Who can beat McCain/Bush in 2008?

[angee_is_mad]

I'm speculating that jeb will be on McCain's ticket in 2008. Who could realistically run against a moderate repub with a war record and whose VP will have the bush last name?

This ticket will make a grab for centrist dems and be able keep the evangelical in check. The only name that comes to my mind is Wesley Clark, but who could be on the ticket with him?

[OneBlueSky]

1. Robert Redford and Gary Hart . . . n/t

.

[oldtime dfl_er]

2. Boxer. Edwards. Dayton.

More will rise up if the examples of today keep the spine in the Democratic party. McCain is hardly invincible, and Jeb is highly beatable.


www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

[Old and In the Way]

3. I'll go out on a limb here.

Neither will be running in 2008.

[angee_is_mad]

5. Really?

why do you say that?

[Merusault]

9. McCain

The hard core right wing hates McCain. They wouldn't nominate Guiliani either. And it's that wing that controls the Republican party today.

[adigal]

22. I agree also

Look what the religious wackos did to McCain in 2000. He will never get the nod. He would have been better off accepting Kerry's offer of a VP and this country would have a President Kerry right now.

[ElectroPrincess]

23. Oh yes, you got that right -

The hard core right wing - NUTS hate McCain almost as much as Hillery. Well almost ... they dismiss him as crazy because the right wing claims that he cooperated with the enemy during his POW days in captivity,i.e., like 5 years!

It's expected for the rabid right wing to hate figures like Bill and Hillary but what they have done to McCain is downright disgraceful. Yet, conservatives are so "touched" as witnessed by McCain returning to Bush Co. without reservation, "Thank you Sir, may I have another."

These (rabid right wing and their worshipers) are the true CRAZIES.
Yikes! :P

[Old and In the Way]

31. Pretty much agree with the posts below.

McCain will be too old and too tainted. I think his Presidential ambitions have come and gone. I think even Republicans have had it with the Bush family....besides, would you want to be President with a Bush as a VP? Would make me mighty nervous.

But the larger question is....who can the Republicans run? I think 2008 finally reopens the major fault lines that have been plastered over by 8 years of the Bushit administration. There's no "up-and-comers" who get any political media oxygen, maybe because no one can be in both camps like Bush.

More important to us is getting majorities in Congress in 2006. We need to resecure Congress, so our next Democratic President can have legislative support in rolling back the un-American policies that we've suffered with these past 5 years.

[pbartch]

32. I bet they will put in FRIST and LOTT

[autorank]

10. You are a prophet Sir. I agree. See below.

[salin]

27. But they have a dilemna...

they need a "front man" who can appeal to enough of the population that they continue to overlook the real consequences (damage) of the policies pursued by the far-right.

I can't think of any high profile GOP folks who the far right would approve (either because they are acceptable ideologically, or they are moldable/manipulable) - who could have such appeal. They started grooming gov bush in 1998 - just days after his reelection in Texas, I began reading about his "mass appeal to moderates and his ability to reach a multiracial electorate in texas" - and I was reading newspapers in the bay area. At that point in time the repubs had taken a beating in the midterms which led to Newt resigning and then the embarassment of his groomed successor having to step down due to sexual issues... the gop was being declared dead in California - and there was a hunt on for someone who could have mass appeal. They chose "affable" (or at least the image of) and "mallable/manipulable" in W.

Don't see who follows that mold - esp as W himself is losing support daily; and his premier push is being abandoned by his own (killing social security) due to their fear of reprecussions in the next elections. If the public sentiment continues to turn against the GOP - will they be so desperate to win that they would reach out to one with moderate appeal - even if he is hated from within the far right of their party? Way too early to tell - but if the midterms were in May - I would bet that we would see similar losses to those in 1998... and growing concern about finding an "electable" replacement... who knows what three years will bring and what the republican party will do as a result.

[DemDogs]

34. McCain is definitely running

John Weaver is certainly running the campaign again, joyous to stick it in Rove's ear. If he is healthy, he is running, IMO.

[Clarkie1]

4. Clark/Boxer

[progressiveright]

6. goddamn mccain

if he actually came out against bush this election, talked about fiscal responsibility, environment, hypocricy of slamming social programs but giving taxpayers money to corporations, necessity of replacing a president who told the world we are going to war because of wmd like an idiot, if he did all that and then ran in 2008 as an independent i would support him over most of the current potential democratic presidential candidates (except for dean, clark, and couple of others). now, as far as i am concerned, he can go to hell, and he will not get the republican nomination because right wing people hate him, if he somehow manages to run on a republican ticket people will be breaking for contitution party in droves.

[autorank]

7. Anybody, these guys are going down....read this.

The following article is not from CounterPunch or some hard left blog, it's from a conservative intellectual icon, Paul Craig Roberts (Hoover Institution, Cato Institute, etc., very heavy duty traditional conservative). It is stunning. I've bolded some of the gems for your reading ease. By the time these guys and our guys are done with Bush, there won't be any Bush names in politics and McCain will go down as the worst enabler in the history of American politics. This is not wishful thinking, this is the real deal. These traditional conservatives are officially on the war path (and this was three days before the Inaugural disgrace.

Clark + a Westerner is my choice but don't worry about McCain, Jebbie or anyone else in the bright halo of Bush. They're done. We need to make sure we have a candidate of great skill and vision who can save the f'ing world after * gets through with it.
------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050117_seduced.htm

January 17, 2005
How Americans Were Seduced by War

By Paul Craig Roberts

"Americans have been betrayed. Sooner or later Americans will realize that they have been led to defeat in a pointless war by political leaders who they inattentively trusted. They have been misinformed by a sycophantic corporate media too mindful of advertising revenues to risk reporting truths branded unpatriotic by the propagandistic slogan, "you are with us or against us."

What happens when Americans wake up to their betrayal? It is too late to be rescued from catastrophe in Iraq, but perhaps if Americans can understand how such a grand mistake was made they can avoid repeating it.

<snip>
The world is a vast place. The US has demonstrated that it cannot impose its will on a tiny part known as Iraq. American realism may yet reassert itself, dispel the fog of delusion, cleanse the body politic of the Jacobin spirit and lead the world by good example.

But this happy outcome will require regime change in the US"

[cire4]

8. McCain will not get the GOP nomination

The Busheviks don't like him. The Freepers don't like him. The religious fundies don't like him. The corporate Republican donors don't like him.

These will be the people that control the GOP nomination in '08. They will likely install another right-wing religious fundy in the mold of Bush. Jeb, Frist, Santorum, Bill Owens are all possibilities.

McCain and Giuliani....I highly doubt they'll go anywhere.

[progressiveright]

11. mccain

is definitely not going anywhere now, i don't know what the hell he thought he was doing. it's so sad he sold out.

[bunkerbuster1]

24. What McCain was thinking? Step back a bit.

We all assume he has these grandiose ambitions. The guy's in his mid-60s, isn't it just possible he wants a few more years of a comfy political career and then comfy retirement?

If that's the case, putting aside the ugliness of the 2000 campaign (I'm sure GWB has sworn up and down to John that he knew NOTHING of Karl's push-polling) going along with the BFEE so he can cruise along was not a dumb move for the Senator.

OTOH, if I'm wrong about his ambitions, then of course he screwed the pooch, as has Rudy G.

[angee_is_mad]

13. even if jeb is on ticket?

right wingers love the bushes right now and McCain made a deal with the devil(bush) to campaign for him this go round in order to run in 2008.

I also believe that's why they are trying to give jeb more national and international exposure. jeb can't head the ticket cause he still has so much family baggage, so instead that are grooming him for later and he will still be relatively young in 2016. Just my theory.

[bklyncowgirl]

26. I agree.

I doubt very much that a moderate will get the Republican nomination unless the Bush adminsitration screws up so bad that there's a widespread repudiation of them and everything they've ever touched.

They'll screw up but the media will cover it up and the next nominee will be a right winger.

[CoffeeCat]

12. I think party will matter more than personalities in 2008.

By 2008, this country will be pushed so far to the extreme right--by Bush's hardcore, PNACer foreign policy and his radical social agenda--it won't matter if the Reps run a ping-pong ball and the Dems run a bag of toast.

The personalities/people won't matter as much as party because the stark contrast between Dems and Reps will be more obvious than ever.

This country will be in crisis mode by 2008--if Bush's economic, social, foreign-policy and PNACer agendas are allowed to metastasize.

[msgadget]

15. Will the bag of toast have a greater or lesser chance in 2008?

This past election the contrast was pretty darn stark and I shudder to think it can become more so. But, if it did, would that help or hurt the ping-pong ball?

[TheWatcher]

20. Forgive my cynicism

But unless ALL Electronic Voting Machines are removed from the voting process, or at the very least equipped with a verifiable paper trail that can be audited, talk of ANY candidate from an opposing party might be a tragic waste of time. This country has been hijacked. It pains me to say this, but the Electoral Process probably cannot save this country now.

Many still do not want to face it, and it is understandable becasue the options we face if it is true are bleaker than facing down the hordes of Mordor, but it is something I have come to accept.

We are in the 1930's, and the only difference between this maniac and the last one are two distiguishing features:

A Brain and a Tiny Little Mustache.

[yurbud]

14. They will put Jeb at the top of the ticket

He will be more reliably corrupt.

[accipiter]

16. my best guess

McCain is getting old, he's not really looking to good, and he's not very popular with the base.

Jeb won't want to run as VP. And he won't want to run in 2008 on the heels of his bro. He'll wait.

Arnold won't have his amendment so he can't run.

My guess: the pubs will end up with a monumental loser. We'll run Hillary, and she'll win.

I also think the pubs will have a very divisive figure in their 2008 primaries. Someone who gives the right wing base a lot of red meat but who turns off moderates.

[demwing]

21. Hillary-ous

What is the obsession with this junior senator, who holds a spotty record, and whose greatest claim to fame is name recognition (which, in her case, is as much a negative as a positive)?

[LittleClarkie]

17. Depending on how long a stick I can find

I might give it a shot.

If someone 4 years from now is arrested for beating on the Republican nominees with a big stick, you'll know I found a nice big one.

[Chipper Chat]

18. The Pub ticket in 2008 will be:

Frist and Santorum.
An ugly thought for sure, but the right-wing cant go wrong with these two master gay-baiters.

[JDPriestly]

19. It will take time,

but the American people are basically decent and God-fearing in the positive sense. They will come to their senses and reject the lies. Just a matter of time. McCain will rue the day he supported W. As for Jeb, let's investigate the scandals so we can launch our own Swift Boat ads. By the way, how old is Jeb? Was he too old or young to go to Viet Nam? Did he go? What's the story?

Also, isn't he hiding some nasty financial scandals? And what about his daughter?

[zulchzulu]

25. McC'aint will be out of the picture..and besides...

...if McC'aint decides to run with the brother of the guy who defamed his character in 2000, he really is stupid.

[robbedvoter]

28. Whaaa?They are having...gasp ---elections?

[AzDar]

29. After this mal-adminstration runs it's course, the ONLY way another

Bush will be elected is if they somehow CHEAT. But, of course this only happens in the Ukraine. Right???

[PROGRESSIVE1]

30. Clark/Boxer

[JoseRizal]

33. iF MCCAIN RUNS DEMS ARE IN TROUBLE

THAT IS JUST THE TRUTH, PROOF OF THIS WELL I FIND THAT there are large numbers of DUers here have soft spot for Sen.John Mccain for reasons I can not understand. They rather vote for a repub which is supposed to be the enemy of the left rather than a Democratic candidate? Just like REagan was successful with bringing large numbers of dems to the repubs, Mccain if not countered with a right candidate will do the same come 2008 to us.

Then the lefties will pretty much ruin this party and Dem. to nothing and I hope if that happens. A new 3rd party should arise to ship the uncompromising group of idealistic lacking in courage group of people to the GReen or whatever the name they want to call the party.
I am just venting here, I could already see some of the DUers abondoning the Democratic party coz their wishes werent granted? Here is a suggestion why do u guys run for politics, if successful then obviously u can easily implement ur wonderful ideas to work. If it does not work out then stop blaming the system,everyone, but rather look within.

[Quixote1818]

36. How old will McCain be in four years?

[Dr Fate]

39. The GOP/media establishment will probably Swiftboat McCain...

...he still has too much of an independent streak...

[Quixote1818]

35. Clark/Richardson

[Tigress DEM]

37. A sledgehammer for every Diebold machine... n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

38. Bartlett/Hoynes '08

I can dream, can't I?