I'd be interested to know how a judgement is made about choosing the winner in the 2020 Olympic lying contest?
McCain/Plain were not running as a "moderate" ticket. That was a Warhawk/Tea Party ticket. Romney/Ryan was not moderate either since they were both running as Fiscal Conservatives. Kasich/Rubio would not be moderate either. Kasich has serious fiscal conservative credentials and Rubio would be the appeal to minority voters that the GOP must gain in order to win. Anything else doesn't stand a change IMO and I challenge you to do the same EC math and demonstrate a path to victory with any of the other GOP candidates in any combination.
With due respect trying to defend Obama and Clinton over their handling of Benghazi and ISIL is absurd. You are suggesting if anyone criticizes Obama and Clinton y are phony and Republican? Bull. Obama and Clinton lied and covered up what happened, using their offices and powers to screw up and engage in the worst American foreign policy ever and expose the world to a leadership vacuum which has directly fueled the ego of Putin and ignited a firestorm of civil war between Sunni and Shiite. How you defend such scum and try blame it on Republicans is beyond me. Hey vote for the cow.
In fact John McCain's foreign policy as was Mitt Romney's was far more moderate than Obama's. You clearly are engaging in partisan subjective opinions. Read their policies. Neither supported arming a Muslim extremist cell of any kind. Obama not only did but lied to the American people by so doing. Obama lied repeatedly in two election campaigns as to what his real foreign policies were. Obama told the world he would never support Hamas Hezbollah, Abbas, Iran as long as they would not acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. As soon as Obama won his second election, he removed Hamas and Hezbollah from the terrorist list, financed and trained ISIL with Erdogan and Morsi. He boldly lied. This is a man who said to the world, it was not fair or reasonable to ask Israel to unilaterally withdraw to 1967 borders without an assurance terrorists would first be disarmed and the recognition of the state of Israel pledged-who then secured his second election, and only then told the world after his second election, Israel was chicken sheeyit for not unilaterally withdrawing to 1967 borders. This man who called Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, now calls them legitimate peace partners and says its not realistic for Israel to expect them to disarm, recognize the right to Israel as a Jewish state and give up their charters calling for the destruction of Israel and you call Romney and McCain extreme? This is the same President who when Jews were targeted for death in Paris by Muslim terrorists simply because they were Jews, stated their being Jewish was not the reason they were killed and that the Muslim extremists were not "Muslim" and no one should call a Muslim extremists Muslim extremist. How much more extremist does that get? Never mind they quote the Koran-never mind the Charters of all the terrorist groups quote the Koran and are advocated by hundeds of clerics, Obama engages in fiction that what they do is not related to Islam. Poof, if it becomes extremist, it can't be associated with Islam says Obama. Hey where have you been as his half brother working for the Muslim Brotherhood continues to finance the genocide of Christians in Sudan? Where were you when Obama was silent on Morsi calling on his citizens to slaughter Coptic Christians? Where were you when the same Obama who talked about supporting spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt suddenly went silent as over 20,000 brave students in Iran were killed, tortured and have gone missing? Where have you been as be supported Turkey killing en masse innocent Kurds? This President refused to march with all world leaders protesting terrorism. This is a man who is as extremist as it gets. His father, half brother, step father are all members or the Muslim Brotherhood. His step father is a member of a radical Muslim cell from Indonesia. This is a President who placed openly with great bravado, members and sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood who created Al Quaeda and Hamas, positions in Homeland Security, the FBI, with the CIA, and in his cabinet and you want to engage in bs its Romney or McCain who were extremist? Where have you been the last 8 years as Obama has stood on the world stage humiliating the US denouncing it as a world power let alone the no.1 world power? McCain an extremist? Romney an extremist? Do you have the audacity to suggest either man like Obama did, would unilaterally threaten to release the locations of French, Italian, German and Italian nuclear missile sites without the consent of these NATO allies, which he did, to Putin, if Putin agreed to be his buddy? What world do you live in? The Republican regimes never had problems with Putin or China as Obama does and you want to call them and not Obama extremist? You live in a time where the US President has boldly lied to his citizens, stripped the US of its status as world police super ower, turned and made enemies out of his closest allies, Canada, the UK, Italy, Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt not to mention China, Ukraine, and France. When the French had to go into Mali, Malawi and other African states to counter Muslim insurgents where was Obama? Where was he when the UK, Canada, France and Italy flew air missions in Libya? Where has he been when Nigeria and Kenya asked for help combating Muslim extremists? I tell you where he was-telling the world he was to thank for Yemen, a country he had proved could have Sunnis and Shiites live next to each other in harmony. Yah tell me how that went. Each and every country in the ME Obama has involved himself with have had civil wars. What does Obama have to show for his 8 years? He has failed foreign policy and an utterly failed attempt at allying with the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi and Erdogan to usher in what he called a new world of Muslim Brotherhood enlightenment. He sits in his office lashing out at all his perceived enemies trying to get back at them all before he leaves. He couldn' even get his bum buddy Joe Biden to run against Hilary Clinton who he hates. Had McCain or Romney been President do you really think the US would have been placed in the position it is today trying to suck up to Iran in desperation for being unable to control its rogue ISIL? Romney's comments on Putin have proven 100% dead on. Go listen to the debate between him and Obama on Putin and Russia and see for yourself. Go on, go back and compare either McCain's or Romney's foreign policies with Obama's. Obama has been the biggest supporter of Muslim extremism in the history of the free world. You want to talk domestic policy? Ask yourself, are the poor in the US better off then they were under Bush or Reagan? Well? Look around and see who sold out the poor and disenfranchised the last 8 years. You can't blame Republicans for that. Obama sold out the poor, the disenfranchised. He lied through his teeth to them. In 8 years he has achieved one thing- a dead locked congress precisely because of his extremism. In 8 years he has alienated the entire Western World precisely because of his extremism. The idiot had to top it off and tell Canada, no pipeline between our nations and he has NO reason for it other than one thing-Harper our former PM disagreed with him over his handling of Libya and sided with France, Italy and the UK. For that he punishes Canada and what does he now have-hah, an Obama wannabe clone PM elect called Justin Trudeau, who is pulling us out f Obama's alliance against ISIL. Extremist-yah I spell it OBAMA. I also promise you this, before this is over, you will hear from Bush, and Rubio who I would not be surprised to see on the same ticket.
MOST LAUGHABLE POST OF THE YEAR!!! In case you missed it nobody has criticized these phony Benghazi hearings more than have your fellow Republicans who admitted it is nothing more than a political ploy that has turned up nothing. Just like Whitewater.
No, I said ideology aside. A Kasich/Rubio ticket would give the GOP the best chance to win according to the numbers in the electoral college. Whoever is the GOP nominee he will have a very steep hill to climb. Perhaps the question Republicans should be asking themselves is do they want to win an election or just make a statement? Of the eight toss up/swing states in a head to head match up between Trump vs. Clinton, Trump leads Clinton in only North Carolina and surprisingly in Iowa. That would give Trump only 212 electoral votes. Granted there is a long time between now and the election, but I really do not expect those 42 trustworthy states along with D.C. to change. I know what you are talking about, I was a big Goldwater supporter back in 1964 and back then we were told he didn't stand a chance of winning, nominate someone else. They were right, he lost. I think the Republicans are in the process of becoming a congressional party and the Democrats the presidential party.
Oh don't misunderstand me, I don't think, all things being equal, that there is a path for the GOP to win the Presidency. I think that would require either some sort of massive economic or international upheaval or some sort of hail mary electoral strategy that I can't really envision at the moment. The electoral college math seems to have a pretty big Democratic advantage baked into the cake that a Romney like candidate is not going to overcome. Real Clear Politics Average has Kasich at 2.2 so I don't see him as the second coming.
The problem is, you can't put ideology aside. I disagreed with a lot of positions that Romney had, and I guess you could say I disagreed with him ideologically, but I thought a polymath with his kind of executive experience could be a really good President. But enough of the party didn't care about that. So there you go. If Kasich doesn't excite the base, which he doesn't currently do, then his path to the nomination is Romney's: Just be the last man standing. But that doesn't get people to come out and vote for you in the actual election.
Kasich has a 2 trillion dollar deficit staring him in the face in Ohio. The largest such deficit of the Nation. I'm supposed to trust this guy with reforming our finances, getting Washington in order and being a sturdy Commander in Chief? Of all the candidates running, I might just throw the bone to Sanders(yes, I'm flip flopping every day. This field is that bad as I decide which turd I want to trust.) Sanders is the only one who wants to take on the current status quo, who wants to introduce his ideas to economic inequality and is pro-borders. Now, whether his ideas work or not is another thing, but there's no candidate who can invoke our trust and confidence. No one who screams to us "President quality". If we're stuck with a Clinton ticket, that just might assure a Republican victory. The woman sold secrets abroad, you trust THAT with our national security?
True. But Romney and McCain for that matter had the disadvantage that they could not deliver any swing state in the electoral college. Romney couldn't even deliver his own home state ALA Gore in 2000. Both lost. Romney also didn't excite the independent vote which the Republicans must win. He did win the indies by a 51-48 margin but when the Democratic Party base was 35% vs. 30% for the republicans of the electorate, he needed to win the indies by a much larger number. Yes it is true it is much more important for Republicans to get their base out than Democrats only because there are less of them. I think there are two things in which the Republican nominee must do or accomplish. He has to appeal to independents to the tune of winning 54 or 55% of their vote. Today Gallup puts the base vote for Democrats at 29%, for Republicans 25%. That will change and grow bigger as the election nears, but historically for the last 10 to 15 years the Democrats has had the larger base. Then whomever is the Republican nominee must be able to win the tossup/swing states of Ohio, Florida and North Carolina just to have a chance. An excited base might bring a win in North Carolina with less help from the indies, but in Ohio and Florida, getting a lot of help from the indies is a must. Then too I wonder how excited the base vote must be with the red states becoming redder all the time and the blue states becoming bluer. Even without an excited base and you are right, there was little excitement over Romney in 2012. Still Romney won every trustworthy red state by 10 points or higher except my home state of Georgia where he won by only 8 points. A lot of Georgia Republicans were angry at Romney over his personal attacks on Gingrich in the Florida primary and stayed home. Florida is the only state where an excited base would have probably produced a Romney win, he lost there by 0.88%, less than one percent. Here is a list of the swing states and the percentage of the win or loss. 1. Florida, 0.88% excited base could have made a difference 2. North Carolina, 2.04% Romney won without an excited base 3. Ohio, 2.98% Could an excited base have made up the 3 point Romney lost by here? I doubt it. But possible. 4. Virginia, 3.87% Same as Ohio, but even more doubtful an excited base vote for Romney would have made a difference. Even if Romney carried all 4 of these states, he would have still lost. The rest of the Swing States: 1. Colorado, 5.37% 2. New Hampshire, 5.58% 3. Iowa, 5.81% 4. Nevada, 6.68% I think once you have a loss of over 4 points an excited base vote will do little to close that gap enough to win the state. My opinion. Now winning the independent vote by say a 55-44 margin instead of 51-48 would probably have delivered the first 4 states to Romney. Then with an excited base vote and the indies he could have taken the last 4 swing states. Just something to think about. I would have to study these numbers in more detail, so I stated probability, not that Romney would have.
As I've already expressed, I don't think Florida is a swing state anymore. It's blue. However even if it was still a swing state, I doubt that Rubio could pull the state his way. There are a lot of people who voted for Rubio who feel he lied to them. As far as Kasich goes, it's possible that he might pull Ohio, and that is an important state, but I don't see what he brings to capture any of the reddest red states. But we'll never know since he won't be getting the nomination.
Thanks for posting this interesting perspective. I've always thought of Florida as purple, but times change. As to the Kasich/Rubio ticket, it's a stretch, but probably the best chance the Republican party has to take the general election, if they have any chance. Of course, that is just MHO.
It definitely is a political conspiracy with Republicans on the committee with the Obama FBI to get Hillary for sure.
Dynasty wise it makes little difference. His son George P. Bush will probably be running for president in 2008
You're probably right about Kasich not getting the nomination. But when a candidate wins all those red or reddest states, they are not going to go to Clinton regardless of who is the candidate, Kasich, Trump, Rubio, Paul etc. The Republicans have 191 solid electoral votes regardless of who they run. The Democrats have a solid 247 regardless of whom they run, they may be a couple of exceptions, Pennsylvania perhaps, maybe even Wisconsin. On the other side the Democrats are talking about Georgia and Arizona. I doubt any of those 4 states will switch parties. So I looked at as who has the best chance of getting 270 electoral votes, popular vote be danged and that was the duo I came up with. I am more of a numbers guy than an ideological one and not being one or a member or supporter of either of the two major parties, I put forth what I thought was the best chance for a Republican victory next year. Does it have flaws, sure it does. Numbers do not take into consideration things like ideology, turn out, voter enthusiasm etc. Numbers can give you a pretty good idea of who will win, who can win and who can't. At this point in time, I do not see any Republican in the race that can carry enough swing states to climb from 191 to 270, especially if Florida or Ohio or North Carolina are lost.
