Looking Forward: Possible 2012 nominees

Who will be the Republican nominee in 2012?

Well, odds are looking good for Mitt Romney according to Intrade. Interestingly, on the same page, Intrade has 3:1 odds for a Democratic winner in 2012. The Mitt Romney buzz is on the people's lips already, as well as the internet.

With a bit of searching, I came upon this bizarre pro-Mitt (?) website. I'm enchanted with entires such as this:

The topic:

How should Mitt keep himself occupied over the next three years?

For sake of argument, take as a given that winning the Presidency in 2012 is the goal.

A non-exhaustive list of possibilities to consider:

• Mend fences with the older gentleman who will likely win the nomination, in hopes of a VP nod, and a one-term Presidency.
• Take a cabinet position (e.g. Treasury, Commerce, etc.).
  
• Take over as Chairman of the RNC (as suggested by Newt on Fox News last night).
• Grow a beard, get fat, lecture at Harvard (aka "the Gore Plan")
  
• Play with the grandkids
  
• Do what he does best - fix broken companies and make a pile of money.

Though said tongue in cheek, some of those ideas aren't half bad. Plus, Romney was the Republican governor of oh-so-liberal Massachusetts for four years. That has to give him some cred with Democrats, or at least centrist Republicans.

Though the numbers are close, and the primaries are far away, Presidential hopefuls have been campaining earlier and earlier over the last few decades. Obama announced his candidacy about a year and a half before. Senator Clinton announced hers on January 20th, 2007, exactly two years before President Elect Obama will be sworn in. Ostensibly, it's not too abstract to discuss potential Presidential nominees, but one must remember two things:

1) A single day or a single scandal can change a politician's entire career. Trent Lott is a perfect example of this maxim in action.

2) The Republican party doesn't have a defined path...yet. Over the next few years, the party could turn entirely to the right and follow the Huckabee/Palin path (wouldn't that be quite the ticket?), or the party could do a 180 and become more socially centrist and fiscally conservative. At this point, the party appears to be up for grabs, but the prediction of Mitt Romney, though not overwhelming, is an interesting one. He won 11 states and caucuses, roughly 20%, which isn't too low of a number considering the Republicans had a cast of thousands for potential nominees.

This article from The Atlantic does a nice job of exploring some other potential candidates who may, someday, represent the Republican Party. Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty are two candidates whom I could easily see in the limelight with four more years of experience. But again, all of these predictions are, essentially, moot if the Republican Party drastically changes direction.

But, where does all of this talk leave our good friend Sarah Palin? Luckily, the buzz over her potential 2012 bid seems to have died down compared to the two weeks after the election when there was story, after story, after story about Gov. Palin potentially becoming President Palin. Though it's entirely too early to count her in or rule her out, I will leave the reader with this sign, lovingly hand-painted for an anti-Palin rally held in Alaska earlier this year.