As long as we’re fantasizing:

Palin (miraculously) wins the nomination, but rational Republicans (a la Romney etc) turn down an offer to be the VP nomination. She is forced to pick a tea-partier as her VP, and the ticket becomes straight up and down the social-con, image-first embodient of the recent evolution of Republican politics.

She is destroyed. Over two debates, Obama exposes her as an amateur, as irritable, as ignorant, as the antithesis of presidential while himself remaining calm, cool and collected. Because this group of people “doesn’t back down,” she doubles down with the rhetoric on her favorite channels, and in doing so turns all but the most ardent supporters and fanatics against her.

The electoral result is devastating. Its the largest victory ever, trumping Reagan/Carter and LBJ/Goldwater. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Democrats win Texas, they win Georgia, they win her home state of Alaska. Republicans hold on in only in Missisisppi, Alabama, and Utah.

Downticket the results are even worse. Republicans stayed away or flopped, and they lose control of the house. Statehouses and legislatures around the country are blued up.

At the end, it calls the sane Republicans home. They begin to legislate in good faith, and with maturity and poise. A crop of new conservatives emerge that are express reasoned fiscal conservatism combined with a laissez faire attitude towards social issues (read: gay marriage and abortion).

Going forward, the federal government is viewed as a necessary and functional force in this country, and the big problems are addressed with courage and a sense of the long-term impacts of our actions. Republicans and Democrats work together to update our Energy/Global Warming, Immigration, Health Care, and Foreign Policies in a sustainable way for the country to remain prosperous for another century.

/wakes up.