Sarah Palin came disturbingly close to becoming VP despite not being ready for primetime

[derby378]

Paul Ryan, as dangerous as he might be for America, has a little more practice with group dynamics and the media.

And as long as Obama is struggling with high unemployment rates, gas prices over $3 a gallon, and an overall decline in Americans' quality of life, it won't matter if it's the GOP's fault - Obama will still be vulnerable.

We managed to get Romney's campaign against the ropes over Bain Capital and that unintended assist from Andrea Saul. Now we need to do the same thing to the Ryan machine.

Otherwise, Ryan could very well become another Dick Cheney.

[samsingh]

1. he would be worse than dick cheney - i don't think cheney was a ryn bootlicker

[derby378]

2. Cheney was, however, the power behind the throne

And that's the similar dynamic I see percolating here - Romney will be the guy in "charge," but the directives from the White House are going to sound more and more like they were ghostwritten at the Naval Observatory.

[samsingh]

5. you're right

[Booster]

7. I think Grover Norquist has made it perfectly clear that HE will be the power ON the throne.

[cali]

3. No she didn't.

Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%. Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.[

In this day and age that's considered a very healthy margin indeed.

John Edwards came a lot closer to being VP than Palin

On November 3, 2004, Kerry conceded the race. Kerry won 59.03 million votes, or 48.3 percent of the popular vote; Bush won 62.04 million votes, or 50.7 percent of the popular vote. Kerry carried states with a total of 252 electoral votes.

[derby378]

4. ONLY 52.9% of the popular vote

Against a ticket with Palin, that's just plain unacceptable. We won, but the victory showed that our party still had a lot of work to do.

[cali]

11. they beat McCain/Palin by 7 points and in this day and age

that's universally considered a BIG win.

[samsingh]

6. considering that palin is a complete self indulged idiot who would have ruined this country

it's scary that she still got 45% of the vote

[cali]

12. it's the way the electorate is. We're neatly divided

repubs could run Ally the Alligator for vp and they'd still get roughly that.

[Scuba]

8. Had McCain/Palin won, millions of Americans, and billions from around the world, would have...

... volunteered to be part of his personal bodyguard team. He would have been the safest man in the world.

In fact, had John died in office, I'm confident some physicians would have found a way to declared him both alive and competent.

[tjwash]

9. 365 electoral votes to 173 is not "disturbingly close"

The concession speech is delivered 2 hours after the polls closed for cripes sake.

Thanks for your concern though.

[derby378]

10. You can always tell me what I can do with myself...

...but if Ryan winds up as VP because we didn't take his threat seriously enough, don't come crying to me about it.