In fairness, that prediction wasn't a result of my being so much smarter than everybody else. It just means that I pay attention. Who gets the GOP nomination for the Big House is among the most predictable things on earth. Despite their repeated assertions that America is a "meritocracy," the Republican party functions in ways that union hacks everywhere would recognize. Specifically, you get the nomination when it's your turn.
Romney finished behind McCain in 2008, so it's his turn now. The same was true of John McCain. Bob Dole, George H.W Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Bush 41, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon won the nomination from the vice-presidency. There were only two nominees of the last ten - over the last fifty-two years - that weren't the next in line: George W. Bush and Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was nominated because Nelson Rockefeller had been recently *gasp* divorced, and Bush won the prize because no sane party would ever nominate Steve Forbes or Pat Buchanan.
Given that half-century of history, I'm not at all uncomfortable saying that there's an 80% chance that the Republican nominee for president in 2016 is going to be Rick Santorum. Actually, I'd say that the chance is better than 80%, since Santorum won more primaries than Forbes and Buchanan combined. (There's no clear anology in terms of delegates because the GOP stupidly changed it's rules from "winner-take-all" to a proportional model that repeatedly screwed Democrats.)
Moreover, when Mitt Romney loses, I can almost assure you that they won't self-examine their quandary and come to the conclusion that their loss - including what I now strongly believe to be losing the opportunity to retake the Senate - was a result of the party having lost it's fucking mind and forcing otherwise electable nominees to take strange and savage positions that serve only to alienate broad swaths of the electorate.
Oh no, they've already telegraphed their intentions. They'll intone - as several of them already have - that you just can't trust moderate Republicans. They'll cite Reagan's victory in 1980 and go on to every subsequent GOP loss (conveniently ignoring George W. Bush's dual victories and what Karl Rove at the time prophesied as a 'permanent Republican majority) as evidence of this. Of course, they'll ignore shitloads of history in doing this, but they aren't exactly famous as political scholars, or even dependably honest people. They're ideologues and fiction not infrequently gets in the way of facts, both on the left and the right.
Here are some facts for you folks. In 1992, George H.W Bush was challenged from the right in the primaries by Pat Buchanan and in the general by Ross Perot (the first major candidate to make the deficit an issue.) Precisely the same thing happened to Bob Dole in 1996, except Dole also had the albatross of Newt Gingrich around his neck as well. John McCain was so terrified of his right flank that he reveresed at least a decade's worth of policy positions (some as recent as a year earlier) to appease them. The fact that he froze during the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and named a highly fuckable moron as his running mate didn't help matters.
Yes, Reagan won, but he ran against an unpopular incumbent who had faced a strong primary challenge and an independent general election candidate that siphoned off 6% of his vote. Historically, it would have been difficult for Reagan to lose under those circumstances.
Even during the 2010 election, most of the Tea Party\s superstars got their asses kicked in the general, including Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell, who were either too psychotic or stupid to be elected, or too far to the right of their electorates. But you try convincing Republicans of that. I've given up.
Beginning on November 7, I think that you'll see the GOP move even further to what they think is "the right." Rick Santorum is their natural choice.
More importantly, Santorum will also have a political inrastructure and fundraising apparatus in place by them. If you think that Chris Christie or Jeb Bush are going to ride to the rescue, you're kidding yourselves. Neither would run against a candidate as weak as Romney, let alone one who is guaranteed to have an institutional advantage in Iowa as Santorum.
And Santorum is already telegraphing how he's going to be destroyed by anyone that the Democrats put up.
“We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do,” said Santorum, adding, “So our colleges and universities, they’re not going to be on our side. The conservative movement will always be – and that’s why we founded Patriot Voices – the basic premise of America and American values will always be sustained through two institutions, the church and the family.”
The annual conference features 80 speakers over the course of three days and is sponsored by conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation and Liberty Univeristy.I should say that the "Values Voter Summit" has always driven me up the fucking wall. That's because all voters are "values voters," including even the remnants of the goddamned Manson Family. You may not like thise values, but they're values nevertheless.
I've never before heard a supposed movement leader say that smart people will never support him. That's not only new, it's revolutionary! We may have the prospect of a presidential nominee wearing a "I'M WITH STUPID" T-shirt during his convention speech.
If you want to look at where the Democratic "War on Women" meme began, look no further than the Tea Party. Once a ton of their assholes got elected at the state level, they ignored entirely that theirs was supposed to be an entirely economic message and went all jihadi on abortion. In states like Texas, Virginia and Pennsylvania, they tried passing trans-vaginal ultrasound mandates that served no medical purpose, but did nicely humiliate ladies who liked to fuck. And they did this while protesting a "government intrusion into health care."
Santorum brought those issues into the presidential campaign, speaking out against not only birth control but amniocentesis, which is a rather revolutionary move.
The Santorum and Tea Party wings of the party aren't very good at reading polls or census results. Smart Republican strategists aren't shy about sayng that this might be the last presidential election in which that the GOP can rely on old white guys. As it is, the supposedly moderate Romney is losing with blacks, Hispanics, gays, single women, and anyone with a college education.
As it is, Mitt Romney is struggling mightily to win back George W. Bush's incredibly narrow electoral map. Yet Rick Santorum thinks that he's going to win it, which is adorable. This is beause, later on in his stupid Christanist speech, he whittled his base down further;
Santorum also criticized the libertarian wing of the Republican party who “don’t want to talk about social issues,” saying that “without the church and the family, there is no conservative movement, there is no basic values of America.”There it is, then.
If the Republican party's likely next nominee is outright declaring that that libertarians have no place in the movement, let's see how the movement does without them.
From this day forward, let's let Team Jesus have the Republican party. Libertarians or small-govenment conservatives should either sit this election out or vote for Gary Johnson. Then, in 2016, they shouldn't voe in the Republican primaries.
Give the nomination to Santorum. Let the religious right take over the party. Then let's see how well it does in an elecion.
I'll bet it doesn't go well.
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