General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: REPUBLICANS: "My God, what (an effing) mess---A loss is what the GOP's political class NOW expects." [View all]stockholmer
(3,751 posts)the bin (beware of the skyrocketing petrol prices now) or there is an Iran war , with disastrous results (such as either a real or false-flag terror event on US soil or massive loss of a US naval group of ships via asymmetric attacks). An Iran conflict would also trigger a massive financial panic as well, so that is an obvious thing (for many other reasons as well) to avoid.
Even given all that, if Santorum or Gingrich are the top of the ticket, the GOP is fucked. Rmoney would have to pick a game-changer as VP, AND have the above events at least somewhat take place. The final, faint hope would be a dark-horse, non-smeared (in the slog of the primaries) GOP candidate emerge from a brokered convention, such as Jeb, McDonnell, Christie, or Petraeus. Even then, the stars would have to allign perfectly. I suppose stranger things have happened.