Will the Republican nominee be someone who hasn't entered yet?

[hedgehog]

If so, who?

[Avalux]

1. No. It'll be Romney or Huckabee

The are the only two candidates who can win the repug base in primaries. Although Newt Gingrich will probably get in, I don't see him as the nominee.

Doesn't really matter though - none of them will win a FAIR election.

[saltpoint]

2. I'm not sure they have one damn soul who can even win their nomination,

nevermind the general election.

Gingrich? He's a disgrace 70% of the time and a dipshit the other 30.

All the current announced candidates have grievous flaws. Not one of them could cobble an electoral college victory against most of our field.

Huckabee is vaguely nominatable but singularly uninteresting in all other respects, except perhaps as a psychiatric test case.

And the current pResident hasn't made the going any easier.

[TwilightGardener]

3. LOL about the psychiatric test case--I thought I was the only one

who sees him as a bit of a nutjob. Gingrich is the only one I can see still getting in now, which would be entertaining, but not even vaguely threatening.

[saltpoint]

6. Hi, wienerdoggie. Yep. Ol' Huck is mixed nuts in an oblong bag. He might

be one of those people who swallow toothbrushes. He gives me the creeps.

Agree with you on Gingrich. He must be champing at the bit to get in, especially with such a pathetic field of competitors, but I'm not worried about whipping him. I don't see a Gingrich candidacy carrying any of the Kerry-Edwards states and I don't think he carries any of the closer states that Bush barely, barely "won."

[Lucinda]

4. They will if they want to have even a REMOTE chance of winning.

And I dont have a clue who that might be.

[saltpoint]

5. The GOP may have to concede 2008. Not publicly concede, but privately they

must be huddled over the KoolAid pitcher exchanged despairing mumbles about how they're going to get their fannies whupped in 2008.

Given that fanny-whuppin', they might just as well run some halfway promising future ticket and give it some national exposure.

Or, call in a veteran and a rookie and let them do the best they can. John Danforth would be the least offensive living Republican, I think. He's not treasure, at least from a left-voting perspective, but as Republicans go, he at least can SPEAK on his own two feet and feed himself. Compared to Ted Stevens, Tom Coburn and Orrin Hatch, that's pretty remarkable.

And he's a certified minister from middle-of-the-country Missouri with an authoritative voice, etc. blah blah blah.

They'd have to PLACE him at the top of the ticket because the far-right fundie base would never ever nominate John Danforth. He's too "moderate" for them.

Danforth at the top of the ticket and Rob Portman as veep nom. That, or something like that, would be the Republicans' best hope, which gives us some reason to be optimistic, since it would never happen. The saliva-spewing fundies who slough and grunt their way to their polling places want numbskull candidates like Dubya and Reagan, or psychotic creeps like Poppy, Brownback and Willard, or philistine yahoos like Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee.

Those three above categories often attract interchangeable candidates to them, so that their noms could be in one, two, or even all three of those categories simultaneously. DU readers should feel free to mix and match.

Gingrich as a late entry into the GOP field would confirm the desperation of the red team. They're done for in 2008 and privately, quietly, over a lukewarm cup of red Koolaid, they know it.

[Bitwit1234]

7. How about Bob Perry from Texass

and wouldn't that be good ....swift boating the swift boater.

[saltpoint]

8. Hi, Bitwit1234. Help me out here... Bob Perry or Rick Perry? I'm not up on

my Texas Republicans.

[smoogatz]

9. Here's a scenario: Giuliani wins in a contested convention

beating out Romney and Huckabee. The fundie faction throws a screaming shitfit and runs Huckabee and Roy Moore as the Conservative Party ticket. Seriously--we're this close to seeing a major split between the big money fascists and the fundies; Giuliani could be the last straw. If he wins the Florida primary, watch the fun begin.

[saltpoint]

10. It would be truly fun to watch a convention floor food fight between the

delegates trying to unite behind America's Thug and the far-right nutbags who want Huck or Brownback or some other unstable fundie droid.

Let that food fight commence, let it be long sustained, and let Britt Hume pump it into America's living rooms.

May the GOP reap what it has sown.

I love your prediction.