The concept of a Repub opponent to Bush* gets more realistic.

[MGKrebs]

It was an intriguing idea when I first heard it (here) a couple of days ago, but it seems to get more realistic every day. Shrub is giving the Repubs plenty to oppose him on. This has got to be driving some of the true conservatives nuts.
1. Nation building.
2. Huge deficits.
3. Massive Fed spending increases.
4. Military unable to respond to other (NK, Iran) threats.
5. Must appeal to the UN for help

I just don't know enough about the aspirations of any of the Repubs to know who might be tempted to defy Rove and throw their hat in.
Orrin Hatch- he would never defy the President would he?
McCain- I'm pretty sure he's not interested.
Who else is there?

[Ediacara]

1. Chick Hagel

after all.... he'd have those voting machines all on his side :-)

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

2. If they DON'T find at least one token opponent to *

..the Democrats can paint them (rightly so) as the Party of No Choice.

Hey - that's a great idea about Chuck Hagel (R- Neb). He's dusted up with * enough on war issues, too.

Hope they don't run Ron Paul (R- TX) - I might accidentally vote for him.

Are we ready for a Republican antiwar candidate?

[Ilsa]

4. The Repubs don't like Ron Paul.

He opposes them too often. But don't get the idea that he's on our side. He is backwards on almost everything. Doesn't think the federal govt. should spend money on things like schools.

[liberalnurse]

3. This won't work because

their convention is not until September 04......They can't get momentum can they?

[MGKrebs]

5. I don't follow you.

I would think that with an incumbant president, there is a lot of pressure to keep other candidates out. Especially since the incumbant would normally have the best chance of winning. But they can't really prevent anybody from running (sure they can make them pay, but they can't really stop them), and if someone thought they had a better chance to win, or that the incumbant was deviating from (in this case) conservative principles, and they were ambituious enough, I would think they would almost feel obligated to jump in. And soon- so that they could build a campaign in time.

It's probably good for us, because the only way someone would do that would be to attack the administration. And it would force both of them to spend a bunch of money during the primary campaign, which won't happen now. Bush* will get to save almost all of his money until after the convention with no opposition.

[wtmusic]

6. No primaries = 1 candidate

The most realistic possibility is McCain running as an 'independent' (nod nod, wink wink) and that could be a problem.