2012; a look ahead

I’ve always been one to plan ahead and yet I like spontaneity as much as the next person. But this is about something much bigger than me. It is about the future of the party (G.O.P. in this case) and our country (U.S.A. in this case.)
I give up on 2008. Hillary can have it. She is going to win so why bother. Yes Ginsburg will retire sometime in 2009 or 2010 and Hillary can have her one Supreme Court appointment. Unless Breyer or Kennedy decides that there is no time like the future (2009-2013) present to give it up.
Why give up when it is only 2007? Take a look around. What do you see? Quick, name one Republican who has great national name recognition? Bona-fide conservative creds? Millions of dollars in the bank? No skeletons in the closet?
Pretty short list huh?
What about Rudy you ask? See above.
What about McCain? Well he probably meets the criteria listed above but somehow McCain is so yesterday’s news for me. He can’t run on being the patriotic voice of a tortured Vietnam-vet anymore. Plus he’ll be like how old in 2008? Reagan pushed the age thing but somehow got away with it. Not sure about McCain.
Romney? Handsome guy. Like McCain above but the Mormon thing? This is not intended to be about religious preference but … Al Smith paved the way in 1928 for the first Catholic president who was elected in … 1960. Wait how many years did that take?
Last year I would have said Rick Santorum should be on the short list but come on – if he can’t get elected in his home state, what chance does he have on a national scale?
I have a really far-fetched idea. Pass a time-limited provisional Constitutional amendment that allows foreign-born citizens to run for President (but only in 2008). Then Ah-nold can run against Hillary in 2008 and get it out of his system and we can move on to 2012.
I’ll take a really big aside here and remind Karl Rove that I wrote him a letter urging him to take at look at the future of the Republican party back in 2003 BEFORE Dick Cheney was announced as the running mate for the 2004 election. I begged him to ask Cheney to step aside into some sort of advisory role so the G.O.P. could use the V.P. slot to prepare someone for the big time in 2008. I recommended he find a minority – preferably of the female gender. But instead of listening to me he spent his time worrying about Valerie Plame or some such thing. Now look where we are!?
So why 2012? I think the G.O.P. will waste a lot of resources trying to defeat Hillary. Unless there is a miracle in Iraq. Unless the economy recovers and … you get the picture. There is just enough baggage that is going to stick to Republicans like so much Mississippi mud.
Surely in the next few years or so, we can find someone who has true conservative bona-fides, moderately young and winsome, with broad appeal to women and minorities and who maybe between now and then can become Governor or Senator of a state large enough to have double-digit electoral votes.
It’s going to take someone like this to give Hillary a run for her money after her first term. Just as people eventually tired of her husband’s antics after 8 years, I think Red State America and even perhaps a few of those blue states will realize they need a shift back-to-center after four years.
I spent some time thinking about this while on the way to work this morning and couldn’t come up with any other names. Condi? Apart from her being loyal to Bush, I really have no idea where she stands on domestic or social issues and she’s never held any type of elected office.
Roy Blunt? Popular in this home state because he manages to bring home the bacon quite regularly. But now that he’s not even majority whip, I think his platform has been reduced.
One part of my letter to Rove years ago was to suggest establishing a program to recruit and train minorities – women, Hispanics, African-Americans to the G.O.P. Just like the Major Leagues have a farm system to groom players not ready for “the show”, the Republicans need a system to find, nurture and promote the best and brightest of the younger minority generation.

P.S. This just for Hillary. You’d better either make a deal with Barack now OR line up someone like Harold Ford for your ticket in 2008 or you may be in as much trouble in the primaries next year as the Republicans are likely to be.