I’m trying to figure out which GOP candidate I’d most like to see in a general election against Obama. With Tim Pawlenty finally abandoning his quixotic run for the presidency, three viable candidates remain: Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney. For sheer entertainment value and likelihood of defeat, Bachmann is hard to top. Barring an economic cataclysm, she stands no hope of winning a general election. Yet the prospect of watching her debate Obama could very well be the most stupendously absurd ninety minutes of television ever.
Romney would probably run a competent yet boring campaign that he could very well win if the stars align just right. I have no desire to live in Romney’s America, but he’s probably reasonable enough to resist the worst of the Tea Party’s impulses. Then again, that reasonableness might be the very thing that prevents him from being the nominee.
A Perry candidacy would likely carry echoes of the Bush years and his presidency would thrust this country back onto a belligerent and destructive path. He would do his best to model the rest of the nation on Texas, which a Republican Congress would eagerly facilitate.
I’d better start making plans now to volunteer for Bachmann in the Iowa caucuses this winter.
I heard Perry speak today and swear I had PTSD-like flashbacks.