OK, this is totally off the wall. If it wasn't for historical precedent - and for Rove, Cheney et. al. doing anything to win - I would consider this deep tinfoil territory.
Most of us agree that no Republican candidate has a chance to win the Presidency in 2008 unless the Democrats seriously blow it or Rove pulls some major voting shenanigans.
But there is another possibility. Bush might add a 51st state. Out of gratitude (and for various other reasons), the citizens of that state would vote Republican, delivering enough votes to the Electoral College to elect another Republican President.
And there actually might be a candidate for such a 51st state.
I call this the Helmut Kohl model. By 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, Germany's Helmut Kohl had served two terms in office and was deeply unpopular. But he got reelected anyway - by acquiring East Germany over the objection of the majority of West Germans and pumping huge amounts of cash into that country. He got reelected to three more terms in office (Germany does not have term limits). At the end of his 20-year reign, he got away without a prison sentence only through his connections.
The question, of course, is, where could such a 51st state come from?
How about, Cuba? The constellation would be perfect:
- Fidel Castro is aging and sick.
- There would be strong support from Florida's Cubans.
- Cuba would deliver about quite a few votes (probably 17 or 18) in the Electoral College.
- Cuban Americans are strong Republican voters. They might well influence the newly-minted US citizens living in Cuba in their vote.
- BushCo might be desperate enough to do something bizarre like that.
- There are strong historic and cultural ties between Cuba and the USA.
- There might be just enough support for approving Cuban statehood.
Cuba's population is 11.4 million, slightly larger than Michigan's 10 million.
Update 6/27 10:42 AM Just to be clear: I'm not predicting that this is going to happen, or that it is even likely. I am proposing this scenario as something that I consider possible enough to consider as one more way BushCo might try to influence the election.