The party without a candidate

Something interesting happened during the holidays at my grandfather’s house in rural Illinois.

Grandpa Bucky, next to whom Rush Limbaugh could be considered communist, tried to bait me into a political discussion by asking if I still liked “that Obama.”

I refused to be drawn into the argument, much as one refuses to step into a bear trap.

“Doesn’t matter,” he continued, “None of these idiots can beat him anyway.”

This came from a man that has a framed picture of George W. and Laura Bush. His TV essentially has two channels — Western films and Fox News.

His pessimism regarding his party’s chances struck me as nothing short of amazing. I’ve never agreed with him on anything political, but his statement echoed one I’ve been saying for the past year — just wait, President Barack Obama will win in 2012.

There are two reasons why. First, Obama is a strong candidate. Second, the Republican candidates are not.

The first argument is simple and best stated by 50 Cent: “Losers lose, winners win.”

Politically, Obama is a winner. Despite taking political beatings at the hands of House Republicans this year, and despite a field of six major Republican candidates attacking him nonstop, Obama’s poll numbers are resilient. Americans support Obama in relation to Congressional Republicans with a margin of 50 to 31.

To be fair, Obama’s numbers aren’t great. They’ll improve as he moves into campaigning in 2012, but there is a little cause for concern.

The catch: He’s not operating in a vacuum. When voters vote, they aren’t asked to approve or disapprove of Obama. They’re asked to pick between Obama and at least one other candidate — all of whom are weaker.

Jon Huntsman is great, but is unfortunately written off as Diet Romney. Rick Santorum wants to bomb Iran. Rick Perry can’t debate. Michele Bachmann is out of the race.

Which leaves us with, like the Miami Heat, the Big Two Plus One: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

Paul doesn’t have a chance at the nomination — he’s too far left on social issues and foreign policy for conservative primary voters and too far right on everything else for everyone else.

Romney is everyone’s second choice and nobody’s first.

Gingrich is a good debater but has too many liabilities, most of them stemming from the fact that he is the world’s biggest tool and is unapologetic in being so — on issues from child labor laws to the judiciary to gay rights, he consistently says abhorrent things with pride.

The moral of the story is Republicans should be prepared to be let down in 2012.

Newt, just like all the other Republican candidates and most of Al-Qaida’s central leadership, will falter against the stone cold killer that is Barack Obama.

Hate it or love it.

­— shlumorg@indiana.edu