Get ready for Obama v. Gingrich

[oberliner]

Should be fun!

[Ken Burch]

1. Obama needs to keep the differences clear if he wants to win.

None of "the independents" are gonna vote for a maniac like The Newter anyway, so he has no need to blur the differences or move any further right on anything.

[grantcart]

2. never happen

brokered convention will happen first.

Dust off one of the governors and restart.

Not Romney, not Gingrich none of these nut jobs, this is just a trial run.

They changed the rules allowed for proportional primaries so that if they have a weak campaigner like McCain they could reboot and start over, and all of these people are way below McCain.

[oberliner]

3. Who sneaks in?

Any prediction for who ends up as their nominee?

[grantcart]

6. Daniels

[oberliner]

8. Interesting

Let's make a $10,000 bet on it!

[grantcart]

10. lol

as a former head of the budget office he would be a wonk on economic policies.

Already said that Republicans need to avoid social issues this time around.

In any case I believe that the Republican leadership has already written off the Presidential election (very hard to unseat an incumbent who has done well on national security. (Yes Bush Sr lost but Clinton was running against two Republicans),

They are probably going to put their resources into the Senate.

There isn't going to be a lot of extra money to pass out and they are going to get stuck on taxes. Let Obama get the Presidency and then sabotage the second term and march Jeb out as the savior in 2016 with the Senate in hand and go after the House. Thats what I would do if I was them.

[oberliner]

11. Are you saying they will deliberately tank this election and go for 2016?

That is quite a scary scenario you've laid out there.

[grantcart]

15. Not deliberately tank it but just won't waste the resources on an impossible

task.

This is the way Republicans think, last election was a disaster because their primaries were winner take all so by the 4th primary it was over.

with proportional primaries they can give Romney a chance to excite the base or some quality leader to come up through the primary system.

Right now they all know that none of these idiots are going to be able to go with Obama, and they don't want another Palinesque type disaster. They know that they are losing badly in the lower age brackets and by attrition will face extinction.

They also think that Romney was a lousy campaigner and couldn't beat McCain. But all of these idiots can't be the guy who lost to McCain who lost to Obama.

Gingrich? He's an unstable charachter and they won't let him get it because after the election he would be the impossible gadfly in charge of the Republican brand for 4 years.

Before it was winner take all, now proportional so that means that unless somebody gets 51% of the delegates nothing is finished. Nobody is close to 30%, and if everybody else stays in and just takes 5% here and 7% there it makes 51% impossible.

Presto they now get to wipe the slate clean at the convention and bring out a new candidate who won't have any of the negatives at convention time.

The brand will be too damaged to actually win but it will be respectable. They won't win the swing states but it will allow them to get their base excited and out and help on other campaigns.

My prediction, none of the clowns will be the nominee.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. Technicality but my understanding is that only the first set of primaries

and caucuses are proportional and the latter set (after a certain cut-off date, IIRC) are still winner take all.

I may be mis-interpreting what I read, though.

[Rowdyboy]

17. Daniels, Haley Barbour or Christie

My money's on Barbour-he can raise almost as much money as Obama and he's southern but all of them are plausible.

I really don't see a road to the nomination for Romney and Gingrich can't possibly make it to September without imploding.

[tabatha]

4. I agree with you - this is just to formulate the issues

to see where public opinion is.

They are going to take Obama by surprise with someone else - the Obama team have done research on Romney and Newt.

[stockholmer]

19. ding ding ding, we have a winner, I too think it will be a brokered convention

The new rules of winner does not take all in many primaries really go a long ways to preventing one candiate from getting enough votes to win outright.

Gingrich is a fucking nightmare, btw. Extremely dangerous for the world at large. I despise him on every possible level.


I say look out for David Petraeus¨, John Thune, Chris Christie, and the ultimate shadow lurking in the wings, Jeb Bush.

[doc03]

5. I say be careful what you wish for. I fear Newt the most of

any of them. The simple fact that he is actually being considered is down right mind blowing.

[Skip Intro]

7. I don't think it will be Gingrich.

I think it's too early to count Romney out. I think it entirely possible there will be an independent run by a "true conservative" if it is Romney or Gingrich. I also would not count Ron Paul out at this point. Santorum and Perry are second tier. Bachmann may see some movement toward her, but ultimately she will not be the nom. Newt just has too much baggage, too much opportunity for attacks, and I think those attacks will come and will eventually stick and sink him. My best guess is Romney or Paul as the nom, Romney being far more likely.

[oberliner]

9. Ron Paul has zero chance to be the nominee

As for Romney, I thought he'd be it too, but after this debate and his 10,000 dollar bet line and the way the pundits are tearing him apart, I just can't see it.

He seemed very weak.

[Skip Intro]

12. This wasn't the last debate, and Iowa is just the first "real" contest. Way early. And you may be

right about Paul, but again, it's way early, too early for me to count him out. I say Perry and Santorum go first. Then Bachmann. I don't count Paul out at this point.

[oberliner]

13. Newt is the best debater out of this bunch

More debates will help him.

[coalition_unwilling]

18. Ron Paul is polling ahead of Romney in Iowa and has a way better

ground game there than the Grinch. So Paul conceivably could win Iowa and get a major bounce going into NH where Romney has favored son status. That would make Paul the 'insurgent upstart' in NH and allow everyone who hates Romney to knock him out of the race by voting Paul. Again, Gingrich polls strong but has little or no ground game. Too late to get one going now and Paul has been working on the ground for over 8 months.

[Major Hogwash]

14. Willard lost!!

There will NEVER be a President of the United States with the name Newt!!