Presidential candidate speculation started after the Republicans got ransacked in the historic 2008 election. Americans do have a way at looking ahead, don't we? Anyway, the Republicans have been throwing out names left and right, each with their pros and cons. The speculated candidates include Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich. A couple long-shots for the Republican nomination include Herman Cain, a radio show host and pizza corporation owner, as well as Fred Karger, a Republican operative who has worked in numerous Republican White Houses and is also gay.
To anyone who has stayed up on politics the past couple of years, the majority of those names should be familiar, most of all Palin's. After losing the vice presidency in the 2008 election, she has been on a controversial media blitz ever since, dominating the airwaves with controversial comments while garnering a large, energetic following. In my opinion, she's dangerous for the country, along with Michele Bachmann. The fact that either of them pass the threshold for a viable Republican nominee astonishes me. I was reading an opinion page on the website Politico and read a response in which a political science professor said Bachmann was viable in that sense that she would be a good candidate for those of the public who find Palin "too intellectual". Yikes.
Despite it all, the Republicans need to realize that no matter how vulnerable Obama appeared earlier, he is gaining strength. Not only that, he is a sitting president with over a billion dollars in his campaign war-chest who does not have to go through a grueling primary before hitting the general election. The Obama campaign will be going on all cylinders by the time the Republican nominee comes out bloody and beaten from the conservative dog-fight assured to take place.
Depending where the country goes the next year and a half will play the biggest role in the outcome of next years election. Will the Republicans continue the domination of the 2010 midterms or will Obama and the Democrats be able to reverse their fortune and return to the success of 2008?
Jake,
ReplyDeleteThis is very well written and a pleasure to read. Of course, because I've been reading AT's DIA, I'm also thinking about his comments on the frequency of elections in the USA. Seems like we hardly get one Congress underway before the next election cycle begins. That might have been needed when news traveled by horse-back, but now information is available in a flash, so why not declare a 6 month election season? LDL