Quote:Unfortunately, the bigger the Republican field gets, the better Hillary's chances are. Unless it narrows down tremendously before New Hampshire, those guys are going to beat each other to death before a nomination is made, and the Democrats will latch onto whatever hits the eventual nominee takes and run them all the way to the White House. At this point, I don't know that any of them could beat whatever Democratic candidate ends up being thrown in the ring.

 

Speaking of the Democratic candidates, the more I see of Martin O'Malley, the more I think he could mount a strong challenge to Hillary. He's much more moderate than she is, and this race will feature the left facing a right that will be very, very motivated to take control of, well, everything, and tear up much of what was written by all branches of government during this administration. He's also not nearly as polarizing a figure. Let's put it this way: I think that the Democrats are far more likely to hold onto their moderate voters and steal some from the Republicans with Martin O'Malley. That goes double if the Republicans send a wackyland far-righter like Ted Cruz out as their candidate.

 

My guess is that Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee, Pataki and Christie are all "politely" nudged out by the GOP before New Hampshire. Trump is DOA. Several more will drop out shortly after being stomped in New Hampshire. Ultimately, I think the Republican nomination will be a three-dog race between Bush, Cruz and Rubio by the time the convention rolls around, but how much damage will the candidates have done to each other by then?

 

I can somewhat agree with your sentiment, but it would all come down to how the primaries go.  So far I have not seen any "direct attacks" between republican candidates, though we are still very early in the process.  If they continue to run on policy rather than attacks (I know, wishful thinking) then it really doesn't help the democrats.

 

Regarding the democrat nominees, I found it almost hilarious that Hillary used a phrase that Marco Rubio made part of the center point of his campaign, that being that (paraphrasing) "republican ideas on the economy are ideas of the past, not 21st century ideas".  She's trying to garner support from the younger voters, and position herself as "in touch" with main-stream voters and having a vision of the future while at the same time avoiding the issue of her age.  That argument will backfire on her most certainly.

 

In my mind, I've narrowed it down to five that could really make a serious run for the republican nomination.  Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham or Scott Walker.

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