How are you guys feeling about this group of presidential hopefuls? As someone who is moderate-left, it looks a bit weak, but maybe that’s just my bias?
Who would you like to see as the Republican nominee, and is that because you think he/she has the best chance of winning, or because his or her politics match yours best?
I’d like to restrict this to people who are actually running, please.
2012 was a weak field; 2016 is shaping up to be a WTF field.
(Full disclosure: I’m not a Republican. :D)
I like George Pataki. I voted for him when he ran for Governor.
But he doesn’t have a chance of getting the national nomination. Although he’d probably do better in the general election than whichever Republican does get nominated.
Never heard of him. 
That’s one of his biggest problems. He’s not a colorful personality that people remember. Everyone knows who the President was when 9/11 happened and who the Mayor of New York City was. But people forget about the guy who was Governor of New York.
If I was still a Republican, I guess I’d be supporting Jeb Bush for the lack of a better choice. Obviously I’d love to see someone like Ted Cruz win the nomination now since that would ensure Hillary’s victory by a landslide.
When I first read this I got him mixed up in my mind with George Takei and was really surprised that he was running as a Republican. :smack:
I gotta say… after the fiasco that was the Republican primaries for 2012, I’m tempted to ignore everything regarding all of the candidates until the weekend before I vote in the primary. Then I’ll see who’s left and vote my favorite at that point.
I wasted so much time in 2012 keeping track of people who went from 9% approval to 35% approval and then dropped out of the running in the space of a month. I just don’t have that kind of energy this year.
Anyway, I’ve been saying for a while now that the Republicans are making a massive mistake by letting the Democrats be the first to run all the minorities. Just go find a black/hispanic/female candidate who supports all the ordinary conservative-white-guy issues. It is beyond foolish to just hand the Democrats the opportunity to be the “party of minorities” because the minorities are going to be majorities pretty soon.
In that line of thinking, I guess Marco Rubio seems like the best combination of position, name recognition, qualifications and minority status. Bobby Jindal comes a close second. I honestly know nothing about either person’s personal opinions or political stances, though, just that they’ve already run for and won a major elected office.
I think Carly Fiorina already proved in HP and in California that she doesn’t live up to her own hype, and I’m not sure Ben Carson has the executive or political experience that makes me like him for a presidential candidate.
Everyone is an old white guy. I could be happy with some as candidates, but it’s still sacrificing a real opportunity to keep the party relevant.
In my opinion, the best chance the Rs have of beating Clinton is to run a woman. There is something fun and exciting about voting for the first of a traditionally underrepresented group, especially if you’re a member of said group. I can easily imagine a good percentage of Republican women pulling the lever for Hillary, without mentioning it to their husbands, if the other option is another angry old white guy.
They’re going to have to do better than Carly Fiorina, though. What a joke.
Rather than investing in tokenism, perhaps the Republicans could invest some time getting an understanding of some of the issues facing minorities and women these days. Then, they could actually start relating to people other than angry old white guys, and maybe start offering solutions to problems a lot of people face every day.
I agree they appear as the party of “Johnny-come-lately’s” when it comes to running non-white, non-male candidates, but just filling the primaries with a rainbow of flavors while not changing the GOP’s underlying positions (which may not be supportive of these groups at-large) wont add up to much in the long run.
Yup, I think this move would rank with minorities right up there with saying “some of my best friends are black/latino/women.”
Sorry, but this type of thinking is a perfect illustration of what is so very wrong with the Republicans as a party. The idea that just throwing some “minority” candidate in front of the voters is the way to win elections is laughable.
Make it Olympia Snowe and you’re on to something. Kelly Ayotte, not so much.
I am a Scott Walker supporter. But paraphrasing William F. Buckley I believe in the primary one should vote for the most conservative candidate who can win the general. I haven’t decided who that is yet. Luckily I have almost a year to determine that.
How’s Nancy Reagan holding up?
Do you see an inverse linear relationship between conservatism and electability or do you see electability as a function of charisma? Personally, I think the latter.
I’d definitely consider voting for Olympia Snowe over Clinton. She seems to have integrity. Unfortunately, she’s too reasonable to get past the Republican primaries.
This is a False dilemma in that it portends a limited scope of possible answers. The candidate, time of history and state of the country may all affect the answer. And that answer cannot be given (at least not by me) at this time.
Time will tell.
Charisma matters if all else is NOT equal. In a race between an ultra liberal or ultra conservative with charisma vs. someone boring and centrist, I think the charismatic candidate will win. But truly charismatic candidates are rare. Most are just boring politicians. I can count the charismatic candidates of my lifetime on one hand: Reagan, Clinton, Obama. The 2016 race will probably not involve a particularly talented politician, so being closer to the center might be a good thing.
From a political perspective, I like Rubio best. Rubio seems the most broadly acceptable candidate and when he’s on, he’s pretty talented, although not in the Reagan/Clinton/Obama class. But he can certainly make Clinton look old and tired by comparison. Problem is, I don’t know if he’d be a good President or not. What’s he done?
From a governing perspective, I like Kasich. Kasich was a hard right guy who changed as needed when he actually had to govern a swing state. He has tons of experience. If Kasich were to win, he wouldn’t damage the Republicans and the Democrats probably wouldn’t hate him very much, which would improve our partisan climate a little.