GOP VP InTrade Watch - 7/6/12

From Intrade as of 7/6/12:

1. Rob Portman - 31%
2. Tim Pawlenty - 18.4%
3. Marco Rubio - 9.9%
4. Bobby Jindal - 6.3%
5. John Thune - 5.2%
6. Paul Ryan - 4.5%
7. Condoleeza Rice - 3.5%
8. Kelly Ayotte - 3%
9. Chris Christie - 2.5%
10. Cathy McMorris Rogers - 2.3%


There's a clear first and second place.  I think Rubio's stock has taken a hit with the is-he-or-isn't-he story of his vetting.  He just seems too young.  He might help with some Latino voters, and he'd be a stark contrast in a debate with Joe Biden, but he looks like he's 32.  Too young, I say.

Portman and Pawlenty is a battle between vanilla and white bread.  The Romney camapign thus far seem to be a taking a Hippocratic path in vice-presidential consideration.  First, let the nomination do no harm.  Portman should help clinch Ohio, a swing state, but then what?  Also, Pawlenty, who in hind-sight dropped out of the presidential race too early, may be able to help in the north, but really, it's so early.

I don't think Jindal's going to get it for similar reason to Rubio.  Nice, ethnic, but too young.  Thune and Ryan also seem like safe guys to partner with Romney.  Rice would be risky but interesting.  Risky in that she bridges back to the Bush Administration, but interesting in that she could help shore up Romney's foreign cred, and Rice is one of the few Bush Admin people who still has decent approval ratings.  Plus in politics, symbolism matters.  History-making matters.  She could be not only the first female vice-president but the first black female in either of the top two posts in the nation.

Election Winners & Losers

Winners & Losers of the Election:

WINNER: The Democratic Party - It shored up its base and expanded to places where Republicans were once gaining ground. Latinos broke for Obama, and younger people. It had the reverse Bradley effect. Despite presiding over the least popular Congress in history, the Dems made big gains in the House and Senate.

LOSER: The Republican Party - John McCain's never been the darling of the base, but his failed campaign left the party in shambles. Sometimes you need to be reduced to ashes to rise like a phoenix, but now is the time for the GOP to look for its heart and soul. They'll barely be able to filibuster, so they'll need to choose their battles wisely. They also lost ground on two of their normally strongest issues - the economy and national security. How can they argue Democrats will make us more socialist when they helped pass the $700 billion bailout?

WINNER: David Axelrod & Robert Gibbs - They showed that positive campaigning works. The Obama Team stayed positive when Hillary was beating them, and they could stay above the fray when the surrogates did the attacking. Look at the pleasant smile on Gibbs's face when he says he wouldn't accuse Sean Hannity of anti-Semitism for having an anti-Semite on his show. Now Axelrod is a White House Advisor and Gibbs is the press secretary.

LOSER: Steve Schmidt & Rick Davis - They looked smart the day after the GOP convention wrapped, but then it all fell apart. They had a different message every few days, and they never seemed to realize when certain mud didn't stick. They used Palin as an attack dog, which drove up her negatives, and they didn't let any of her Alaska people help with the campaign. Now they have a bunch of anonymous workers joining in the circular firing squad. (Until the worker is man enough to name himself, I find it impossible to believe Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and not one big country.)

WINNER: Old-school conservatives - This battle hasn't been fought yet, but writers like Chris Buckley, Peggy Noonan, George Will, David Brooks, etc., seemed to realize the only way to save the Republican party from itself was to reject its current trajectory. This means more goodwill built up for governors like Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist, and it means Newt Gingrich will bend a few more ears with his think-tank.

LOSER: Populist conservatives - Sarah Palin needs to decide which camp she wants to belong to. She went the populist route and it cost her. She needs to finish her term as governor and do some studying. Meanwhile I don't think the Mike Huckabee/Gary Bauer type is going to fly in 2012. I'd put the hawkish neocons in this camp too.

WINNER: CNN. The Pew Research group found CNN to be the most balanced of all the news in this election cycle.

LOSER: MSNBC. The Pew Research Group found them to be the least balanced, and they're still last in cable ratings, though Rachel Maddow gets a shout-out for sometimes beating Larry King now. NBC itself showed to be pretty fair, and guys like Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams have expressed displeasure at their cable wing aiming to just be a liberal Fox News.

WINNER: Franklin D. Roosevelt. If Obama implements half of what he promised, America is going to get a New New Deal.

LOSER: George W. Bush. He got us into two wars, and intelligence eventually revealed one was unjustified. Even if it had been, his administration blew the post-war occupation. Meanwhile he presided over major increases in spending, a ballooning deficit, a further out-of-balance budget, the nationalization of banks, and an annihilation of the Republican majority in both houses. And Osama bin Laden is still free.

WINNER: Howard Dean. His plan in 2005 to go to all 50 states is paying fruit. GOP mainstays like Virginia and Indiana went blue, and the NY Times election map shows that 90% of the counties in the US were bluer now than they were in 2004. And he's quitting while he's ahead.

LOSER: Karl Rove. His plan of keeping the base energized and ignoring everybody else collapsed when Bush gave them nothing to be energized about from the 2005 State of the Union address onward.

WINNER: Harry Reid. He has the power now. Will he use it wisely?

LOSER: Joe Lieberman. When the Senate was 51-49 they needed him. Now that it's more like 57-43, sayonara, Joe, from any important position.

Sarah Palin in 2012?

Pretty bloody likely, unless her family decides otherwise.

It looks like McCain will lose the election, and the next four years will be Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Sarah Palin can go back to Alaska, finish her term, run for a second in 2010, and then think about if she wants to try the national circuit thing again. I believe she can do it.

For starts, she would have a different team. I think she and McCain see what a disservice Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis have done to them. They ran a campaign like Bush 2004. McCain is not Bush, but it was eaiser for Obama to keep hammering that point when Rove acolytes were running his campaign. When Palin joined the ticket, she didn't bring her own people, people who knew her, people who knew her strengths and weaknesses and have learned what has worked for her in the past and what hasn't. 80% approval rating from any state is no accident.

Barring a Gingrichian figure to rise to leadership in Congress that will be heavily Democratic next year, the void will try to be filled by the next presidential election.

Now who on the stage now could run in 2012? Mitt Romney could give it another go. If the economy is still messy in Fall 2011, he would have some appeal. He's also said some things this year that will bite him then. ("I want to double the size of Guantanamo.") I don't see Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson or John McCain as viable in 2012.

The other main pursuer to the 2012 crown I see is Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. He's even younger than Palin, but he showed vastly superior leadership during Hurricane Gustav than whoever ran that place when Katrina hit. And hey, he's an ethnic minority. Democrats will always label Republicans as racists until they get an ethnic minority on the ticket. (Never mind that poll that said 30% of white Democrats are racist and former KKK member Robert Byrd is the senior Democrat in the Senate.)

On the flip side, I can see many Republicans who aspire to the presidency sitting 2012 out. If Obama is remotely effective, they might not want to be the Bob Dole of 2012. I would argue the main reason Hillary sat out 2004 was she knew half of one term as senator wasn't going to beat Bush, adding to the irony of what Obama was able to do.

Where do I sit today? I sit contented knowing Obama will be our next president. I sit hoping he'll be able to control the leadership in Congress from treating the next four years as revenge time. Obama's been going more and more to the middle since he sealed the nomination, and maybe he can effectively govern from there. My general feeling is that 30% of the country is die-hard leftie Democrat, 30% is die-hard rightie Republican, and then there's the middle 40% who get screwed by gerrymandering. The next two to four years is the time for the GOP to reform itself, get back to basics, quit asking 'What Would Reagan Do?' (I loved him too, but it's a different time now) and see what big issues Obama will actually reach across the aisle on.

I also hope this is the time the Democrats learn from the mistakes of the Republicans during their control years. I hope they reform themselves too. But if in January 2009, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd still hold their Chair positions, I'll just have to brace for two more years of the Same Old Same Old.

10% approval, Nancy. 10% approval, Harry. Clean thine houses, for the good of the country.