Here’s how I see it going down:

The republican’s are having a rough time of it at the moment. Scandal after scandal has hit the party pretty hard, President Bush is not a popular man by any estimation, and the candidates are in a crucial identity crisis. Are they neo-conservatives? are they evangelical moralists? or are they traditional republicans? No one seems to know, but Americans that vote Republican are getting tired of it. And rightly so.

I expect the candidate nomination to come down to one of two people. Either Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson. It’s really an either or with those two that hinges on a few key aspects.

1. Will Republicans accept a Mormon nomination?
2. Will Thompson be able to prove he has sound policy to back the rhetoric?
3. Will either of these two shoot themselves in the foot somehow?

These three questions are what will determine how the party votes in the primary season. This bodes well for Giuliani. He is not electable for the primary season. However, he is a conservative that ran a very liberal part of the country, and those not well educated in the ways of Rudy could easily see him as the swing point in voting for a more conservative presidential candidate.

If I was a betting man, I’d put money down on Thompson ultimately defeating Romney for the nomination, and picking Rudy as a running mate.

And it’s a ticket that will lose the general election.

The Democrats are being handed the presidency for 4 years on a silver platter. The majority of the country is dissatisfied with Republican rule and mistakes, the majority of Americans want the war to end, and while Republicans traditionally are associated with being strong on National Security, there is no decisive opinion either way in the country right now to emphasize Republicans are the party to keep America the safest.

And the democratic field…The democratic field is firing on all cylinders in a way the Republican field could only dream. The party is unified on the foreign policy debate, tax cuts, and health care, the differences are in the nuanced manners of decision making. The party will win the general election. The question is what will the ticket look like. Right now Clinton is dominating the popularity polls with Obama a close second. This competition is still very much in the air right now. Clinton is the obvious powerhouse that has been seasoned in national politics for most of her life. She’s the insider moved outsider that knows the cold realities of compromise. She’s got a solid chance but she still has the taint of an insider no matter how she tries to marginalize that assumption. Obama on the other hand, is young devastatingly smart, and has been working grassroots politics as long as Hilary has been working Washington. Obama also has two huge powerhouses that are hovering near his campaign with Oprah and possibly Al Gore.

Where the Republican ticket will be decided more by which lead candidate falters, the Democratic ticket will truly be decided by who is more successful. In their own respective rights Barak and Hillary are both too keenly aware of their positions to slip up with a glib comment that destroys their popularity. There will be no “Dean Screams” here. If Hilary takes the nomination, Obama is the obvious running mate choice, and it’s a formidable ticket indeed. If Obama takes the nomination I’d expect him to choose a candidate that is still intelligent, but lower profile…think Bill Richardson or Chris Dodds. I think this side of the election is still very much in contest where the Republicans can be easily mapped out. But I do expect a Clinton/Obama ticket in the end.

And what will that general election look like? Clinton and Obama versus Thompson and Giuliani? It will be a Republican fear mongering war-fest where there will be perpetual attacks on the strength of the Democratic ticket, while Democrats hammer in repeatedly that these two are no more than a continuation of the Bush-Cheney doctrine.

That type of a political debate will do nothing more than push already angry and jaded voters even further into the democratic fold granting 4 years of respite from Republican rule.

but 2012? Who knows. Possibly a Petraeus ticket to challenge a democratic incumbent…we shall see.

(x posted)