Who do you predict will be the Republic nominee in '08?

[WI_DEM]

Poll question: Who do you predict will be the Republic nominee in '08?

[hippiechick]

1. Oh please dear Goddess, let it be Katherine Harris !

:applause:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Giuliani/Thompson (either of them) would be a strong ticket.

From the perspective of the Republicans. Moderate/Conservative. Bring in the (somewhat) sane elements and mollify their right wing.

Tough call at this point.

[wordpix]

5. Ghoul-iani with 3 wives & the 911 heroes' cough? I don't think so. DOA

[AndyTiedye]

16. The Skeletons in Gouliani's Closet Don't Matter, Since the Repiglican Media Will Never Mention Them

They all LOVE Gouliani.

[WI_DEM]

6. I agree. I guess you probably mean Fred Thompson not Tommy

[Perky]

3. Fred Thompson and I am mildly concerned

He has a modicum of gravitas and has a presidential swagger.

Dobson howwever is pushing Newt and said apparently tha Thompson was not even a Christian...Wow.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/03/dr_dobson_explains_decision_to.php

[slackmaster]

8. He also looks a little like Kelsey Grammer

[ComerPerro]

18. Thompson will do very well for many reasons

one, he is a D list hack of an actor, a relative nobody, just like Reagan.

two, he has a fatherly/grandfatherly way about his persona (how the media will protray him), and Republicans crave that in a candidate. They want a daddy.

three, he says all the right things. He is touted as an "old school" conservative (like that were any kind of virtue) and may manage to convice voters that he is honest and full of dignity and class.

[WilliamPitt]

29. Mildly?

He scares the entire ass off me. As a candidate in the TV age, he will stomp the terra like a brontosaurus. He has no cash, and has no fundraising infrastructure, but can change that with one good day of interviews. Good Morning America to Tweety to Tucker to Wolf to King, one day of the voice and the act, and he will have at least enough cash to survive until 2/5.

[Perky]

35. He is formidable but

Dobson said basically he was not Christian enough and apperars to be backing Newt. If that rhetoric gets racheted up.... I don't think he will have any great momentum in the south during the later primaries.

He migth raise money but you and I both know that its not about money in Iowa and New Hampshire. It is about boots on the grounf, organization and the locals you have lined up. The problem is that most of the local political leadership in both states is already ib bed with another candidate. And if you do not beat expectations in those two states mokney for 2/5 will not help. Its all going to be about TV ads and no real debates in front of the locals.

Now I readidly admit that he has a great persona and could come up with great ad material. But the 20+ states lining up for 2/5 are going to be tsunamies wuth ads abd I don't know if it help if you do not have som mo' goin in.

He would have to win South Caroline handidly to have a shot.

But it is entirely possible that they emerge after 2/5 with no clear front runner due to geographic issues and that might be his best hope given a late entry.

[wordpix]

4. they keep dropping like flies---multiple marriages & statements like McCain's jewel: Baghdad is safe

[tblue]

7. You mean Fred and Tommy Thompson are not the same person?

[ThomWV]

9. They Might Be Dumb Enough to Run F. Thompson, but I think it will end up Newt

The Christian Right as a voting block will have deserted them so I think it will be the 'intellectual' side of the party that comes out next time around.

[Parche]

10. My Predictions

Either the great Darrell ASSI..errr I mean Issa....who asks great questions at Chairman Waxmans hearings.......




OR............John Mica the great Congressman from Florida, who always rants and 'whines' during Chairman Waxman's hearings........

[The Magistrate]

11. Newt Gingrich, Sir

And great fun will be had by all as the Democratic Party's nominee buries him....

[Perky]

12. I gotta find the post I made a year ago...I said then that Newt was running

and would be formidable for the nomination at least.

[Perky]

36. found it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4991781#4992065

[saltpoint]

23. That WILL be fun. Please forgive me -- that sound you're hearing is

me licking my chops.

[Virginia Dare]

13. Going out on a limb, Romney/Bush...n/t

[lutefisk]

14. It will be the person who replaces Cheney, imho

I still think that could well be Rice or Jeb.

[VP505]

15. Poll aside

I know exactly who will get the Republic nomination, it's gonna be.....ready for it....the same one that will loose the 08 Presidential Election. How's that for a prediction?

[Quixote1818]

17. Fred Thompson. They are going nuts over him at FR. nt

[liberalpragmatist]

19. Thompson or Giuliani

If it's Giuliani, the ticket will be Rudy Giuliani // Haley Barbour (governor of Mississippi).

If it's Thompson, the ticket will be Fred Thompson // Tim Pawlenty (governor of Minnesota).

Either would be strong; Thompson would be a much more traditional Left vs. Right election face-off, with red states and blue states largely going the same way they did in the last 2 elections. Giuliani, especially against John Edwards but even, to a lesser extent, against Obama or Hillary Clinton, would give us a much more nontraditional campaign, with Democrats likely being much more competitive in the South and Midwest but Republicans more competitive in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, NY, and Connecticut.

[frebrd]

20. I agree with # 14 (herbster)

Whoever replaces Cheney when he resigns/dies.

[LaPera]

21. Old Jebbie will come out of nowhere when the repugs are fight among themselves and Jeb

will be the only one the BushCo Fascist can trust & control, to maintain the Bush family criminal enterprise called the USA.

Bush & the family of hardcore neocon fascist can't trust anyone else except family, to continue the total fascist control of the kings throne/executive branch.

[saltpoint]

22. Sam Brownback. It's a jammed field and early GOP primary voters

will split into several camps rather than rallying behind say, McCain or Romney.

It opens the Iowa caucuses for a well-organized far-right surge by someone like Brownback.

I think Huckabee is out by summertime, if not before.

[Bucky]

24. Yes yes, McCain is a little post shark-hurdle. But no one else has the mojo.

Fred will fall apart. Watch it. I think he'll appeal first to people who would rather have Rudy.

[PhilipShore]

25. Other: George Pataki or Jeb Bush

[Perky]

26. Gravitas trumps Governores in 'o8

Igenerally believe that governors are for mor electable then senatores and history bears that out.. but this election is about going to nbe about who has the smarts for the jobs after 8 years of the idiot.

[Bucky]

30. Didn't Pataki already suspend his campaign?

They won't do Jeb. They're arrogant, not stupid.

[Auggie]

27. Right now I'd say Fred Thompson

He's a Reagan/Bush clone. Like Reagan, he has just enough acting ability to look and sound like strong presidential material, yet with that down-home "I can drink a beer with that guy" charm. Naive Americans will eat it up.

[WilliamPitt]

28. If Fred Thompson gets in, he'll win in a walk

The nomination, I mean.

[Bucky]

31. Hmmm, I think you underestimate Republican smear skills.

This could be a "Oh please, let them nominate that old Gipper dude" moment, but Thompson strikes me as a lightweight. It's true there's a ecological niche not being filled on the Republican side. But I'm not so sure Thompson hasn't got a skel or two that could make his star fade mighty quickly.

This observation, of course, comes from the same infallible instincts that told me to support Dukakis, so take a grain of salt with any predictions from me.

[WilliamPitt]

34. You may be right,

but I've been watching him for several months now, waiting for his hat to float into the ring. I fear that hat.

Think on the current front-runner GOP nominees.

Giuliani, as far as the base is concerned, might as well be some Northeast hippie abortion doctor who wants to take all the guns in America and shoot them into space. Anti-choice Evangelicals and NRA Republicans are most of the GOP base, Rudy isn't their man, and that 9/11 hero stuff won't buy him out of that doghouse.

Romney is a member of some evil voodoo quasi-Satanic cult, according to the religious metrics of the GOP base (whose devotion to an insane, bloodthirsty, bastardized version of Christianity defines "cult"), and is thus unacceptable.

The base remembers McCain from South Carolina in 2000, some of them helped to chop him down in that astonishingly vicious primary, and his newly-discovered passion for all things Bush won't make them forget how much they hated him...plus, he sponsored a campaign finance reform bill, which threatened their clout.

I could go on, but you get the point. No national-candidate Republican wins anything without the energetic support of the party base (God and guns, to be blunt), which is why Bush courted them for years in Texas, which is why McCain is peddling his ass to every Evangelical leader he can find.

Whichever one of these nabobs secures the nomination will be supported, with varying degrees of disgust, by the base...because the alternative is Satan-Clinton selling the entire US Navy to Iran for some good opium and a case of cold Newcastles. They'll support the nominee, maybe, sorta.

I think Thompson has that extra something the GOP base might flock to. The deep voice, a sense of timing before a crowd that trained actors have like an instinct, the tough-guy no-nonsense image his TV and movie roles have weaved around him...

...and maybe, in the end, my worries come down to this: the GOP base exists within a carefully constructed, hermetically sealed fantasy world. You know, the world where liberals and terrorists are trying to destroy Christmas, but only when they're not destroying Easter, because Christianity itself is under assault in America, because Fox News says so, and by the way, they found WMD in Iraq and the Founding Fathers were hardcore Baptists, lather, rinse, repeat...

Fred Thompson was a Senator, yes, but he is mostly a product of film fantasy, and tough-guy film fantasy at that, whose roles have included the CIA chief, an Admiral, a DA, all in popular films and TV shows. I think the base would flock to him like ducks to water. They've seen him on TV and movie screens playing the righteous American leader...and they all bought the same bag of hooey from an actor-turned-California-governor not quite 30 years ago, bought it with such vigor that 'Reagan' is on armchair-to-armchair relations with Jesus, in their opinion.

Thompson will bag the base, and a lot of other GOPers, with one good day of TV interviews. One day, and the whole GOP race will change. Just a hunch.

[salin]

32. No idea.

just look at self-perceived front runners from 16 months ago - and how they are nowhere in sight: Frist, Allen, Santorum... or how poorly McCain is doing. The GOP nomination, at this moment, is wide open. Very hard to predict.

[TheFarseer]

33. I won't SEEM like hypocracy to most Republicans

to nominate Guiliani with his two divorces and other assorted baggage because Republicans cannot be hypocrites in their own eyes. They will not see that connection AT ALL and even if the media won't be quiet about it, they can always delude themselves with Sean Hannity and the other liars. Rudy will get down to the real business of the GOP - sending our soldiers to the Middle East and sending the jobs to Asia. There's more than enough stupid fools that really think Iraq was a grand idea and Iran is an even better idea to nominate Rudy.

[qwlauren35]

37. I can see Gilmore or Hagel.

McCain will implode, Guiliani will implode, Romney's Mormonism AND being in a pro-gay marriage state will ultimately defeat him.

Its possible that Huckabee or Brownback (sp?) are possibilities. But there are too many Pubs who don't like or trust McCain, too many who are going to despise Guiliani for his "lack of moral fiber" and too many will be uncomfortable with Romney being from Massachusetts.

My one thought about McCain is that he may have the "party nod", similar to Kerry, i.e. "it's his turn" and the party will support him no matter what. Not sure what that might do to the elections, if we put up a "non-controversial" candidate.

The pubs might just stay at home.

[guitar man]

38. some scumbag

really doesn't matter, they're all the same.

[Swamp Rat]

39. another Hollywood actor

[Sammy Pepys]

40. If Fred makes a decision soon...

...I think he'd be strong enough to get nomination in a walk.

If not FDT, Giuliani is probably next, followed by McCain.

[DFW]

41. I doubt it will be Hagel

That would imply a certain amount of common sense in the hierarchy
of the Republican party--the only nominee they could have that knows
how to appear normal without actually being an actor. He's far right
but has enough sense to appear reasonable when the occasion warrants,
which is dangerous enough to us, but makes the radical right scream
in protest, even when Hagel would be their ideal stealth candidate.
He could sneak in just like Bush under the guise of moderation, only
to wreak his havoc once installed. Hagel is dangerous because he
is so good at playing what he is not to so many. Thompson is dangerous
because he not only puts his cards on the table, but also has lousy
cards and can convince people that he has a winning hand anyway.

I can see them running to Thompson simply because so many of them are
so susceptible to being taken in by an act, and who better to do an act
than a professional actor? But McCain and Giuliani will fight tooth and
nail for the sole reason that neither of them will say they have come this
far just to bow out in favor of an undeclared actor. They'll both kiss his
feet if he's the nominee, but they'll wage thermonuclear war to prevent his
becoming the nominee.

McCain and Giuliani have a LOT of damage control to do before they get the
nomination, but, like Hillary, they have time and money, and it's too early
to count either of them out altogether. I, for one, would predict that the right
wing nominee will be neither of them, if I HAD to make the prediction now. But
I still maintain that making such a prediction at this point for either party
is a waste of time. There is an ocean of water to flow under the proverbial
bridge before the primaries, and it will flow at its own pace no matter how
many of us wish it to flow at a faster pace. Why not wait it out, and save
ourselves the stress?