COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • acat

    and assume Romney is the nominee, and that he loses the general.

    Who’s the presumptive nominee in 2016?

    The #2 vote-getter is Santorum …

    Jeb Bush is an obvious possibility…

    Anyone else on the horizon?

    Okay, let’s ask a key question. Who do we the conservatives *want* the presumptive nominee in 2016 to be?

    Mew

  • hls87

    A strong choice who ran a good campaign in a losing cause would go straight to the head of the line. I don’t think Jeb Bush will ever lose the stink of his family name, nor should he. Rich Santorum may be the runner up, but he’s also a joke. Barring another stitewide win in PA or a stint in a Romney cabinet, his poitical career is over.

    My personal choice would be Bobby Jindal, but I doubt the GOP would treat his candidacy a lot better than it treated Rick Perry’s. If John Kasich recovers his footing in Ohio he might be able to take center stage. But in all liklihood the GOP will pick someone from its progressive tradition yet again, someone like Chris Chritie.

    Someday conservatives will learn that the Republican Party just isn’t that into them.

  • acat

    McCain muzzled Palin .. Romney would muzzle any conservative he picks.

    With that in mind, his logical pick is Santorum, by the way…. Romney doesn’t need help to win in the northeast or the west, he needs help to win in the Bible Belt.

    Mew

  • Flagstaff

    Romney’s character and good sense than you do.

    Charlemagne threw Rubio’s name back into the second ring last night.

  • acat

    It completely misses the point, though …

    The pessimistic assumption is that we lose 2012. I want to know who you think would be the presumptive front runner in 2016.

    Mew

  • hls87

    Do you really think Romney’s running mate won’t have the inside track in 2016? Granted #2 has been something of a graveyard for Republican pols since Nixon. But someone who acquits himself well running for VP still has an excellent claim to be considered next in line, particularly when there are no former candidates to recycle.

    Of course anyone who would run with Romney will be unsatisfactory from a conservative point of view, but that hardly means he or she won’t be a formidable candidate in the stupid, ovine GOP.

  • acat

    Santorum is “next in line guy”… but the veep on a losing ticket is a good place to start building a coalition – Palin proved it can be done.

    Who else has a claim on the “next in line” title? There hasn’t been a clear claimant since George H.W. Bush, after all….

    Mew

  • hls87

    “the next in line guy”. His campaign is nothing more than a futile, feckless protest against the GOP’s self-destructive determination to nominate Romney. Santorum has no political future unless Romney wins and chooses to give him one with a cabinet appointment.

  • acat

    just as Reagan was next in line guy, just as McCain was next in line guy …

    If we don’t want him in 2016 (assuming a Romney failure) then we need another candidate to grow a pair and start running as of Dec. 1 2012.

    Mew

  • Flagstaff

    you have to first tell me who the candidate is who loses in 2012. And why do you expect him to lose?

    But to get back, I should have asked why you think this: “Romney would muzzle any conservative he picks.”

    That doesn’t even make sense, and Romney is sensible if nothing else.