Which party will be happier with their eventual nominee?

[Reignman]

On the Democratic side, it looks like once their nominee is chosen, we'll have either the Hillary-haters dealing with Hillary being their nominee (except for me and a few others anyway), or the Hillary-fans dealing with an Obama or Edwards candidacy.

For Republicans, their race has been much more of a free-for-all, and quite fluid. It isn't as easy to point out what the divisions in the party are over the presidential candidates.

Obviously, the answer to the question depends greatly upon who the candidates actually are, but which party do you think is going to be more excited about their candidate?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Probably the GOP

[Reaganfan]

Republicans always seem to rally behind their people unless they nominate Ron Paul or Linking Chafey.

[Person Man]

You mean Guiliani? I think the dems will be. The GOP has to pick between a populist, a environmentalist neo-con, a secular conservative, a libertarian conservative, and an unreliable conservative who comes from a misunderstood religion.

Even Hillary is a doctrinaire liberal.

[Lief 🗽]

The Republicans, by far. The differences between the top three Democrats can largely be attributed to style and framing, and the main policy differences between them are rather specific (whether or not universal healthcare should be mandated, exactly how long we should stay in Iraq, etc.). Meanwhile, the Republican candidates all, by and large, represent competing wings of their party: Huckabee representing the theocons, Romney representing the economic conservatives (econocons?), McCain and Giuliani representing, to different degrees, the neocons, and Paul representing the paleocons and libertarians.

[Person Man]

The Republicans, by far. The differences between the top three Democrats can largely be attributed to style and framing, and the main policy differences between them are rather specific (whether or not universal healthcare should be mandated, exactly how long we should stay in Iraq, etc.). Meanwhile, the Republican candidates all, by and large, represent competing wings of their party: Huckabee representing the theocons, Romney representing the economic conservatives (econocons?), McCain and Giuliani representing, to different degrees, the neocons, and Paul representing the paleocons and libertarians.

How is Romney representing the public choicers when he wants to spend good money on us proles?

I think McCain is the neocon candidate and Guiliani is the public choicer. Romney is sorta the one-size-fits-all party unifyer. That's the difference in this election. The difference between the two parties is that the GOP is not as unified.

[cp]

Based on my suspicion that the Republicans will take longer to actually choose their nominee I expect the Dems will come out happier. Without an additional month of infighting, the Dems will pull themselves together first and come out fighting in the spring while the Republicans are still licking their self-inflicted wounds.

[Gustaf]

Are we talking right after the convention or right after election day? If the former the GOP is more likely (being really excited about nominating Huckabee while the Democrats are resenting Hillary) while if the latter the Democrats are more likely (with Hillary having chrushed Huckabee).

I will also note that 3 or 4 people in this thread have indicated the GOP as their answer but only 1 person actually voted that way...

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

it depends. there are so many different styles of candidates running on the GOP side, but we tend to rally behind the person once we have them. in terms of who will be happier, i think the democrats will be happier because, for the most part, most of them agree on the issues, though they may have different ways of going about them.

mccain and rudy have clashed with the right wing base, paul has no shot and isnt even a republican, and mike huckabee scares people with his religious beliefs. romney is just too fake, but he seems like he has it all if you ignore his past and his religion.

[Kushahontas]

You mean Guiliani? I think the dems will be. The GOP has to pick between a populist, a environmentalist neo-con, a secular conservative, a libertarian conservative, and an unreliable conservative who comes from a misunderstood religion.

Even Hillary is a doctrinaire liberal.

who's the environmentalist neo-con?

[MarkWarner08]

You mean Guiliani? I think the dems will be. The GOP has to pick between a populist, a environmentalist neo-con, a secular conservative, a libertarian conservative, and an unreliable conservative who comes from a misunderstood religion.

Even Hillary is a doctrinaire liberal.

who's the environmentalist neo-con?

John McCain

[dead0man]

The Dems.  Whomever wins the GOP nomination will have a good (and varying) chunk of the party feeling disenfranchised.

[gorkay]

I expect that the Dems will be happier for the following reasons:

1. The polls, at least initially, will show him or her ahead.
2. Their candidates are better than the Republicans' this time.
3. The ideology of their candidate will probably be closer to the consensus among Democrats than the Republicans.' All of the front-running Republicans except Huckabee are less conservative than the party as a whole.

Don't underestimate the Democrats' ability to make lemons out of lemonade, though.

[12th Doctor]

I don't think there is any question that it will be the Democrats.  They would support a dead mule if it got nominated, on the reverse side the Republicans have at least one candidate who threatens to do irreversible harm to the Republican coalition.  If you have any doubts about who I speak of, check my sig.

[Lief 🗽]

Well, in response to your sig, if not for the people currently supporting Huckabee, your coalition wouldn't have won in 2004 or 200.

[Likely Voter]

polling so far has indicated that the dems are happier with their filed than the GOP. Plus the GOP filed is far more scattered, which is unusual. Also when it comes to the issues, the Dems really dont differ that much. On the other hand there are huge ideological differences between the ones on the GOP. And of course the GOP candidates themselves are attacking eachother much more...so if your guy loses you are less inclined to like the guy who beat him. Bottom line is the Dems

[Nutmeg]

polling so far has indicated that the dems are happier with their field than the GOP.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be happy with their nominee.  The pro-Hillary and anti-Hillary factions seem too set to get along in the general.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Democrats will ultimately be happier with their candidate, but I don't expect that to matter much poll-wise.  Republicans aren't voting for Hillary.