huckabees out. trumps out, not surprisingly. who is the GOP looking at here? newt? palin? mccain v3: the return? seems tame. who is the most viable candidate?
is the GOP gonna put up a contender? or are we back to an election where you're voting against someone else, rather than for someone?
To answer the opening question, I think there are plenty of potentially good and capable Republican candidates.
Romney remains the front runner, the best organized and funded. Romney is a proven and tested leader, in both the public and private sectors. He certainly presents the economic knowledge and record of accomplishment needed to be president.
In contrast to Obama's ideologically driven hurling of trillions ineffectually at the problem, while demonizing W.Bush and the Republicans, blaming Bush for his own failures with highly polarizing rhetoric.
I also like Bachmann (a more electable version of Sarah Palin, a former tax lawyer, a budget-cutting fiscal conservative, one of the founders of the Tea Party, and already a very visible figure on the Republican scene).
Mitch Daniels (who likewise has shown a record of effective debt-slashing and business growth as governor of Indiana). He's a modest low-key no-nonsense guy who just quietly gets the job done. In contrast to Obama, who is all charisma and no results.
I like Newt Gingrich, he's the master planner for the Contract With America in 1994, and got Bill Clinton to work with him to reform welfare and reduce the deficit from 1995 to 2000. But he's really stepped in it the last few days, and may have ruined his ability to rally support. But Gingrich unquestionably has vision for the nation, and a lot of great ideas. If not a president, he would be a great chief of staff in someone else's white house.
Pawlenty has been a very competent governor in a blue state, but doesn't at this point say anything that lights me on fire for him.
Likewise Rick Santorum, who seems more ideologically driven, a gung-ho pro lifer (I'm pro life, but don't think that should be a litmus test for selecting a Republican candidate), and Santorum isn't helped at all that he was trounced badly as a sitting Senator in '08 before making this presidential bid.
I like Ron Paul, and
some of what he says about controlling the Fed and getting back to the Constitution is valid. But in the same breath he says crazy shit about how we shouldn't have shot Bin Ladin, etc. So I don't see his candidacy going anywhere either.