| richardhutnik said:
And you get back to why I am not as optimistic as you. What I see the GOP doing is running candidates who shift further and further out of the mainstream, to get the nomination, and then build product they are marketing, which most people won't be happy with, or excited about. It is, "Well the Democrats are bad, so need ANY option". This shift Romney has made, got him the nomination, but risks not getting him the election. It puts him in the same category as John Kerry as being a flip-flopper. And the policies he proposes aren't really different from what GW Bush had at all. Romney is also a a loser, the way McCain was. Both lost the last primary, but then built political base that enabled them to roll off key states. The candidates, in other words, aren't the top choices of the GOP, but the ones who lost prior. And Obama seems to be a candidate to facilitate the sliding further and further out of the mainstream. Obama's proposals are right out of the GOP playbook, like individual mandates, and tax cuts for the middle class. The GOP ends up opposing policies they had. The are becoming less and less mainstream. And then Obama runs wiht Bush foreign policy, and also infringing upon civil liberties the way GW did. |
It's clear that no Republican who plays politics (that is, pretty much all Republicans except Congressman Paul) would want to compete in 2008 (coming off George Bush) or 2012 (competing against Obama), so what they had was the bottom of the barrel... I don't think this will be the case in 2016. Lots of great candidates for the GOP. Depending on how Obama's second term goes, we'll see either good or bad candidates from the DNC (if Obama's second term goes well, people will be willing to come off his hightails).
It's like Dole against Clinton, or Kerry against Bush.
Or, you know, it could just be an agreement between the parties, to not seriously gun for office during re-election.
