Who's Running for President in 2012?

Maybe you're wondering who's running for president in 2012. It's kinda hard to believe it's really that time again. That's right, it was just last year that we had an election and the Tea Party pushed hard to get some sanity back to in Washington.

But the insanity of the next election cycle is beginning already. So let's run down on the major candidates and what platform they'll probably be running on.

First of all there's the big guy himself, Barack Obama. Yep, that's right, perhaps you're groaning already but he's already announced that he's running again. But honestly what did you expect? The birthers have thus far had no success in proving conclusively that he's a huge fraud and other than that there's probably no other way to guarantee the President's political defeat in 2012. As for President Obama's platform, it's not hard to figure that out. It's going to pretty much be hope without the change since change would be the opponent. He also has laid out a pretty good platform for what he's going to run on already and that is his social socialistic utopia, "soak-the-rich" class warfare rhetoric that he does better than anyone else. Groan.

So while Barack Obama is throwing down the gauntlet, what is the opposition bringing to the table? The GOP field is looking fairly interesting, though there seems to be a few favorites emerging.

First of all, the guy with the nice hair. Mitt Romney is definitely running. Mitt is an interesting guy. He appeals to a lot of the NERs (North Eastern Republicans since he basically is one). He was the third or second runner up in 2008 (that depends who you ask). Mitt Romney carries a lot of baggage with the very liberal social policies that he adopted to win the governorship in Massachusetts. Mitt is a professional politician who will probably run on a strong conservative platform. But his real value system is highly questionable since he has a track record of saying whatever he thinks will appeal to whoever he's currently talking to.

But no one's saying you have to have good hair to run for president. One guy that's certainly not running on his hair is Donald Trump. That's right, the billionaire developer who loves to say "you're fired" wants to give Obama the pink slip. While Donald's true intentions are suspect there's little doubt that he'd be great at running things. The challenge for Donald is going to be overcoming the stigma that he's not really serious about running for president. Also, he will need to carefully craft his platform to avoid looking like a crazy rich guy that wants to take advantage of poor people. It is sad that American society has come to that, but it does certainly seem to be where we're at. If Donald Trump is serious about running for president, he will build a strong platform on cutting taxes for everyone and restoring pride and prosperity in America again.

Sarah Palin. Ok, there I said it. I'm not really sure if she's running and she is probably not sure either. While she certainly could run on her good looks, she does need to build some serious credibility on the issues. I think she probably cost John McCain the election last time since she had a few very poorly answered questions that were substantive (yes, the media does still ask tough questions sometimes, at least to Republicans and conservatives). I personally don't think she'll run.

Huckabee. Another guy who shouldn't run on his hair, I'm kind of doubting that Huckabee will run this time around. If he is, he is hiding it very well. I'm sure there's plenty of speculation about what he will ultimately decide to do, but he's doing quite well with his Fox News show. Huckabee wasn't taken very seriously last time around and his choice of the Fairtax as a major platform, while innovative may have not been the best choice. He's a very likable guy but I don't think he particularly enjoys the harsh criticism that comes from many media and liberal personalities when he's running for president.

Ron Paul. This guy has been running for president for so long that it's almost unbearable. His platform will probably be the same "shut down the government and the feds and everything else within 50 miles of DC" stuff that he's run on before. Of course he'll probably get about a half a percent of the vote again as well.

I'm sure there are a list of some others that will be running for President in 2012, and maybe I'll write another post in the future as we get a little closer to the actual race. The way I see it, anyone who runs is a better alternative to the current White House resident who, while he may be technically an American citizen, his ideas are about as anti-American as you can get. Let's hope someone get's to tell him "you're fired!"