While most of the non-LPD (Liberal-Progressive-Democrat) world is alternately fascinated and amused by the political rope-a-dope activities of the various presidential contenders, it is critical that they not lose sight of one simple fact.  Regardless of who is ultimately elected President in November 2012, it will be impossible to repeal ObamaCare; restructure Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; and pass a budget that reduces the size of government -- unless one of two scenarios occur:

• a) A conservative/Tea Party/Republican candidate wins the presidency and enough conservative/Tea Party Republicans are elected to the Senate to take the majority and enough conservative/Tea Party/Republicans are re-elected or replace Democrats in the House to maintain their majority.
• b) President Obama is re-elected and enough conservative/Tea Party/Republicans are elected to the Senate to create a veto-proof supermajority and enough conservative/Tea Party/Republicans replace Democrats in the House to create a veto-proof supermajority.

To accomplish the first would require Republicans to have a net gain of 13 above their current 47 members to give them 60 seats in the Senate, which would allow them to control any cloture vote.  Some current Republican Senators, such as Scott Brown of Massachusetts, are at risk of losing their bid for re-election, so the exact number of new wins needed for a supermajority is fluid, but the net requirement is locked in at 13 more Republican senators.  Republicans would also need to hold at least 218 of the 241 the seats they currently hold in the House.

To accomplish the second scenario, Republicans would have to have a net gain of 20 seats (out of a 23 Democrat and caucusing independents up for election) to bring them to 67 seats in the Senate.  Sixty-seven is the magic number of seats that would be needed to override an Obama veto.  A net gain in the House of 51 seats to control 292 seats would be required to insure a veto proof Congressional super-majority.    

The first scenario would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve.  Gaining enough seats in the Senate to hold a 60 vote majority (to avoid Democrat delaying tactics) would be required in trying to make any changes in the tax-and-spend (or if you prefer the borrow-and-spend) policies of the current administration.  Even then it works only if Obama loses. 

Gaining that same number of seats plus beating Obama sets the bar extremely high in an environment where the LPDs, funded by George Soros and the various labor unions, will fight tooth and nail to maintain the power that they still have.  Today the LPDs feel that they are within reach of finally implementing the Socialist utopia they have yearned for since the days of Woodrow Wilson.  With that mindset and nearly unimaginable funds at their disposal, they will go on the attack in this election cycle in a way that makes the concept of blitzkrieg look like a debutante cotillion. 

"Political civility" will certainly replace "amicable divorce" as the ultimate oxymoron, at least until 2014. 

While many believe strongly that Obama can be beaten, it will be a long, bruising, and very expensive effort.  If the current Republican field of potential candidates spends the next nine months ripping each other to shreds, enormous amounts of money will be wasted doing Obama's work for him, weakening any opportunity for the successful implementation of scenario "a."

If the RNC decides to shift its emphasis to scenario "b," then less money will be allocated to the eventual winner of the Republican primaries, and be directed instead to winning the congressional seats needed.

Would anyone like to guess what the chances of that happening might be?  Anyone who tried calculating the answer and came up with somewhere between "slim" and "none" would probably match the odds quoted by professional odds makers in Las Vegas. 

That leaves us with option "a" as the only viable plan.  Yet it still remains true that with seven or eight or a dozen Republicans vying for the nomination, the damage done in terms of fundraising being dispersed in too many directions and wasted for no real gain, and the vitriol hurled at one another simply means that President Obama can continue playing golf to his heart's content while squeezing in a couple of more vacations and then coast to another four years of working to utterly destroy the America we once knew.

Of the Republican candidates, there are perhaps three, at most four, who could conceivably overcome Obama's advantages in funding, a compliant media, and the benefits of being the incumbent.  The rest are taking their egos out for a walk just to show us all how important they are.  It is sad that these men and women have so little regard for their country that they are placing their own ego gratification before the defense of the nation in the face of an existential threat that is based from within.

Anyone who thinks they are qualified to govern the most powerful, most diverse, most productive, most militarily dominant nation that has ever existed on the planet is, at best, overconfident or, at worst, delusional.  Hubris, thy name is politician.

The candidates should, perhaps even must, take a long look in the mirror and ask themselves "Can I win?"  The answer to that question should be "Absolutely!", and not "Gee, if a few things break my way, if Iran pops a nuke, if..."  

If candidates cannot answer in the most positive way imaginable, then they should drop out now and be prepared to exert every effort in helping the eventual nominee beat Obama.  Not just beat him, but humiliate him in a landslide; otherwise we'll have to listen to more nonsense about an election being "stolen."

Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller, Vietnam veteran, and an independent voter.  Jim blogs at jimyardley.wordpress.com, or he can be contacted directly at james.v.yardley@gmail.com.