Win or lose this November, the GOP will need to find a presidential candidate in 4 years. Usually the incumbent VP gets some consideration, but Cheney has said he has no interest in the job. There was no opposition to Bush this year. Going back to 2000, it was McCain, Elizabeth Dole, and then…Allan Keyes? Memory is fading…
So who are the potential Republican presidential candidates? I’m drawing a blank.
Jeb, McCain, Frist, Giulliani, Ridge.
But there’s a lot of time between now and 2008 for others to come forward. Four years ago, who had ever heard of Dean or Edwards?
And I don’t think it’s out of the question that, if Bush wins, Cheney will not finish out his term. That someone else will be annointed as the heir-- maybe someone from the list above (but not Jeb, in that case).
Of course I’m biased, but all on the list appear to have problems. But then, who doesn’t…
I’m sure Jeb is at least as qualified as his brother, but I somehow feel that the US public would draw the line at 3 family members out of 4 administrations. Too much of a dynasty thing.
I tended to dismiss McCain out of hand, as having had his shot – but then, there’s a long history of candidates getting the nomination after failing previously; Nixon, Reagan, Dole, for starters. Not to mention Harold Stassen. 
Ridge…I think he’s too strongly tied to the widely-derided color coded threat level.
Frist, Giuliani – maybe you’re on to something.
The last four years have shown us that Karl Rove prefers candidates who are folksy, charismatic, and will do what he wants without much questioning or hesitation.
Ergo, I predict Dan Quayle in 2008. 
Come on. You know that’s a moot point. Once Bush declares himself Emperor in December, he’ll have all you liberal types thrown in prison, and '08 will be just another date on the calendar. The new calendar, of course-- with the year 1 begnning on Jan 20, 2000 of the old calendar.
Governor Bill Owens of Colorado gets mentioned as a possible candidate. Mitt Romney hosted some sort of function for the Iowa delegates at the RNC convention back in August, as did some of the other guys mentioned above.
I’d also put Marc Racicot on the short list. He’s a very compelling candidate.
But of course, four years out is an eternity in politics. When was the last time that a politician who had been on the national stage as a non-Vice Presidential candidate won the Presidency four years later? Reagan would be the last. Since then it’s been Bush (VP), Clinton (unknown), Clinton, then Bush (almost unknown four years earlier - he was one of the managers of his Dad’s campaign). Kerry’s likely to lose, so he doesn’t count.
Before Reagan, there was Carter, who was a virtual unknown four years before he was elected. Then Nixon, who famously said in 1962 “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more”.
Given all that, you’d have to say that the likely candidate in four years is either A) whoever is Vice President, or B) Someone totally unexpected from today’s standpoint.
McCain is getting close to being too old, being just shy of 70 by the next election. I also think he’s much better as a side player than as a presidential candidate - there’s a reason Bush beat him in the Primaries, and it’s not because of dirty politics. McCain just isn’t that strong of a candidate once he has to start articulating his own opinions rather than being critical of others.
Guliani has a number of problems including age and a very liberal record for the Republicans in the primaries. He’d win a nomination today because there is still immense goodwill for his handling of the 9/11 attacks, but four years from now that may be a fairly distant memory.
My bet is that it’s whoever is VP. If Cheney doesn’t step down, he’ll run. Those health problems he’s had may be behind him after his bypass surgery. After all, Arnie had bypass surgery, as did Letterman, and now Bill Clinton. From what I hear, they’ve gotten so good at those things that the prognosis for post-bypass patients is a full, normal lifespan. Cheney has said in the past that he wasn’t interested in the Presidency, but that was before there was a war on. Times change.
But if Cheney isn’t interested in running, I think he’ll step down a year or so after the election for ‘health reasons’, allowing Bush to pick and groom a successor. And it won’t be Jeb - no way are two brothers going to sit together in the White House.
Well, I think Emperor Bush I will actually have them SHOT…thats my hope anyway. Better them than me anyway. 
Too reality now: I think McCain will be too old in 2008. Giuliani I think will be making a run for sure, as well Bush (Jeb). Who knows, maybe Arnold. As you said and others have agreed though…4 years is WAY too long to do more than pure speculation. Some up and coming Republican making a name for himself in 2 years may be the man…or woman for that matter.
-XT
Let’s try thinking about what the big issues will be for the Republicans in 2008. You’ve got this huge deficit. Regardless of who wins this year, it will only get huger over the next four years. Now for most of the last four years, the conservative media has largley given Shrub a pass for his big spending ways, but now I’m seeing some evidence of a change in the winds. At the bookstore last weekend I saw five books on the new releases shelf trashing Bush for letting the deficit get out of hand; at least one was by a Republican. Some, such as Andrew Sullivan, are specifically not voting for him this time because of that.
And don’t forget Medicare. In 2000 the trustees of the Medicare Trust Fund predicted that it would go bankrupt in 2029. By 2003, that prediction had jumped the date forward to 2019. In 2008, 2019 won’t be too far away. Besides, unexpected costs and raids on the trust fund may push that date even further forward. So this could become a big issue, and it would favor McCain since he’s about the only one with credibility on the budget and spending issues (Frist sure doesn’t).
Of course in 2000 the GOP’s old guard made it clear they didn’t want McCain, and fought hard to make sure they didn’t get him. But now that Dean and Kerry have shown people how to raise big wads of money off the internet, McCain could ride into the primaries with a hundred million or so in the bank, and thus would be able to fight back against the attack from Frist or Jeb.
Giuliani is a hopeless case. He’s strictly anti-tobacco, anti-gun, pro-gay. His only social conservative credential is a (mostly failed) battle against New York City porn shops, and the GOP isn’t about to make an anti-porn crusade the center of their agenda. Trust me on that one. Also, he has an old sex scandal. Remember that?
Please please please let it be Alan Keyes… 
How about Elizabeth Dole for President with JC Watts of Oklahoma as his running mate? A woman and a black man. Bwa ha ha ha…
The Dems would counter with Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson… a woman and a Hispanic.
Here is a name for ya.
Gov. Mark Sanford from South Carolina. The guy’s approval rating hovers around 70 and 80 percent. He is conservative, a real small-government kinda of guy.
I have friends that work in the statehouse with the governor and they are starting to whisper.
He is also a media hound.
When the legislature overrode 105 of the governor’s vetoes in 99 minutes, Sanford brought in real pigs named “Pork” and Barrell" into the statehouse and gave a press conference. It would have worked great, but the pigs took a shit all over the governor. Sanfords approval ratings actually went up after the stunt.
ITR Champion said:
Why do you say that? The forecast for the deficit is for it to be cut in half by the next election. If it is, I don’t think a 200 billion dollar deficit which is falling will be much of a campaign issue.
Of course, another major terrorist attack could change that, as could rapidly rising energy prices. But the forecast as of today is for the deficit to drop regardless of who is elected. The economy is growing at a pretty good clip.
Andrew Sullivan is not voting for him for one reason: Gay marriage. He’s the prototypical example of a single issue voter.
But in general, you’re right. There’s clearly growing dissatisfaction in Republican circles over Bush’s big spending ways. And if Bush is re-elected, the fact that he can’t get elected again and the next convention will be wide open is going to create a huge surge from the Republican grassroots. If George Bush does not need to be protected for another term, Republicans are going to be free to trash his policies - and they will.
On the other hand, I have this suspicion that Bush is going to morph into a budget cutter if he is re-elected. Ever since the first election I’ve kind of felt that Bush’s strategy was a ‘starve the beast’ plan - Tax cuts are always more politically palatable than spending cuts. So you cut taxes in your first term, get re-elected, and then when you no longer have election pressure on you, you switch to stage II of your plan, which is to cut spending. But we’ll see.
Yep. Medicare and social security are the elephants in the closet, and 2008 is right around the time when the checks are going to start coming due. It’s going to be tough on both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, because the pressure will be on them to offer medical services the government can’t afford, and Republicans because cutting Medicare is electoral suicide.
McCain has several problems. One is that he’s not very telegenic. Another is his age - he’ll be 72 in 2008, tying Ronald Reagan for being the oldest president ever were he to be elected. And McCain is no Ronald Reagan, able to defuse the age issue with a grandfatherly smile and a well-timed quip.
Finally, McCain has a few skeletons in his closet that make it hard to survive a national election. He was a member of the ‘Keating Five’, his wife has had problems with drugs and alcohol, he’s said more than a few intemperate things in the past, and his first marriage broke up because he was caught sleeping around. This is the kind of stuff that gets overlooked in Senatorial campaigns, but tends to bubble to the surface in Presidential campaigns.
Guliani reaped a tremendous amount of goodwill for his splendid handling of the 911 attacks - and he needed it. Before those attacks, he was undergoing a tremendous political meltdown. 2008 is a long way from 2001, and I don’t know how much goodwill he’ll be able to bank on.
The key factor for Guliani is the war on terror. He’s a Churchillian figure - someone who was ignored and even reviled in peacetime, but who had all the right qualities to be a great wartime leader. So if the war on terror escalates and remains the biggest issue in the world, Guliani has a shot. If the war fades, Guliani has no chance.
That pronoun explains why Bob’s been having problems.
I don’t see Cheney running in 2008. His health has already been an issue and would be much more so after another four years and as the Presidential nominee.
McCain would be a strong candidate. But I think he’s alienated too many people to get the full backing of his party. Someone will run against him. And the Republicans tend to be more disciplined about this then the Democrats; they will follow the candidate who’s got the party’s support.
Guiliani has problems. He became a big national figure after 9/11 (which he undeniably handled excellently) but before that he was considered a fading figure in New York. His vulnerabilities are so big that Hillary Clinton was planning on running against him on character issues.
Apparently you’re not the first one to make that accusation, because he responded to it on his blog:
I don’t know if I buy it. I watched Andrew Sullivan’s conversion from wild Bush supporter to anti-Bush, and it did not correlate with Bush’s spending plans. It did correlate with the gay marriage debate. Hell, it’s no mystery that Bush was a big spender - we already knew he was three years ago. Sullivan stood beside him (albeit while grumbling) during the steel tariff brouhaha, wild increases in education spending, the prescription drug benefit, and other big government initiatives. But when the discussion turned to gay marriage, Sullivan was off the reservation very quickly.
He’s just taken so much heat for that that he’s defensive about it and doesn’t want to admit it.
Not quite–better than it used to be, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s normal. Besides, it’s not like he just had his bypass–Cheney is about 16 years out from his CABGx4, and the last study I read showed that about half of bypass patients were still around at 15 years.
He had a blocked artery reopened back in 2001, and had a pacemaker and implantable defibrillator placed not long afterwards. This was minimized in the press, but this is not something that gets done for a man with a good prognosis.
Cheney is far from the typical heart patient. His prognosis is difficult to determine, but a healthy appearance now doesn’t really push it one way or the other–it’s likely to hit him all at once. He has the advantage of the best medical care in the world, but I can’t imagine him doing eight more years of work at this level of stress.
Oh, and Arnie did not have bypass surgery–he had a heart valve replaced. Unless it happened when I didn’t see it.
My choice for the GOP nominee in 2008? George W. Bush, hoping to use up those four years of eligibility he has left.
Well, there’s Trent Lott. Maybe Pat Buchanan will come back. John Ashcroft, who hasn’t lost a race recently to a candidate with a pulse. Or Rumsfeld could run- if so than the potential debate between him and John Edwards would be like watching Mr. Wilson vs. Dennis the Menace.