The 2008 GOP Presidential Primary Contenders

One question perennially on Democratic minds is "who will the GOP’s 2008 nominee be?" It is a question that is far too often over-thought, leaving little certainty, and more questions than anwers. Since I am seldom prone to the disease of self-doubt, I will attempt to unequivocally answer this question.

Allow me to set the Board.

The GOP nominee will be determined by certain key power-brokers as much as by the primary voters. Access to key endorsements, media opportunities, fundraising, and key grassroots constituencies will determine the front-runners long before the first primary ballot is cast or the first caucus is convened.

The most obvious, and traditionally one of the most powerful power brokers in succession following a second term is the out-going President. In this cycle, the President’s power to annoint a successor may be deminished. Bush’s power will be at it’s lowest ebb if he is forced to resign or is impeached. He many have little or no influence in that case, but may attempt to secure a chosen succession via a new Vice-President. He may even be afforded such an opportunity if Cheney resigns for health reasons following the 2006 elections, as has been rumoured. Such a sucession plan would give the President much greater freedom in his choices, as the choice would only have to be confimed by the Senate, instead of almost immediately having to gain the approval of primary voters.

I don’t claim sufficient understanding of Bush’s psyche to predict what he might do if faced with such an opportunity. A few possible VP choices would be Condoleeza Rice, JEB Bush, Senator John McCain, Senator George Allen, heck, he might even nominate his wife. Who the hell knows what this guy might do in those circumstances; or what the Senate would let him get away with. I think it likely he would try to stay within his inner circle, so JEB and Condi seem the most Bush-like choices.

I don’t think that this sucession scenario is likely, however. More likely is that the President will just quietly let it be known through proxies who his favorite son is in the pre-primary season. His voice will carry much less weight with key constitutencies than would normally be the case, especially if his approval numbers continue to plummet among Republicans. The favorite son would then have to do extra duty to win the allegience, support, and endorsement of key constituencies than he would otherwise.

I am of the opinion that Bush has already signalled his choice of a successor in the famous 2004 hug of John McCain. McCain has a commanding position with most moderate and non-fundamentalist Republican constituents. McCain’s weakest area of support is among fundamentalists, whom he courting even now. As the Republican with the strongest national base outside of Bush’s own circle (Rice polls well despite the lack of an real electoral base that has even voted for her), it is my opinion that McCain has the money, the party support, the credibility, and inevitability that a candidate needs to become the nominee. As soon as Bush starts making those quiet noises in late 2007 about McCain, the party will be over.

That is not to say there are not viable candidates who could take
off, but these days a grassroots surge for a candidate seems much less
likely than in some previous cycles. The moderates are not likely to be
dissatisfied enough with McCain to push concertedly for a different
choice. The biggest possibility is a revolt by the fundamentalists or
the hard libertarians.

To prevent such a surge by fundies, McCain will have to gain the
complicity of just a few key gate-keepers, such as Senator Sam
Brownback, Revs. Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson and a few others. The
fundies have proven they can be bought off by enough rhetoric and
promises. They’ve rolled over for every GOP President since Reagan who
talked pretty to them. They aren’t likely to change this year, unless
they foolishly decide to back their own candidate, like Sentor
Brownback, in which case they fracture the GOP coalition and ensure
that they lose and no longer have any voice in the GOP: they won’t do
this.

Brownback, as the golden Templar of the Right, has, in my opinion, a
fine possibility of brokering a deal to get the VP nod under McCain.
McCain will almost certainly need someone on his ticket who can
reassure the Right. There are only a few possible candidates to fill
this role: best is the annointed Senator Brownback, but Senator Allen
might do as a compromise.

So that’s my prediction: nominee for President, John McCain, with Vice President Sam Brownback (or George Allen).

Of course, there are many viable candidates who may, and likely
will, compete in the 2008 Presidential primaries in the hopes that
lightning may strike. But all of them have serious limitations and
handicaps that all but exclude them from being truly competitive with
McCain.

Let’s start with Brownback and Allen. They will likely be strong
regional players (in the mid-west and south, respectively), but they
haven’t the intitutional support or warchest, nor especially the
national reputation and name recognition, to really compete nationally.
Their strong regional and right wing appeals make them very attractive
running mates for westerner faux-moderate McCain.

JEB Bush has a very stinky albatross named George Walker hanging
around his neck. His association with stealing the first election for
his brother, and the distinct whiff of dynasty about his candidacy, all
make it unlikely he would get much traction outside his home state, and
among any but the most Tory of the Republican base.

Bill Frist is a joke. His own caucus in the Senate brokers deals
around him, which he then endorses without regard to previously stated
positions. The right wing despises him even as he panders to them, and
he’s a made himself a fool once too often. He is politically dead, but
just doesn’t know when to stop moving.

Guiliani in unelectable outside of New York. A pro-choice Republican
with a scandalous personal life need no longer apply for national
office through the GOP. Plus, his two claims to fame, the drop in crime
in NYC, and his leadership during 9/11 are become festering sores: the
crime rate was due to the legalization of abortion in 1972 in NY, and
his ‘leadership’ during 9/11 is looking much more like a cover-up, or
at least a completely inept job. Guiliani isn’t even a possible VP, as
he can’t deliver any electoral votes.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. He’s a great guy. Reasonable.
Brave. Thoughful. Therefore it is impossible for him to capture the
nomination. The GOP doesn’t want a dose of reality on their ticket.
Plus, Nebraska? What kind of electoral base is that? The GOP machine
will grind Hagel into dust on the issue of Iraq alone if he jumps into
the race, and he doesn’t have the support or the money to fight back.
The GOP will not nominate a repudiation of the last 8 years of misrule
– only someone who promises to misrule more effectively.

Newt Gingrich and George Pataki don’t pass the smirk test. I would
be nominated before either of these guys. To much baggage. Too much
failure. Too much Gingrich and Pataki.

Condi Rice. Two words: Black, Woman. I don’t care how much they
dress up their party with black and hispanic and female and faggot
appointees, the GOP base is a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic
assholes. Forget the PR bullshit around the idea of black woman
Republican President. Rice would be assassinated by her own if she even
tried. Plus, she’s just a complete incompetent. The woman is just a
walking foreign policy disaster.

Governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. They have the advantage of
being successful governors and are associated with the number one
domestic issue: healthcare. These guys are both good politicans and
will do well in the primary, but when it comes down to it, their
strengths won’t be enough to overcome their weaknesses. Romney is from
MA, hardly a GOP hotbed. That might stand him in good stead in a
general, but it will kill him in a primary. Romney has great ideas
about healthcare, but his party is still stuck in the ‘Tort Reform’
grove. In a room full of holocaust deniers, Simon Wiesenthal is not
going to be elected their President. Mike Huckabee has a southern base,
but it would take a miracle for him to create enough momentum to break
out sufficiently prior to Super Tuesday to carry away enough momentum
to take the prize. He doesn’t have either a national base nor enough
inside GOP support to sustain a campaign against McCain.

Tom Tancredo is an idiot. And a racist. And a rabble-rouser. A guy
like this can win a House seat, and he can run a grassroots campaign
that ends in the black and allows him to finance his hate-based
organizing, but he can’t win a single primary, let alone a Presidential
contest. Tancredo is this decade’s Buchanan and Duke rolled into one.
Look for him to have his own TV show soon, or to be indicted – or maybe
both.

That’s it. The rest are just vanity projects and billion to one
shots. There simply isn’t a credible alternative candidate to McCain.
The real project will be watching McCain squirm trying to land the big
Fundie fishes and such tax-revolutionaries as Grover Norquist while
trying to steer clear of those GOP powerbrokers on whom indictments are
about to land. The field will be running the primaries mainly in hopes
of a miracle (or for McCain to drop dead) and to prove their viability
as VP nominees.

This is McCain’s cycle. He owns it, and the only way anyone else is
getting it, is to pry it out of his cold dead hands. Now we Democrats
had better start thinking about what we’re going to do about that.