westwood
When you look at the great link JT provides you will notice that out of 25 candidates, only 3 are not tired old white guys. Condi, who probably doesn’t want to do it and at the end of the day is too close to Bush. Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana who is a rising star, but probably not the choice of the conservatives in the party because of their own racial fears. And Sen. Hutchinson, who doesn’t want to do it.
So, who will those R’s pick? Well, someone youngish, probably in their 40’s. McCain was too old eight years ago. They have to balance the ticket generationally.
A second determining factor will be who can help the Republicans win in the electoral vote. Most analysts show the D’s with a larger base to start with. The D’s lead with about 230 electoral votes right now, with the R’s at about 170 safer votes. So the Republican slope is mighty steep and they need someone to help pick off a few states. Most of the Mountain West is not safe and the Pacific Coast is solidly Democratic with about 70 electoral votes. The R’s are in trouble in swing states like Missouri, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia.
Finally, the Republicans must take care of the evangelical Christians in the party. Republicans have ruled the White House 20 out of the past 28 years. For that entire time they have been the party of big business and big money, slashing taxes and checks and balances. Meanwhile they keep stringing the evangelicals along promising to do something about abortion, stopping the gays, and so much more. They have no intention of actually doing so, because they would doom the party to minority status because we would be locking up normal Americans like you and I. But they do need to keep the base happy, so don’t be surprised if it is Huckabee or someone of his ilk.
But Republicans are not known for bold choices. They will choose a modern Dan Quayle who is nice, safe, male, and vanilla white. The contrast between them and a party that will choose between the first woman in the White House or a visionary African-American will forever ring with America’s increasingly diverse population.
But Cheney would be okay with me too :)