Vice Presidents Huckabee & Brownback

Had John McCain picked someone electable for his running mate, I am NOT SURE that Barack Obama would have been elected president.  Huckabee actually won several state primaries and caucuses.  Brownback would have appealed to all the evangelicals and extreme right wingers who eventually became Tea Baggers.  Both Brownback and Huckabee would have energized their bases and might have gotten the more reasonable right wing to go out and vote.  Instead, McCain made the fatal flaw of picking a 1/2 term Governor, who had formerly been a mayor of a 2000 person rural city where there were no city services provided, a city known as the crack capital of Alaska.  The VP candidate he picked galvanized opposition from literate, intelligent, reasonable people, like librarians, teachers, professional females with college degrees of all sorts, moderates of all shapes and sizes.

I postulate here, as I watch the circular firing squad that the Republican Primary field of 2012 is presenting, that it was McCain's choice of Palin that sealed his fate as an unelectable moderate Republican.  McCain was the least undesirable of Republican candidates in 2008.  Yes, he had some terrible flip flops, lapses in judgments, and mis-statements, but he never believed Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, or that Barack Obama was not patriotic or that he hated America.  McCain corrected ignorant supporters who called then-candidate Obama a 'socialist' and 'secret Muslim' at his rallies.  Compared to the 2012 field of loons who are running, McCain presented a very reasonable choice.

Huntsman is reasonable, and therefore, in 2012, he will be unelectable.  Romney, though easily despised, completely artificial, and slippery enough to do ANYTHING to get people to like him, is still less electable today than McCain was in 2008.  Front runners Paul, Bachmann, and Dick Perry are each to the right of most of the wackiest 2008 candidates (with Perry again today, denying climate change, and wanting to abolish 80% of all Federal Revenue by abolishing Federal Income Tax, what an idiot!). 

There is the possibility that the GOP will come up with a reasonable candidate who can appeal to moderates and independents, but so far, no such person has shown his (or her) face or raised their hand.  Whoever that reasonable person Might be, will have their pick of extremist Tea Party courtiers who they can choose as a VP running mate.  Maybe they'll repeat McCain's fatal flaw of picking a loser who will seal their fate against the incumbent President.  Maybe they'll learn from previous history...  I dunno.

There is also the possibility that the GOP will field a reasonable (yet un-named candidate), AND the Tea Party crazed faction of the far right wing will field their own Tea Party Candidate as well, splitting the vote in a 3-way, 1992 Perot/Bush/Clinton-esque race (Perot was from Texas also).  There's not predicting what crazy people might do. 

And yes, I know that the Republicans are going to do everything in their power (in the majority in House of Representatives, and as the LARGE Minority in the Senate, and as rulers of the SCOTUS) to make things as bad as possible for all Americans leading up the November 2012 elections, saying "NO" to everything, not compromising on anything, and redefining the word "Despicable" ... but there's nothing we, as a nation, can do about it.   At least, not without a TARDIS.

(And Perry needs to stay off my radio, his hubris and hypocrisy is over-whelming: link here)