- McCain without Palin.
- Romney. (The devil you don’t know.)
- Bush. (The devil you do.)
- Karl Rove.
- The ghost of Richard Nixon.
- Davros.
- McCain with Palin.
Since we are obviously throwing out the constitution by allowing Bush to possibly serve a 3rd term if he is picked, and you said ANY REGISTERED REPUBLICAN, I say Bush with Schwarzenegger as VP. Seriously, the guy was a pretty good governor.
Or possibly Olympia Snow or Susan Collins.
As much as he gets the blame for it, Bush didn’t have that much to do with the economic melt down. And when it came down to it, he realized that the government needed to intervene and he made a heart-felt plea to republicans in congress to go along with a government bailout to keep us from going into a deep depression.
With a reasonable republican at his side, I’d say we’d have a good chance of having a decent presidency for 4 years.
McCain with Powell as VP.
I suppose that “the one in the worst health” would skirt just a little too close to the rules …
Oddly enough, the miserable lying bastard. He’s smart, he’s honest by his depraved and despicable standards, and I think he might actually want what’s best for the country. He’s dead wrong about what that is, admittedly, but if Republican strangle hold is broken in the mid-term elections, and all the Supreme’s hold on for a few more years, we might survive.
But only if Jane Swift is Lieutenant President. Heh, heh.
… snicker… snort … giggle … chortle … gigglesnort choke … gasp …
Oh, pull up a chair, I’ll bring the pop-corn.
Both. The lying bastard.
And I’m officially unenrolled, and refuse to accept gender be a factor in allowing one to vote, so also put me down as a rule breaker.
Yes, definitely McCain. I’d prefer a McCain 15 years younger, but we’re allowed a good V.P.
McCain does not strike me as very intelligent, and I disagree with many of his positions, but “honestly seems to have the country’s best interests at heart” is what decides it. That should go without saying for any candidate, and I think it applied to almost every President or major candidate ever … but it doesn’t apply to Romney, nor to the Cheney-Rove Administration.
George H.W. Bush. If he’s not supposed to be the Bush you refer to, than McCain sans Palin. Then George W. Bush. Then Romney. Then McCain with Palin.
Romney. I think he’s a moderate at heart, and the reason he’s pandering is that he wants to be elected. He doesn’t have much of a core, but the teeny, tiny core he’s got is moderate. And I don’t know if he’d be as susceptible to such once he had his goal–being president.
Bleh.
Probably McCain, largely on the grounds that there would be a statistically significant chance of him dropping dead before his term was up, leaving my hand-picked VP in charge.
Look, we’d all like broccoli with cheese sauce, but we have to be realistic in this economy!
I’m not eligible to vote in this thread but I just wanted to say that made me laugh.
Of those three, McCain for sure. In fact I actually did vote for him in the '00 primaries. I didn’t like him as much in '08 when he tacked to the right (which in his defense was the only way to win the nomination) and his picking of Palin turned me off completely. But with a different running mate and Romney & Bush as the only other options, he’d be tolerable.
Actually Cupp isn’t 35 yet, so she’s not eligible.
I’d be pissed off but would choose McCain over the others, with a [del]side order[/del] VP pick of Clint Eastwood. They’re both really old and Eastwood makes me laugh. Besides, we could probably convince Ahmedinijad (sp?) that Eastwood’s movies are documentaries. Might come in handy some day.
The administrations of all three would be filled with many of the same people, so I don’t see that as much of a choice.
Damn. In that case, McCain as president and Michigan Governor Snyder as veep.
McCain with Lieberman as VP. If he’d had the guts to pick Lieberman in the first place, he might have pulled out a win.
Agreed. Going into the campaign season, I thought McCain looked really strong. Even though I’m a pretty hardcore lefty, I felt a McCain presidency would be okay. Not my choice, but still okay. Then he picked Sarah Palin, which meant 1) he basically sold out to the far-right elements in his own party, and 2) Sarah Palin would be a heartbeat from the presidency. No thanks.
But would a McCain (Now!! With New Improved Lieberman!!) Administration simply put the country in the hands of someone who has demonstrably exercised terrible judgment on one of the few issues you’ve seen him exercise judgment? I mean, push come to shove, he–chose–Palin. He didn’t have the guts, the brains, the vision, apart from political considerations, to know that was an impossible choice. It was like he chose his cocker spaniel for the VP slot, and now you’re saying, “Yeah, other than that choice, he’s the man.” No, no, no–that was a crazy, disturbing, completely loopy choice–and he made it when he had other options.
He’s a reckless, dangerous, maniac in my view–probably the scariest of the three for that reason.
Right, I am positing a hypothetical alternate universe where he never picked Palin. In the real world, he did, and IMO he cannot now be trusted.
Romney.
a) I think he really is more moderate than he appears (he certainly governed as a moderate in Massachusetts), and would tack to the center as president.
b) He is clearly the most intelligent of the three. McCain is not that smart, and just a little nutty, and Bush is…Bush.
I maintain that at the time she was chosen, NOBODY (except Alaskans, and Alaskan Republicans weren’t about to diss one of their own) knew that much about her and had NO idea what they were in for.
McCain wanted Lieberman, they talked him down (Jewish, moderate), Pawlenty’s too boring, they were behind in the polls, they weren’t raising money, they were getting desperate, they went for the game-changing, Hail Mary pass choice, and it blew up in their faces.