You don’t have to be an electoral genius to know why Romney was the chosen one. Polls painted him as the most electable conservative of the bunch, and he wasn’t going to melt down as the nominee. Romney, of course, did about as well as the economic fundamentals said he should. This suggests that the insiders had a pretty good idea of what they were doing, even if Romney didn’t win.

I fully expect the same pattern to emerge in 2016. Republican insiders want just like the middle of their party to win. The winning factor becomes especially true once a party has been out of power for a while as illustrated by the fact that the longer a party is out of power the higher possibility a more moderate nominee is chosen. That’s why we’re having all this discussion about whether and if so how the Republican party needs to change to win in a year where the economic conditions don’t overwhelmingly favor them…

Will the Republican party have another George W Bush to turn to? I don’t know. What I do know is that there will be no shortage of choices. There will likely be a candidate who appeals to midwestern populists like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Latino (granted not one from the immigration political hotbed of Mexico) who played a key role in getting immigration reform through the senate in Marco Rubio, a moderate Republican like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a southerner and strong social conservative like Texas governor Rick Perry, a libertarian like Senator Rand Paul, and others.