Posted on 09/04/2009 11:59:39 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Top Republicans, inspired by President Barack Obama’s recent drop in popularity, are newly optimistic about their chances of challenging him in 2012 and are focusing on some surprising names.
Some major donors and GOP strategists have approached Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe,” about a national run, according to party sources.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican nominee in 1996, told POLITICO that he would like to see Army four-star Gen. David Petraeus — the head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan — run for president as a latter-day Ike.
Some fiscal conservatives, convinced that they’ll never “out-Obama Obama,” are sold on a solid-but-unflashy choice: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) was able to generate some early buzz — and news coverage — simply by telegraphing plans for a quick trip to Iowa later this year.
Then there is freshman Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor who cut a high profile as an opponent of the Obama administration’s auto industry strategy and keynoted the South Carolina GOP’s annual dinner in May.
“Several GOP candidates are coming to the view that the way to run against Obama is not to out-Obama Obama with flash or sizzle,” said Dan Senor, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Bush administration veteran. “They want to go in the opposite direction: smart, back-to-basics, competence.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
‘major donors and GOP strategists’ = LOL
Ooooh, Petraeus? YES. (How many vowels? in which order?)
It’s a long shot, but I would like to see Mike Pence run for Pres. Put him on a ticket with Palin...WOW!
LOL. Scarborough? What a sick joke.
I like Pence a lot also.
Palin-Beck ‘12!
Bob Corker is much more likely candidate in 2012.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/editor/2009/09/corker_a_possible_candidate_fo.shtml
For a while I’ve been wondering whether Sen. Bob Corker might be toying with the idea of running for president in 2012. Here’s why:
* He’s much more of an executive than a legislative guy, having built and run a business and served in a governor’s cabinet and as mayor of Chattanooga.
* He demonstrated his campaign chops when he was elected, defeating a formidable opponent in Harold Ford Jr. in a year when Democrats won just about everything else nationally.
* He’s 57. Time is ripe but the clock is ticking.
* The Palin and Obama candidacies showed that lengthy national experience isn’t a top requirement these days.
* He’s placed himself on the national stage, with trips to Afghanistan and Iraq and active participation in major debates such as cap-and-trade.
* Some of his positions seem to be with an eye on his conservative credentials, such as his vote against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. (Colleague Lamar Alexander, with his presidential ambitions in the past, went the other way.)
* The town hall movement shows the incumbent’s vulnerability.
* Dark-horse Southerners, albeit Democrats — Clinton and Carter — have demonstrated they can come from nowhere to knock off first term presidents in modern decades.
* He’s part of the greater Haslam family, which, in business anyway, has shown that its horizons reach well beyond the region.
* What does he have to lose? He’ll be up for re-election at the same time as the presidential election. If the early stages of a White House campaign don’t prove frutiful, he can fold that tent and run for re-election having raised his stature in Tennessee and, perhaps, better positioned himself for a 2016 White House bid.
LOL.
Oh yeah, you wanna KILL the party? Run Joe Scarbor-hoe.
It is like they want left of RINO RINOs to run....
They need to learn RINOS will not cut it.
This is a satire right? No way any sane adult thinks this clown can be President.
Palin for Energy Secretary
“Then there is freshman Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor”
Uh... no.
Joe Scarborough no way in hell
Jeez, another “moderate”. He ought to be a shoe in since it worked so well for McCain in 2008.
I still like Santorum. If he can get up in Obama’s face. I don’t know. He was SCORCHED by the leftists in 06. Just like Palin was scorched. Is the fact that the opposition HATES them a barrier to our liking them?
Joe Scarborough SUX!
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