bkcunningham1 responded to a post I made in another thread when I asked who could beat Obama in 2012 - as I didn't see any viable GOP contenders on the horizon.

Interesting list. I'll start there and at least give my impressions (what I have) of them.

Sarah Palin - a joke. If Katie Couric can make her have that "deer caught in the headlights" look, imagine what would happen in debates. As I said in the other thread, the Democrats would *love* to have Sarah Palin as the GOP nominee because it's very easy to cut her down.

Newt Gingrich - I think his time has passed. He very well could have won the nomination in '96 had he decided to try. Lately, though, I think he's been tarred with the "Party of 'No'" feather. Right or wrong, that's what it appears.

Mike Huckabee - I'm of two minds about him. He seems intelligent, articulate. Very much an up-and-comer. However, by his own admission, he's a Creationist. I'll be honest and admit a bias that I have a hard time with someone believing that being in charge of everythign form NASA to education. It's not a case of believing in God - personally my response has always been 'who says God didn't invent evolution?'.

Mitt Romney - here's the bigger Tale of Two Cities. On the one hand, he's the guy who successfully ran *Massachusetts* as a popular Republican governor *and* rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics. Strong credentials. However, the press and others will take his Mormonism and dissect him with it - one comedian frequently bringing up the "magic underwear" stuff and reminding people of the tenet where Mormons believed that blacks could get into Heaven as the aides or servants of whites. Romney will have to distance himself from the more radical ideas of Mormonism (strage and that sounds to say it) much in the way that JFK had to defend himself against accusations that he would take orders from the Pope because he was Catholic.

Ron Paul - hate to say it because I like the guy but he'll never win because he just doesn't play well on TV. In the debates he looked *terrible* and was unable, in one particularly bad debate performance, to keep from steering almost every question to a rant against the Federal Reserve. It was like he had one script or a small set of talking points that he was going to hammer no matter what the moderator asked. That being said, he's probably the best plain-talker of the bunch (of those I've seen)

Tim Pawlenty - don't know enough about him to have an informed opinion.

John Thune & Rick Peery - Haven't heard of them at all.

But I live in New Hampshire. I'll be hearing from ALL the candidates long before they declare. In fact the first declarations should be showing up in about 12 months. They get earlier and earlier every 4 years.