In voting, take it as a given that you, personally, can choose the Republican nominee, but NOT the winner of the general election. What candidate would you choose, and why?
Poll in a moment.
I think further spread of the true meaning of Santorum would be a hoot.
I don’t believe in rooting for “sure losers,” since it could be a disaster if somehow they win. If I were going that way, I’d pick Perry, since he can’t seem to to anything right.
I went with Romney, who is the only one who might have a chance of being a centrist.
I agree with RealityChuck - I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “sure loser” at this point. Be careful with you ask for.
Huntsmen appears to be the least crazy, the least incompetant, the least stupid, and the least likely to be a total baldfaced liar. I’m suspicious of anyone who can win election in Utah in a landslide, but objectively speaking he’s the least despicable candidate by a large margin. Only Ron Paul even comes close in non-despicability, but he has ideas that I think are wackadoo on a pretty basic level. Huntsman gets my nod.
I don’t agree with many of his positions, but there is a smaller margin of difference between his positions and mine, such that I find them somewhat disagreeable and wrong headed, but not patently insane and indefensible. For example, on the subject of gay rights, his position (“civil unions”) and mine (“equal marriage rights”) are closer than those of the other candidates, who all appear to be onboard with “homosexuals should be struck by lightening and cast out of society”.
Rick Frothy fecal matter is a sure loser
So, is that “like the batter” as in Facebook?
It’s a typo. Humans make those.
Huntsman, for both reasons. He has no chance, but if some miracle occurs and he wins, he’d still be the least bad.
Another Dem for Huntsman. Huntsman as a nominee would mean that the power of the Tea Party would be broken, and there would be a chance of sane Republicans getting elected.
I’d also like a pony.
Santorum. Aside from his Google problem, he has the charisma of a severed limb.
Want me to send you some of the mares of Diomedes? They’re sort of like ponies.
Huntsman. As others have mentioned, he seems to be the least crazy.
Which means, of course, that he doesn’t stand a chance of being nominated.
I’d consider Bachmann a sure loser but if she won…well, she’d be such a disaster that she’d be the last conservative Repub to get elected for a lonnnnngggg time.
Hmmm, I should gone with that.
If I thought ANY Republican had a chance of being a competent President, I’d vote on that basis.
But realistically:
- If the Republican candidate wins the Presidency, the GOP will also retake the Senate and hold the House; and
- any of these people will sign pretty much any legislation that gets through a Republican Congress.
Congress would run the show under a GOP President. Neither Romney nor Huntsman would act as a meaningful check on their radicalism, and if, say, Bachmann got nominated, it would be more likely that Mitch McConnell would be acting as a check on her.
So realistically, the only direction to hope things take on the GOP side is that the GOP nominates a candidate who maximizes the odds that Obama wins re-election.
The problem is, he has no chance of winning the nomination, not the election. If by some fluke he won the nomination, he’d probably have at least as good a chance of winning the election as Romney or any of the others do.
I’m a Texan. I voted for Perry to lose, though Gingrich looks real good, too. If nominated, either of those two are sure to give us a lot of opportunities to point and laugh, or point and cry.
I don’t believe in the tactic of backing the most terrible candidate in order to “guarantee” a big loss in the general election. The fact that these nutcases are even considered in a non-ironic way as candidates goes to show that there are people out there who would vote them for president. Most likely not enough to vote them into the White House, but it’s not worth the gamble, no matter how remote. As much as I’d like to see a huge embarrassing loss for the republican party from nominating a whack-job, in principle I would rather have an election between two competent people. I vote democrat not because I believe in the party but because my only other choice is a party of psychopaths. I’d like to actually have a real choice some day. Huntsman is the only candidate that has dared to say he “believes” in science. It’s pathetic.
I felt exactly this way also in 1996. I was somewhat disenchanted with Clinton (GUILTY of 1st degree stupidity), and I thought that having a President Dole just might have been borderline tolerable . . . EXCEPT . . . That radical Republican Congress, passing a blizzard of radical right-wing legislation, which I imagined Dole would have signed. So it seemed real important to me to re-elect Clinton.
Same now. I’m disenchanted with O because he’s been kind of a wimp, but we damn sure need him for the next four years rather than any Republican prez.
It’s tempting to suggest the biggest nut job of the bunch, but I honestly have no idea of which one that would be.