The Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee...

From what I've seen, the standard suggestion for the Romney VP selection is Bobby Jindal. I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet.

Pretty huge win for Jindal in Louisiana yesterday. Interesting idea.

Color me intrigued. Would totally alleviate some of the "Mormons aren't Christians" stigma and provide some geographical balance.

Jindal totally flunked his response to the State of the Union speech in 2009. It was bloody embarrassing.

Romney will choose someone who's clearly ready for primetime. A safe choice.

Doubt Bobby Jindal qualifies. Unless he's really got his act together since 2009. But considering that he hasn't had such a high profile speech since, how would one know Jinda 2012 is that much better than Jindal '09?

Jindal ran against a bunch of nobodies. The democratic party is almost non-existent in Louisiana now.

I'm thinking Tim Pawlenty.
Should have been McCain's vp.

I'd expect Perry. He's a safe bet to keep the Christian vote engaged. He's as red as meat comes.

A safe bet? He's a nutjob. And a loose cannon.

No, Romney will stay clear of ************head, birtherism and secession controversies.

Besides, Romney and Perry clearly DISLIKE each other. And Texas is already in the GOP column.

Marco Rubio may be Romney's bit. Florida, latino, right-winger, telegenic.

Or Daniels.

But probably many solid picks are out there I just don't have on my radar.

Frankly, I don't think Romney has to worry too much about nutty right-wingers not voting for him.

They'll vote for him, holding their noses, cuz they harbour such huge hatred for Obama.

Pawlenty was a massive fail. Nobody was interested him.

And he's pretty ridiculous a figure. First went on about Obamneycare and then failed to follow through that attack vs Romney when prompted in a debate.

No way Romney's gonna pick a guy who came up with the term Obamneycare.

Health and Human Services?

You think so? He certainly doesn't have to worry about them voting for Obama, but I think it's a stretch to assume they'll vote for him in the numbers needed for him to have any shot at winning. This isn't a group that does anything holding their collective nose. That would qualify as an act of compromise, which they seem unable to do. I'm inclined to think they'd rather not vote than cast a vote for someone they don't have absolute faith in.

Romney is not a Muslim Kenyan Marxist, the hard right will be solidly in Romney's corner. And they always vote.

But probably not the donations, lawn signs, and so forth, will be a quiet support.

If the left took voting halfway as seriously as does the right, the Reeps would never win the Presidency.

I'm wondering if the term "hard right" means something different today than it did four years ago. To me, several years ago, it meant core conservative Republicans. Now, it's evolved into meaning..well, I'm not sure what. The core of the current Repub Congressional caucus consists of TPers, who I don't believe are the reliable Republican voting core that we think of historically.

Republicans have yet to fully engage in the civil war for their party's heart and soul that seems to be unavoidable IF the TP has any staying power. They (TPers) will not nominate the kind of candidate that'll have any shot at winding up the traditional party base, much less have much nation-wide appeal.

I've said it before, but I think this Republican nomination process is going to be one bloody and (for a progressives) entertaining demolition derby.

Reeps will vote for Romney, of course. It's just that a mediocre candidate will fail to get out the vote, and he'll fail to inspire the hard core party members to drag friends and family out to vote and talk up a Baby Killing, Fascist Government Health Care Take Over-er, Extremist Cult Member.

And they'd be back where they were when McCain was trying to choose between Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman - a center-right ticket would have done a lot to counter the Bush fatigue, but they were being outworked by Obama in every state that mattered (and some that the GOP shouldn't have had to defend).

This catch-22 will remain as long as the right wing wields its influence in the party.