SC Gov Mark Sanford

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He seems better than most Republicans, but I found this on him.

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He seems better than most Republicans, but I found this on him.

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If the biggest problem this guy has is not knowing the particulars of a budget that isn't even his...

* Erc starts humming Hail to the Chief...

I don't even know the guy's positions yet. He seems to have the same old tired Republican positions on a lot of issues.

You do have to admit he got smacked down there.

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I think he'd be unstoppable in the primary (every republican nominee since 1980 has won the south carolina primary and no one is gonna' beat sanford in the south carolina primary) and pretty darn close to unstoppable in the general.  Even if he doesnt have a strong record as governor he can run off the same platform Bush ran off of in 2000.  Southern, Charming, Christian, Republican, Governor.

Winning the Iowa caucus didn't help Harkin much in '92.

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SuperSoulty,

The only problem with you reasoning, is that it is difficult to find someone from categories 1 and 2 that meets the criteria of category 4.  The only one I can think of is Santorum.  Is that where you are trying to steer this?

A list of serious canidates who meet three of the above mentioned criteria:

Condi Rice
Kay Baily Huchinson (I give her an exemption from #3)
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
John McCain
Rudy Giuliani (ambiguous about #4, but....)
Tim Pawlenty
Tom Ridge
John Sununu (also exempt from #3)
Elizabeth Dole
Norm Coleman

That is not including those candidates who might arise, but are "unforseen" at the moment.

p.s. a late addition

Olympia Snowe

Most of those are pretty-right wing
Condi Rice - major major liar,
Hutchinson -  nice senate record to attack
Romney - can't win his homestate, lucky if he wins the 2006 governor race
Santorum - bigot, wants to destroy SS
McCain - old, cancer
Giuliani - too conservative for NY, too liberal for a national Republican primary
Pawlenty - does any one know about this guy?
Ridge - busted for politicizing Homeland Security
Sununu - one of many extremists on this list
Dole - her campaign went nowhere in 2000
Coleman - this guy has no principles

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Your "analysis" (assuming you are capable of such a thing) is laughable, and really doesn't warrent comment.

Yawn

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I keep thinking Frist is a lock for some reason.  I dont have a detailed analysis why, but I really think hes gonna' win the primary.

He's definitely right-wing and corrupt enough.
There may be a reason he's not pushing hard for SS, and he's reitiring in 2006.

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If it goes to the guys that have 'paid their dues,' then it's probably McCain's or Rudy's turn. 

Since we didn't have any sort of challenge in '04, I'd say that it is wide open in '08.  I really do'nt think that McCain will even run.  I saw him on TV tonight and he didn't look well.

I keep thinking Frist is a lock for some reason.  I dont have a detailed analysis why, but I really think hes gonna' win the primary.

edit: not really a lock, but you know what I mean, the favorite.

good!

Only good if he loses the general election. Very bad if he wins.

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Your "analysis" (assuming you are capable of such a thing) is laughable, and really doesn't warrent comment.

Yawn

Fine, I'll lower myself to your level and answer you.

John McCain:  Though the cancer is a draw back, it is quite treatable and shows no signs of taking his life anytime soon.

Condi Rice: Obviously your analysis is highly subjective and is not shared by a large number of people.

Mitt Romney: From everything I have seen, he looks pretty secure for '06.  Also, thanks to something called "TV", media crosses state lines, and so People in media markets that serve or come out of Massechusetts are also familiar with Romney.  Even if he can't take Massechusetts, he can pull in NH and Maine and perhaps CT.  He would probably play well in states like PA and Michigan too.

Tom Ridge: Once again, your opinion is not shared by most people.  You have to learn how to think like normal people, even if you don't think the same things they do.  Only the Left 30% of the country thinks that he politicized homeland security, and they aren't going to win anyone an election.

Tim Pawlenty: Did anyone know who Bill Clinton was, or for that matter, Dukakis or Carter or Kennedy or Truman or Woodrow Wilson, before the start of their respective campaign seasons?

Elizabeth Dole:  She had no fund raising base or base of support  in 2000.  Now she does.

Rudy Giuliani:  Refere to the poll I mentioned.

John Sununu:  I don't even know where you got this idea.  He was chosen by Santorum to run against Smith precisly because he was a moderate and Smith was the "extremeist".

Rick Santorum:  Comments over-blown and taken out of context and the average person won't remember them by '08 anyway.  Any effort to remind the public will be wasted money by the Democrats.

Norm Coleman:  Why? Because he left the Democrats?  They didn't support him anyway.  He clearly has more principles than the Democrats who are trying to rip the sh**t out of his UN Oil for Food corruption investigation.

Kay Baily Huchinson:  This is another "says you".

Condi isn't a liar? I stopped reading right there.

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Jfern,

We're all partisan her, but you're a total hack.

It should be obvious to anyone non-partisan who pays attention that Condi Rice is a major league liar.

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In how many elections since 1860 has a candidate won more than 55% of the vote:

1864 - Lincoln gets 55.02%  (half of country doesn't vote)
1872 - Grant gets 55.63% (helped by disenfranchising Confederates)
1904 - Roosevelt gets 56.42%  (popular prez.)
1920 - Harding gets 60.32% (return to normalcy)
1928 - Hoover gets 58.21% (chicken in every pot)
1932 - Roosevelt gets 57.41% (Great Depression)
1936 - Roosevelt gets 60.80% (height of his popularity)
1952 - Eisenhower gets 55.18% (Korean War)
1956 - Eisenhower gets 57.37% (Ike popular, incompetent challenger)
1964 - Johnson gets 61.05% (Kennedy ass., Goldwater bad candidate)
1972 - Nixon gets 60.67% (McGovern bad candidate)
1984 - Reagan gets 58.77% (Reagan popular)

I count 12 out 37 times a candidate has gotten more than 55% of the vote.  National margins and parties are an anomaly, not to be expected very often.

Still 2.46% is one of the narrowest margins ever, and in in fact the narrowest for a sucessful re-election.
Also, you can't call 1924 a close election.

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Um yeah, Ferraro gave Mondale such a huge boost among Italian Catholics, right? Kerry was an Irish Catholic.

This is why Super is right and you are wrong.  Going to mass does not make you Catholic, living a life based on Church teaching does.  Driving your wife to the brink of suicide, divorcing her and marrying your colleague's rich widow, backing abortion on demand, and raising a daughter who wears a see trough dress to the Cannes film festival is not Catholic.  Kerry is a Catholic in name only.  Ferraro is also a Catholic in name only.  They are elite northeastern liberals who subscribe to a cocktail party ideology and use their religion for show.  Real Catholics sense this, and don't consider these people to be Catholic.

so what the hell does this have to do with ethnicity then? There's plenty of Irish and Italian Catholic folks who have opebo-esque lifestyles (hell, look at Flyers), and I bet there are plenty of German Catholics here who despite supposedly being closer to other whites than the people listed above who are Opus Dei nutcases.

Flyers only wishes he had that lifestyle.  He is also not a real Catholic, as he does not follow Catholicism.

Ethnicity doesn't have to be an objective standard in this context, only subjective.  It is more a description of what people identify with than what their actual heritage is.  The Catholic vote in this case is a reference to people who actually practice Catholicism, not just those who descend from Catholic families.

Like every Republican Catholic follows the verse "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".

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How many times do I have to tell you?  You can not compare the socio-economic structer today to that of 2000 years ago.

Are you saying that all of Christ's teachings are obsolete?

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Quick point: Kerry isn't an Irish Catholic (don't be fooled by the name) and certainly isn't an ethnic politician.
He comes off as more WASPish than a WASP like Bush, hence his poor preformance with Catholic voters and his impressive preformance with mainline Protestants.

Ethnic voters (and they're usually Catholic) are importent to both parties because on the one hand they are overwhelmingly Democratic by registration etc, but on the other hand they are usually somewhat socially conservative and don't have any problems with splitting their tickets (take a look at some of the statewide races in PA last year if you don't believe me).

Time to bash on the Jewish Catholics?
Yes, Kerry's grandfather changed his name from Kohn to Kerry.

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Time to bash on the Jewish Catholics?

Who says I'm bashing anyone?

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And? I were pointing out that despite the name, Kerry is not an Irish Catholic.
And the fact that he comes across as a WASP (even though he isn't) is pretty indisputable IMO.

You're all complaining about how the 3rd I believe  (and the first in 44 years) non WASP major party candidate in US history comes across as a WASP? That's pretty laughable.

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You're all complaining about how the 3rd I believe  (and the first in 44 years) non WASP major party candidate in US history comes across as a WASP? That's pretty laughable.

Dukakis is an English name? Good Lord I learn something new every day.

Seriously though, the term WASP implies a certain amount of East Coast establishment-ness. I don't class LBJ or Bubba as WASP's, and neither did the electorate.

Like it or not Kerry came across as the most WASPish candidate since Bush sr.

So basically you're biased against the north-east? I think the north-east has had enough bashing from Republicans for political reasons.

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So basically you're biased against the north-east? I think the north-east has had enough bashing from Republicans for political reasons.

No, I'm not.
Run a working class ethnic Catholic from Massachusetts or Rhode Island and I think they'd do pretty well (remember that Tip's approval rating was higher than Reagan's when he retired in '86), run someone who comes across as a WASP though...

Working class people tend not to run for President.

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So basically you're biased against the north-east? I think the north-east has had enough bashing from Republicans for political reasons.

No, I'm not.
Run a working class ethnic Catholic from Massachusetts or Rhode Island and I think they'd do pretty well (remember that Tip's approval rating was higher than Reagan's when he retired in '86), run someone who comes across as a WASP though...

What about FDR? Do you like him? Did he seem like too WASPish to be a good President? Don't let minor points like that he ended the Great Depression and won World War II distract you from your real opinion of him.

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By the late 30's the US economy was once again beginning to flounder, even though we were employing millions through the WPA and the CCC.  Don't kid yourself.  World War II is what ENDED the Great Depression.

About 15 million jobs were created under the FDR adminstration from 1933-1941 (before Pearl Harbor). That was an increase of about 50%.

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By the late 30's the US economy was once again beginning to flounder, even though we were employing millions through the WPA and the CCC.  Don't kid yourself.  World War II is what ENDED the Great Depression.

About 15 million jobs were created under the FDR adminstration from 1933-1941 (before Pearl Harbor). That was an increase of about 50%.

The unemployment rate went from 25% to 17%, an 8% drop, under the New Deal.  It went from 17% to 9%, another 8% drop, in just two years once war industry revved up.

Unemployment only counts people who both
1. HAD a job
2. Are ACTIVELY looking for a job

It's an overrated statistic.

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Gerrymandering has nearly killed the Democrat Party in the South.  By concentrating black voters into super majority districts, they have increased the number of black Congressional seats, while at the same time, virtually guaranteed that any white majority district will vote Republican.  There are exceptions, of course, but the trend has been that fewer and fewer white Democrats can get elected anywhere in the South. 

Black Democrats would much rather vote for blsack Democrat to represent them rather than a white Democrat, which is understandable--I suppose.

The  majority white district's Democrat base is considerably weakended in the process. 

So, while gerrymandering has greatly increased the number of black representatives in Congress, it has also served to bolster the GOP majority in Congress as a whole.

Yes, that law requiring minority majority districts has been very effectively used against the Democrats by southern Republicans. We end up with a few 60% black, 85% Democratic districts, and then all of the rest of the districts are Republican. It's a very effective political tool that I oppose.