Predictions,
1. Hillary won't run because of two reasons A. She is far, far too old and B. She isn't rabidly enough supportive of the church of LGBT currently in full control of her once-great party.
2. Christie will try to run, but the good old boys that still jump when Cheney snaps his liver-spotted fingers will kill his nomination. Christie would pull in a landslide victory against anyone, including Hillary that the left decides to run.
3. They won't run Bush because the middle voters have HAD IT with the name "Bush". No exceptions. The rotten apples will never fall far from that tree.
4. Elizabeth Warren during a time of multiple and escalating crises is like electing Pippie Longstockings to run the US Marine Corp.
5. The democrats will settle on someone who won't win the 2016 election because the pressures and financing from the FARRRRRRRRR left will guarantee nobody in the middle with a modicum of common sense will go near their candidate.
6. I could be wrong about all of the above, but probably won't be about half of it.
So who will the gop run? romney again?
Whomever gets the most votes in the primaries obviously. The calendar (it's proposed at this point) is not conducive to an insurgency from the TEA party. They have a lot of winner-take-all primaries which are designed to nominate a standard-bearer quickly.
That is a smart move by the national party. The danger is that you run a lightly vetted candidate. Not that they will be "unknown" but they wouldn't have been put through an electoral gauntlet of criss-crossing the country, having to 12-15 elections (the number of toss up states) at once, and of course no matter how much fellow republicans attack whomever gets the nominee, they will feel like flesh wounds compared to what the Democrats will throw at him.
I think the GOP nominee is Christie, Bush or someone in that mold. Anyone banking on Cruz or Rand Paul is probably someone who is thinking with their heart. Rubio is attempting to straddle the divide between the camps. Triangulation is something that Democrats reward more quickly than the GOP has in the past. In either case the danger with triangulation is that it is best done by someone whom the voters know is for real. If there is one question about Rubio that everyone asks is whether he is for real or not.
To recap what is going to happen:
Hillary wins the White House.
The Dems re-take the Senate
The House remains in GOP hands.