A former pizza magnate, Pillsbury executive, and talk-radio host, Cain was the first Republican to enter the race, announcing in January that he was forming an exploratory committee for a presidential run. Cain’s got a few things going for him: He’s a successful businessman, he has Tea Party cred, he’s got ready funding, and he’ll get some attention as a black Republican running against Obama. Plus, he’s got an awesome nickname: “the Hermanator.” But Cain also has a low profile nationwide, little political experience, and less political success, with only a failed bid for Senate in 2004 under his belt. Although few would consider him a likely winner, The Daily Beast’s Bryan Curtis reported in January that Cain is dead serious about his race.
P. Kevin Morley / AP Photo
In the age of the Tea Party, can a pro-choice, antiwar, Rockefeller Republican who donated the maximum legally allowed to Hillary Clinton in 2008 win the GOP nomination? Oh, and he’s openly gay, too. That’s Fred Karger’s pitch. The Washington Post reports the longtime Republican activist has been traveling around New Hampshire, laying the groundwork for a potential run. Despite his earlier association with GOP strategist Lee Atwater, Karger has spent recent years as a lobbyist for gay marriage and against the Mormon Church. Even Karger’s supporters admit he’s got no chance of being elected—but they relish the prospect of his unorthodox views mixing up the race.
Courtesy of Fred Karger
Could The Donald defeat The One? No, probably not—but he’s still making sure his name is out there. As early as October, the real-estate mogul denied that he was polling New Hampshire voters but noted coyly that he was considering running as a Republican. Trump still hasn’t laid out any platform, but he has said any decision won’t come until after the latest season of his television show Celebrity Apprentice ends in June. Of course, it would be cynical to suggest that the famously modest and self-effacing Trump would float his name as a publicity stunt.
Richard Drew / AP Photo
Even today, most Republicans see Ron Paul as being far too libertarian to appeal to the party’s mainstream voters, and in his last run he finished a very distant fourth. Now imagine a candidate who is Ron Paul’s Ron Paul. That would be Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico. A staunch libertarian, Johnson’s views on taxes—that they ought to be low—will appeal to many voters. But his equally libertarian view on marijuana—that it ought to be legal—hasn’t been quite so popular. With heterodox views and a low national profile, Johnson’s unlikely to do much more than steal hard-core libertarian votes from Paul.
Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo
No one’s calling John Bolton a vanity candidate—not with that mustache. But his hawkish foreign policy and lack of political experience make the rumors of a candidacy for the former U.N. ambassador tough to take seriously. Bolton rejects the “neoconservative” label, but he’s one the most prominent saber-rattlers in the Republican Party, and has continued his tireless advocacy for an attack by either the U.S. or Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities since leaving the U.N. ambassadorship in 2006. It’s hard to imagine many Americans having an appetite for expensive foreign interventions, and Bolton doesn’t have any other experience in elected office or much of a demonstrated interest in domestic affairs.
Jose Luis Magana / AP Photo
After an unsuccessful bid for New York governor, McMillan—whose facial hair puts even Bolton’s majestic mustache to shame—says he’s going to defect from his own Rent Is Too Damn High Party to the GOP. How does McMillan feel he stacks up against Obama? “He’s a good-looking young guy, and I’m a handsome old dude. So there’s gonna be some competition there. He plays basketball, I teach karate.” McMillan also claims his Internet celebrity exceeds Obama’s. But he’d have to get through the crowded Republican field, and the odds of that are too damn low.
Richard Drew / AP Photo
While McMillan, a former Democrat, is becoming a Republican to run in 2012, radical antiabortion activist Randall Terry is going the other way, planning a run against Obama in the Democratic primary in 2012 after running for Senate as a Republican in 2006. Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, is honest about his chances: “Will I defeat Mr. Obama? I’m not delusional,” he told Sunshine State News. But he sees a quixotic run against Obama as a good opportunity to broadcast his pro-life views to a wider audience.
Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo
In 16 runs for office—for posts as lofty as the presidency and as humble as city council—he hasn’t won yet, but Randy Crow is still gamely making his fourth bid for the White House. The North Carolina Republican has an easy-to-understand five-point platform based on fiscal conservatism, opposition to war, and hydrogen-based power. And besides, even if he’s unlikely to win, Crow sees no reason not to give it a shot, telling USA Today, "It's not nearly as difficult as someone might think."
Courtesy of Randy Crow
If Sarah Palin decides to run in 2012, she won’t be the only maverick Alaskan in the hunt. Mike Gravel, who served as a senator from the state from 1969 to 1981, could be in it as well. In addition to making Dennis Kucinich’s leftist approach look mainstream, the liberal Gravel got a surprising amount of attention in the 2008 Democratic primary before switching to the Libertarian Party (he still lost). Gravel told the Daily Caller in December that he was considering challenging Obama in the Democratic primary. Sure, it seems like a lost cause, but one shouldn’t count out Gravel’s impressive advertising apparatus.
Will Powers / AP Photo
