have with Santorum? Oh, so THAT'S why Santorum is the only GOP candidate whose favorables are higher than his unfavorables.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith Obama at the head of the other ticket, the base will turn out. The threats of the base not to turn out if Romney is the nominee remind me of the threats of so many Democrats in 2004 who insisted they'd move to Canada (little did they know about Stephen Harper...) if Bush got re-elected.
Romney is a terrible candidate, and it's exasperating that it's come to this in an election Republicans should be able to win easily. But it has, and now he needs to convince some good number of people who voted for Obama in 2008 to switch sides and give him a chance with the economy.
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