The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

I have a few posts setting up the logistics of the Republican process. It shouldn't take me long. Feel free to jump in or wait an hour or so.

I am a political junkie and I am a liberal Dem. I hope that I built up some respect in the year-long thread about the recent mid-term election, which focused on polling. I tried hard to be non-partisan.
This thread has been in the planning stage for a month or more via emails. I have lined up a co-host, self-described as a conservative although not necessarily a Repub. Another person has offered, I think, to be a regular contributor, concentrating perhaps on polls.
The mid-term elections' thread begged people to stay on topic, and it largely worked. I have no such illusions about this one being the same.
Will there be a challenge to Obama or a run by an independent?
More in a minute...

The Republican convention to nominate a Presidential candidate is scheduled to be in Tampa, FL, Aug 27-30, 2012. The Dems will hold their convention Sep 3-6 in Charlotte, NC, Cleveland, OH, Minneapolis, MN or St Louis, MO.
The Libertarians will be in Las Vegas May 4-6, while the Constitution party will get together in Nashville sometime in April or May.
One more post and I will be done. Promise.

The Republicans' rules this time around are still in flux. As I understand it, there will be primaries/caucuses in the traditionally early states of Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada in February of 2012 (not in January).
That could force California, Florida, New York, Maryland and Georgia to move to March or April.
The interesting twist is that any state doing anything in March must have proportional apportionment vs a winner take all system.
I repeat that the Repubs' rules still seem to be evolving.
I am done with the set up.

Very ambitious. Look forward to seeing how this develops.

Thanks. I hope you will participate. I have started numerous threads on A2K over the last 8 or so years, some of which flourished while others withered or were dead on arrival. So it goes.
The mid-term election one worked because it was seen by many as being balanced. I got emails from A2Ker's in a half dozen different countries, for example, commenting about it being a concise commentary by the people reporting.
I doubt this thread will be able to maintain that standard, but it should be a romp, nonetheless.

Ok, I'm calling it for Rick Perry, current governor of Texas. He refused to rule out a run when he was recently reelected. Because Texas pulls in very high oil revenues, Perry can claim that he cut taxes and balanced the budget at the same time compared to other governors that try that and have it blow up into monster deficits. Texas also came through the recession really well, again thanks in part to the oil industry. He can play the immigration card saying as a border governor he understands the challenges posed by illegal immigration, etc. Not sure on the religion card, but if he got elected in Texas, he's probably got a check there as well. Plus, no baggage from previous national runs (see Palin, Gingrich, et al). Perry is where my two cents land.

I am the cohost that RJB mentioned.
Now that that's out of the way, here are a few repubs that I think will run. I am posting by memory because I am still at work.

Sarah Palin...self proclaimed conservative
Mike Huckabee..conservative
Newt Gingrich...conservative, former Speaker of the House
Mitt Romney..hard to get a read on his politics

There are others, and I will post more when I get home.
Feel free to jump in with opinions and comments, but lets try to be civil.

Perry is an option, but I think being from Texas might hurt him. People will point out that Bush was from Texas, so Perry will have that baggage, even if it isn't right.
He will be connected to Bush somehow.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I was a Sarah Palin supporter when she first came onto the national scene.
After listening to her, I freely admit that I was disillusioned by her lack of depth.r
Before I declare again, I will have to do some serious research and soul searching.

Rjb, I don't know what's going on, but your post responding to Engineer
has vanished. Did you delete it?

I don't think I did, at least not deliberately. I wonder what I said? I doubt it was anything important.

Not so quick on the 'Texas is doing great' part. They have a budget shortfall of about 20 billion dollars right now - which is actually just as bad as California, percentage-wise.

Perry got elected in TX mostly b/c Bush moved up to the national scene; he's been riding on momentum for a long time. I wouldn't bet on him at all.

Cycloptichorn

I think I may have thanked him for providing a thumbnail sketch of a potential candidate. I may have invited others here to do likewise. Or we could assign homework at random: Write a paragraph or two about....

My take on these four

Sarah Palin... She might be a great figurehead for the tea party bunch and would probably be content to do as she was told on policy so long as she can play President around the world. She apparently has the charisma, but she's too much of a loose canon for the business side and has no appeal to independents and moderates, something that will be required for the general election.

Mike Huckabee... I'm not sure how a religious conservative plays to the libertarian side of the party, plus Huck is fairly centrist on some issues and that won't play well in the primaries. On social issues, he is very Christian and that generally means very liberal. I also don't think he would be all that business friendly. Not that he'd get my vote, but he'd be an interesting President.

Newt Gingrich... Newt is an awesome political beast and shouldn't be discounted. He's very pragmatic and I can't see him sacrificing the country's business to promote his agenda. He comes from a time where both parties actually worked together on occasion and that might work against him. Still, he is one of the most calculating and shrewdest guys in the running and will play well with the libertarians and the business types while not inflaming the religious voters. I think his biggest liability is his lack of name recognition for the under 40 set.

Mitt Romney.. At heart, Mitt is a pro-business moderate. He's been moving right to boost his primary cred, but the more extreme primary voter from both the libertarian side and the religious side is not going to buy it. I think he will wrap up the pro-business Republicans, but that's not enough.

Real Clear Politics (RCP) is a site many of us political junkies visit regularly to see articles from everywhere. They are excellent at that.
They also do the RCP poll of polls, conglomerating recent-or not so recent- polls. I am not a big fan of that. But that is another issue.
Anyway, RCP shows-
Romney (19% of Repubs)
Huckabee (18%)
Palin (17%)
Gingrich (10%)

Being a liberal I hope they run Palen.

Bob McDonnell - Current Governor of Virginia

- First GOP victory post Obama (took Tim Kaine's office in 2009)
- Selected to give GOP response to Obama's SotU address
- Post-Bush Republican but not Associated with Tea Party

I think he'll make the short list. I'll be the first to put his name out there.

A
Republican nominee
T

A very interesting thead topic, RJB. But the post to which i am responding confused me somewhat--this thread is about the possible Republican nominee, and only about the possible Republican nominee. Have i got that right?