Can anyone who GOP voters like actually win??

outdoor338 wrote: republicans could run whoever they want and Obama will lose..

I give the American people more credit than you do. And, I agree with TM.

kresspin wrote: Just a guess on my part, based on Romney's State Health Care, I don't think the Tea Party would support him. Again a guess, the Tea Party will be the tail wagging the dog and will force Republicans to chose a candidate of theirs.

What could also happen is that enough of the populace says a pox on both your houses that an independent candidate might garner enough electoral votes to deny either of the two major party candidates the necessary majority to win election to the presidency outright and the matter ends up in the House of Representatives for the first time in nearly 200 years. When one considers that the change Obama said the people could believe in was really nothing more than Bush on steroids and the Democrats appear unlikely to hold onto their majority in the Senate, there exists a very good possibility that the election of 2012 could prove more memorable than the one in 2008 was.

Worst case scenario for the Republicans in 2012 at the moment appears to be a return of Obama to the Oval Office where he must contend with a Congress where the opposite party controls both houses. I don't foresee the Democrats regaining the House and the Republicans only need to pick up 4 seats to gain control of the Senate. Since this was the state of things the last time this nation had a budget surplus, I don't think the nation would be overly adverse to that situation either, in fact they might prefer it.

I think you have the poles reversed with regards to the Republicans AV. Against a weak opponent, you run your ideologue, not your moderate, candidate. There is insufficient distinction between a low tax high spending Republican and a high tax high spending Democrat to take enough votes away from an incumbent running for reelection. As we saw in the '08 election, the choice between a moderate and an ideologue coupled with dissatisfaction for the incumbent party results in the ideologue being chosen, not the moderate. Obama can't win as an ideologue this time around as he did in '08, even if he manages to get the support of the Soros/Moore/Code Pinks in the party - he will have to attempt to portray himself as a moderate, despite all the available evidence to the contrary, this time around - and to do that he will have to do an awful lot of compromising with the Republicans in Congress to convince anyone that he is a moderate or that he can actually reach across the aisle instead of digging in his heels.

If the Republicans can force a few vetoes between now and 2012 in the fiscal area, there is a very decent chance that a Republican who is willing to do what must be done to reduce the size of the federal spending and reduce the power of the federal government (ala Christie in NJ) could win a head to head with Obama. Given that the Democrats in the Senate won't, or can't, bring a budget to the floor for a vote at all, it wouldn't be all that hard to convince the voters that the reason there is no budget is the inflexibility and unwillingness to compromise that exists in the executive office. Give the folks a choice of making it harder for themselves and easier for their children or making it harder for their children and easier for themselves and I think they will choose self sacrifice. Give the young voters a choice between making it harder on themselves or making it harder on the folks who caused the problems and I think they will choose to make it harder on the ones who caused the problems.

towermonkey wrote: If Trump actually does run as an independent, he will split some of the Republican vote and Obama is a shoo in.

I agree that would be bad for anyone wanting Obama out. However, I believe Trump wants Obama out as much as anyone and is smart enough to know what happens when you split the vote. He will not run as an Indy imo, Trump does not like to lose.

I'm still praying that Hillary goes up against Obama, I know it's a long shot but stranger things have happened. I'm not a Hillary fan but she has much more competence than Obama and if the Republicans get the Senate, I would be satisfied with that.

PS - your strategy of running a highly differentiated candiate against a weak opponent only holds true if there is math to support that candidate. Not even a majority of Republican likely voters support the farther right candidates. So how do you expect to get independents and "weak" Republicans to vote for such candidates? The bottom line is you can't win a general Presidential election without winning a majority of swing voters. Far right candidates aren't going to have much appeal to moderates and independents and without their votes you can't win.

I think PrintSmith is hoping for another Reagan type election. Remember that Reagan was thought of as a far right quack until the election cycle really got going and the economy along with Carter's popularity continued to tumble.

Far left candidates aren't going to have much appeal to them either in the next election. It then becomes the lesser of the two evils for the independents, a clear choice between larger government, higher taxes and exploding deficits and the opposite of these choices. Revitalizing domestic oil exploration and development or continuation of its sequestering. Having Congress set energy policy or allowing the appointed head of the EPA whom no one elected to do it instead. Refuse to touch entitlements and ensure that their benefits are substantially reduced by default in a few short years or fundamentally reform the way they are organized and operated such that the benefit reduction is hopefully less than it would be if nothing at all is done. Continue to raise the debt ceiling and have the interest due on that debt top $1 Trillion a year before the children born this year are out of high school, or cut the federal spending to match historical tax revenues and have the dollars that are held by foreign entities invested in the economy instead of the federal deficits.

Oh yes AV, a battle of the ideologues could be won by the GOP in 2012 by votes coming from the independents who are nearly as dissatisfied with the performance of Obama as they were with that of Bush in 2005. By comparison, Bush had an approval rating among independents around 55% at this point in his presidency, Obama's is around 37% - and falling.

The voters can look at the recent past and say to themselves that we've tried lower taxes and higher spending for going on 12 years now and things have only gotten worse instead of better. Perhaps it is time to try lower spending, not reduced increases, lower actual spending, even when some sacred cows get gored in the process, instead of somehow hoping that more of the same behavior will yield a different result in the next 4 years than it has for the last 30.

I think it's too early to tell, but I wouldn't underestimate the power of the media and the stupidity of Americans to buy into another Obama marketing campaign. President Obama has little to no success to run on at this point, so I expect another major marketing campaign, not a political campaign.

Time will tell, PS, but so far I don't see any far-right candidates who even have the cojones to run on the issues. They are just blathering about birth certificates and other nonsense as though those WERE the issues. Huge, huge disconnect from where most Amercan's heads are actually at.

I'm thinking it's because they know they CAN'T win on the issues. Not everyone is as convinced as you are that slashing programs in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s is the thing to do. Even those who are totally disenchanted with Obama may not agree that slashing budgets is how to get the economy back on track. And I guarantee that all the birther talk and focus on issues like gay marriage is a losing strategy with moderates, even registered Republican moderates.

PS - your strategy of running a highly differentiated candiate against a weak opponent only holds true if there is math to support that candidate.

The math is there.

By November 2012 the country will be choking on Carter"esk" inflation. Gas could be 6 or 7 bucks a gallon. The failed policies of the Obama regime will be evident to everyone in America, the same way failed policy was evident in 1980. It is likely that the USA will loose it's "AAA" credit rating- forcing the FED to raise interest rates. The value of the dollar will sink further, making everything more expensive. The jobs market will be worse than it is today- because we all know that government does not create jobs- low tax and regulation policy sets the stage for more jobs- and Obama is doing everything he can to badmouth those individuals and corporations that actually create jobs. Capital by the trillions are waiting for a pro-business government before they invest again. Many millions of Americans are aware of what Obama is doing to us- they don't like what they see at all.

Obama has lost those independants that voted for him- the party is over. Many of those votes were anti-bush votes, and we can see that many of them who voted for the left are now switching sides, the mid-term election showed a clear trend. Even the hard core left are ticked off at Obama- the republican may even get some of those votes- the same way Reagan did in 1980.

That said- if the republicans nominate Romney- I will not be voting republican. I will never again vote for a big government type republican (RINO). I hope the republicans have enough sense to run their most conservative candidate. If they don't - many conservatives like me will vote for a third party like the libertarians.

I even think that Ron Paul could win this election - there's a guy I can support- in the past he was an outsider but everything he's been talking about for 20 years is coming true. He knows the system from the inside and he may be the only one who can turn the disaster we are headed towards around.

He also would like a return to the gold standard- I think most educated Americans are agreeable to that idea.

:thumbsup: