Who do you think the Republican Party godfathers REALLY wanted as their presidential candidate?

[marmar]

Poll question: Who do you think the Republican Party godfathers REALLY wanted as their presidential candidate?

My money's on Mittens......

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Mitt, and he would have been a much better candidate.

All the better for us that they chose McCain.

[jswade]

2. Too weird

Romney and his religion are just too weird for the conservative Christian right. They would never have chosen him. He also swings wider than a kite on a crazy string.

[wyldwolf]

6. in 2012 the religious right won't have half the influence over the GOP

[HooptieWagon]

19. Hmmm, you may be wrong....

...IMO, the religious wackos may be all that's left of the GOP by 2012. Many of the "moderate" Reps are the most vulnerable this election. Only the wingnuts from safe states and districts will still remain in national office, and it's logical to assume they will drive the agenda.
One thing is for sure, the next couple years are sure going to be entertaining with all the finger-pointing and fighting going on in the GOP.

[wyldwolf]

30. See, I've been seeing a lot of coverage of how young evangelicals are turning away from the GOP

.. I think that trend continues...

...further, I've seen party elders from the "Fiscally Conservative" wing rebuke the party for being in bed with religion.

I'll combine that with some anecdotal evidence - Evangelicals I know who are rethinking their methods of influencing electoral politics.

[HooptieWagon]

42. True, some evangelicals are questioning the GOP stance on global warming

And some are questioning the RR's political strategy. But is this a mass movement? I haven't seen that. By #s, the largest subset of the GOP is still the evangelicals. That is the largest voting block. They are still the most controllable through propoganda. They still have Rush, Hannity, Dobson, and the rest of the lie-spewing bloviators. And the R's that manage to remain in office will be coming from the most conservative, ignorant, and racist states and districts (TX, MS, AL, etc). The R corporatists and neocons probably still control the big $, though. So the upcoming battle will be the #s vs. the $. Should be entertaining, the losing faction may possibly split from the GOP and form or join a third party.

[ACTION BASTARD]

21. Bingo.

The crazed cross-humpers don't consider Romney a christian. For them he's just a tad better than a Muslim, but not even close to being acceptable.

[Liberal_in_LA]

24. Yeah, but there crazy, racist, extremist base would be screaming 'he's a mormon"

[wyldwolf]

3. Ronald Reagan's corpse

[marmar]

7. If they could find a way to bring him back to life, I'd bet money on it....

n/t

[Tatiana]

4. Romney, of course. They were in tears when he conceded the thing to McCain. n/t

[Mojambo]

5. George Allen, but he got blown up by "Macaca" back in 2006

Honestly, I think the real top liners wanted Jeb, but the Bush name is too toxic.

[Warpy]

8. Other: Jeb Bush

but his big brother screwed the pooch so badly that they sighed, ran only second stringers, and gave it to Magoo out of sentimentality.

Then, because they know damned full well things are so bad they would insure the lot of them would end up in prison if they got in again, they hung Palin around his neck like a rotting albatross carcass.

They think the next 4 years will be so bad that they can trot out Jeb and the rest of the gang like Gingrich and have them run as saviors.

[TWiley]

39. I believe that you may be real close to the truth.

Expect to see old Jeb pop up as a presidential candidate down the road if yet another attempt to free all that oppressed-middle-eastern-oil becomes necessary in the publics mind.

[bowens43]

9. McCain

I believe that McCain had the best chance of beating Obama. They wanted McCain and they got him.

[smoogatz]

16. Except they thought they'd be running against Hillary.

Faux Nooze was selling the myth of her inevitability two years ago.

[HopeFor2006]

10. Katherine Harris/ Michelle Bachmann ticket

:rofl:

[mckara]

11. Who Cares?

They're a failed party, going down!

[Toucano]

12. Other. George W. Bush. n/t

[Demeter]

13. RONALD REAGAN

I am surprised they didn't literally dig him up. If Nancy hadn't been so frail, they might have tried to run her.

[MarianJack]

14. IMHO McSame...

...so a 72 year old candidatge could take a beating that they knew was likely to come. That way, nobody with a future in presidential politics would be harmed.

PEACE!

[cloudythescribbler]

15. From their position, McCain's as good as any -- & they may yet install him by stealing the election

and then the supine press, which made a HUGE hullaballoo about one outlier poll showing the race close (which they NEVER did vis-a-vis Kerry) would sell it as everything other than stolen, a kind of tortoise-and-hare narrative as coverup.

[smoogatz]

17. First Allen, then Giuliani, then Romney

then McCain. But Allen stepped in his own macaca, Rudy turned out to be a cross-dressing crook, and nobody liked Romney. That left McCain, because even the Republicans could tell that Huckabee's fucking crazy.

[coalition_unwilling]

23. I was afraid of Huckleberry. He

would have given O a real run for his money, imho. Likeable mien and a genuine outsider could have made Huck the new Reagan.

[smoogatz]

25. Yeah, but the Republican money boys hated him.

They don't want an actual fundie to be president. Are you kidding me? They want a pretend fundie, like bush.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. I see your point. What made Huckleberry

so dangerous, imho, was the very thing that made him anathema to TPTB. Huck gave sign of having read the entire New Testament and nnt just "Revelations."

[Marr]

18. Romney, no doubt about it. And McCain assured he would lose when he failed to

name Romney as his running mate.

If McCain had picked Romney rather than that monument to stupidity, he'd be skating on positive coverage from the corporate media, and the Republican establishment would rig things in his favor come election day.

Apparently McCain thought he would reach out to the people they *call* the Republican "base" with his Palin pick, but he completely alienated his *real* base, the big business establishment, in the process. An idiotic, impulsive move from an impulsive idiot.

[charlie]

20. Macaca n/t

[Mad_Dem_X]

22. I picked Rudy, because

I think they thought they could milk 9-11 for a few more years.

[Muttocracy]

26. I wonder how long the GOP primary would have dragged on if they didn't have winner-take-all

Wasn't it pretty split between McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Paul for months?

[chiefofclarinet]

27. I think it would've been settled at the RNC

With the four squabbling factions, and Giuliani and Thompson might stayed around longer, there would not have been a distinct front-runner. McCain or Romney might have had a majority, but not 50%, and it would have went to South Dakota primary to see what happens.

[TheKentuckian]

28. I think they actually got who they wanted

not the masses obviously but the powerbrokers. McHoover believes fully in their economics, is a fierce war monger, and fit neatly in their pockets.

Of course they truly wanted Jeb but Dubya made that unsellable at this time.

[flvegan]

29. Dick Cheney.

But his health wasn't there.

He's their ideal. And fuck him for it.

[HughBeaumont]

31. Cheney would never do it anyway.

Health aside, he's more of a spidery, "behind the scenes" board room type of guy. Being a president requires one to have a slightly more public profile than the evasive old Penguin's displayed during his tenure.

[HughBeaumont]

32. McCain is their choice because he sucked the least.

The new brand of Repukes cannot run on issues (since they heavily favor the needs of the corporations over the little guy), so they're all about name brands. They didn't have a Bewsh/Reagan quality brand this year. Unfortunately, old horse McCain is their guy.

[madokie]

33. mittens wouldn't have picked pal'ass'in

Thats for sure

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

35. Voted Romney, but I think Huckabee would have been...

...by far the most difficult candidate for us to beat.

[Ishoutandscream2]

36. Just look at that list! God, they had absolutely no one

and we had a great group to choose from. As someone on DU has mentioned, we have the best starters, and a damn good bench to boot.

[LibDemAlways]

37. They were grooming George Allen - not too bright

son of a well-liked football coach. 4 months before Macaca the New Republic published a cover story detailing his racist past. Even if he hadn't opened his big mouth, his decades-old obsession with all things Confederate would have become an issue. (His oldest kid is named Forrest after early KKK leader Gen. Nathan Forrest. He wore a Confederate flag pin in his high school yearbook photo (in Southern Calif) and sprayed racist graffiti on the school walls.) That and a bunch of other racist stuff would have surfaced eventually. His candidacy would have been a mess.

[TWiley]

38. Bush #1 with VP Joe Lieberman

[camera obscura]

40. RON PAUL... just kidding

If only Mittens had been Christian, he would have been perfect.

The religious right really caused the disarray of 2008. Some endorsed Huckabee, but others thought he was too liberal because he didn't care enough for killing prisoners or screwing the poor. Others endorsed Giuliani, but others thought he was too liberal because, well, you know. Hagee endorsed McCain of course. And Romney picked up some wary endorsements, but many seemed scared off by his religion.

If he had only been Christian, I don't think there would have been all this division, they would all line up behind him. Despite his old liberal leanings they would buy into him converting to anti-choice, anti-gay rights line. (The additional irony here is that if a Republican ran who really was pro-choice, pro-healthcare, pro-civil rights, he would have a much better chance of winning.)

Of course Mittens has flip flopped so much already, I'm surprised he hasn't already "discovered" Christianity :P

[KG]

41. i know mccain wasn't the choice of TPTB, but i thought he'd be tough beat.

white war hero vs. black guy with muslim/arabic sounding name.

but he turned out to be even stupider and arrogant than i thought possible.

he pissed away 30 years of built up PR in just a few weeks. pretty incredible.

[ensemble]

43. Mitt...

The key battleground is the industrial Midwest, and Romney would have been the best there.

[dysfunctional press]

44. jeb bush.

but jr. ruined that name for a LONG time.

[Tutonic]

45. Freddy Thompson. Grandfather of Bush. fake cowboy swagger,

fake folksy charm, complete buffoon!