Livre d'Or

It doesn't matter which Republican gets nominated. (For humor value, I'm hoping it's Santorum.) Absolutely none of them can go toe-to-toe with Obama in an open debate. None of them can persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with the far-right Repub anti-women anti-gay platform to vote for them.

The people in that group have sharp opinions over which one is better... but the majority of the US isn't there, and none of the current candidates are going to convince anyone they should be.

Romney would be least embarrassing for the Repub party; he'd just waffle a lot and not actually say anything coherent. After a debate, his supporters would say he won because he said nothing that offended them (or anyone, really) and Obama said things they didn't like. However, people who don't support him would notice him dodging questions that aren't part of his pre-established list.

Gingrich would be raked over the scandal-coals so sharply you could watch the sparks from where you are. Websites of "worst quotes from The Newt" would pop up and be widely tweeted. The macros would be *hilarious.* And aside from that, his political history haunts him--the "contract with America" didn't do what he said it would, and he'll have a hard time explaining why gay marriage is a threat to the US economic future. Newt's probably the best politician in the bunch--but he's made too many mistakes to be a serious candidate in *this* race.

Santorum would make bigoted statement after bigoted statement, scramble facts almost as badly as Palin, and not understand why people are *still* using that awful joke by Dan Savage against him. If he actually got nominated, I'd expect someone to put together a a gay porn writing fest with keyword "santorum". And unlike Newt, he has absolutely *nothing* to offer, politically, to people he doesn't agree with. He has no idea how to compromise, and he thinks all sex outside of marriage is immoral and should be illegal.