It will be Christie , but he is a national unknown. He may be as orally accident prone as the rest are. Then what? If Romney is the best, the Repub lose.
Christie claims he is not interested, but the NJ governor is going to be in 3 or 4 states this week. Stretching the truth a bit? The Repubs are feeling desperate.
Christie may have some of the same problems as Romney and Perry when it comes to having the conservative bona fides necessary:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/is-christie-the-anti-perry-or-the-anti-romney/
The Cain straw vote can be seen as a refutiation of Romney. It is like saying, anybody but the Mitt. Because they all know Cain can not get nominated.
Meh. The straw voters were just hoping to score some free pizza.
Romney versus Christie will be an interesting battle.
Romney is more disciplined, has a more impressive resume and a big head start when it comes to raising money and organizing a campaign. OTOH he is widely perceived to be a flip-flopper and lacks the popular touch.
Christie is fresh and charismatic and something of a darling in the conservative media. OTOH he is rather late and may struggle to get his camapaign up and running for the crucial ground game in the early states.
The basic problem for Christie is that he will be competing in the smaller ideological space against a tough competitor. The real votes are in the Perry/Cain/Gingrich/Bachmann space but it has struggled to produce a credible candidate. Perry looked like the real deal but he has obviously struggled since his woeful debate performances.
My hunch is Perry will recover because his problems are basically about messaging. He had done a terrible job explaining himself on the few issues like immigration where he departed from conservative orthodoxy. However the reality is that he has a conservative record and agenda and if he can communicate it better he will regain the support of the GOP base.
Romney does not appeal to the Christian Conservatives. Many will not support a Mormon ,no matter what. The Repubs are running against Obamacare, yet Romney’s care was a blueprint for Obama. Romney is an elitist spoiled rich kid. The Repubs like to vote for a guy they can picture having a beer with. That is not Mitt. He is a semi-liberal east coaster.
That is why his campaign is mired in the mud. They don’t want him. But they may have to default to him because the other candidates are horribly flawed.
I wonder how enthusiastically the Repubs would help Mitty?
I agree. It is definitely Romney’s niche that Christie would be trying to take over.
What I find most interesting is that at this late date in the announcement/straw polling/fund raising/etc. cycle, there are still Republicans that are so unhappy with their candidates that they are seriously thinking it’s not that late after all.
Palin is watching the party implode. But she is unqualified for the run. That does not mean she will not do it.
Fat people have trouble running for office. Christie will face that, along with his not being an ultra conservative.
After a series of debates, nothing is settled.
I predict a deadlock at the convention, taking some time to resolve.
There simply doesn’t seem to be a genuine, electable frontrunner for the Republicans.
The primaries are setup to avoid a convention confrontation. The front runner will have enough votes to carry the nomination.
It was a lot more fun when the conventions were a battlefield. Now they are coronations.
I have not met a single Republican who is more disgusted with Mormonism than they are with Obama. If he wins the primaries, I don’t think his religion will hurt him at all.
I’ll concede that in the primaries, being Mormon will likely hurt Romney. However, there are so many Christian conservatives to vote for that I predict the votes will get split five ways (Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum), so even in the primaries his religion won’t hurt him much unless at least two of those five drop out of the race.
This is exactly right - the election isn’t about the GOP candidate, it’s about who is the safest person, with the best chance of defeating President Hopey McDowngrade. That’s what the riled up right wants to do more than anything.
If Cain really wanted to get out the vote for himself, the “free pizza” move would definitely work in America. College students would flock to the polls.
Christie has done everything but put up a big neon sign saying “I’M NOT RUNNING”. I’m going to guess that he’s not running this time around.
McDowngrade isn’t President yet. In fact, she’s doing rather poorly in the polls.
Quite the prediction.
Sure. That must be why so many Republicans are backing unelectable candidates like Bachmann, Paul and Cain. Romney is clearly the most electable of the set, and would govern from the center. That would drive the radicals nuts. It is not like the Tea Party would vote for Obama, but stay home and not donate, sure. You are ascribing a level of rationality to the Republican base which is not in evidence.
I feel like you’re missing the point. Republicans DO NOT like Obama. They dislike him enough to vote for whomever’s running against him. You want to point out that Republicans are backing unelectable candidates, then let’s point out that more Republicans are backing Mitt Romney than any other candidate. The candidates who get people excited are Bachmann, Paul, and Cain. Romney is not the favorite, most exciting of all the candidates, but he is viewed as the most electable, and THAT is why he has so much popular support right now – because Republicans dislike Obama enough to strategize how to get him out of office. Unless you have an alternative theory as to why Romney is leading in the polls …
A dangerous prediction. As you may know, this hasn’t happened since, I think, 1924. And that was the Democrats. The tradition is now very strong that the candidate with the most delegates gets nominated by acclamation. Also, with only two plausible candidates, Romney and Perry, it really is unlikely to last very long.
Isn’t that what they said when the GOP nominated an actor?
The election will be decided on the basis of which party gets the blame for the economy, not the identity of the candidate. Any current or former governor will do (except maybe for Palin, who really is unpopular).