The Republican Nominee hopefuls

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

I figured it would be useful to create a thread that would document and list info about things these potential candidates have said, endorse, believe, or advocate. I suppose the things listed could be good or bad, and I suppose a source isn’t completely necessary, but at least some sort of anecdotal detail to make it easy to investigate.

For example:

Mike Huckabee: Not running

Donald Trump: Ignorance of basic economics (IBE) (constantly talks in terms of bringing jobs back from China and introducing tariffs, etc), Gave money to Hilary Clinton…then said John McCain “would make a great president”, (which goes toward what Tom Woods called Trump’s “fairly inchoate views on…pretty much everything”), probably not going to run.

Mitt Romney: IBE, Basically enacted Obamacare as governor in Massachusetts before Obamacare was made law federally. Typical big spending, big government, flow-with-the-wind politician. Says we are attacked for our freedom. (fun encounters 1, 2)

Newt Gingrich: IBE, Says FDR lifted America out of the Gread Depression, stands with John Kerry on climate change, supported the Medicare prescription drug benefit, supports federal programs to pay for more teachers, supports federally funded Internet access to every American, giving every child a laptop, paying rewards to students who choose to take “challenging math and science courses”

Tim Pawlenty: (aka Blandington J. Vanillaman) warmonger, voted for cap and tax before he voted against it (i.e. is he really against it, or is he just in favor of poltical expediency?)

Sarah Palin: IBE, despite how Lew felt about her, she speaks in terms of the typical “tax the corporations” rhetoric, and overall has no clue about anything. Despite the case to be made for the benefit of her ignorance (this poster actually links her to Mises), just as the uneducated are less likely to fall for some economic and social fallacies, I think they are more likely to fall for others.

2

Sarah Palin is amusing just to watch any and every left winger explode…and usually make funny paradoxical remarks that they can say with a straight face and go unharmed for it, because it’s the left.

I don’t think she’d win but it would amuse me for a couple giggles.

3

Same here. I have no love for neocons, but the screeching, self righteous Yankee secular humanist left irritates me far more on a personal level than a perennial soccer mom candidate who’ll get blasted before a Perry/Gingrich or Paul/Napolitano ticket anyways. The rest are an assortment of clowns, has-beens and outright lunatics, whom, in the unlikely event they ever come even remotely close to securing the Republican party’s nomination, we’ll probably see an unprecedented mass shift to the Constitution Party. Kind of like the cranks who came out of the woodwork to run when Gray Davis stepped down in California.

4

Santorum is the outright lunatic, right Praetyre?

5

I was thinking of Trump. I have little to no idea of Santorum nor his policies. I assumed him to be a garden-variety neocon, though perhaps I’m wrong in thinking so.

6

Trump suffers from some form of narcissism I’m pretty sure. Nobody engages in that much self-aggrandizement for sport the way he does without being a completely self-centered egomaniac.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cwc/doug-casey-donald-president?active-tab=archives

7

Google his last name. You’ll find out more than you bargained for.

8

Alright… he just seems to be a neocon social conservative who picked up a profane neologism for expressing his views on human sexuality. I saw nothing in his policies that seemed to make him a lunatic. He’s certainly not that far outside the Republican mainstream, though that’s becoming a bit more amorphous these days. Whether or not you agree with what he said, he’s hardly a fringe candidate.

Even his Lord of the Rings analogy pales in comparison to David Wu, an apparent member of the Yankee “furry” besto-fetishist subculture who compared Bush and his administration to Klingons.

9

Does anyone know why Republican candidates are taking so long to announce whether they are running or not?

10

They can afford to.

11

They should declare by the start of the June. The next formal debate is in about a month. Gingrich should be there and I assume Romney, Daniels, et al will declare. I’m afraid that Gary Johnson won’t be invited if the crowd gets too full.

You have to hand it to Ron Paul though. The media is giving him a lot more serious exposure and are giving him really tough questions (at least the public perceives them as being tough because their minds are closed off to possible political stances outside of the left-right paradigm). The other thing I love about this is how unapologetic he is this time around. No allusions to Ronald Reagan, this is straight-up libertarianism. On the Osama question, the flood insurance, and the heroin debate. It’s awesome.

So far his best interviews have been with Chris Wallace and Chris Matthews in my opinion.

12

The one with Spitzer was pretty good too.

13

So Trump fades quietly into the night, but not without a pompous last word…

14

As I mentioned around 6 months ago, Romney is the candidate the Republican elites are throwing their money behind. I think he’s odds on favorite to win the nomination even if some other candidate has an early lead.

Good luck to Ron Paul, but I think they’ve got the deck stacked against him (big money and media).

Trump is out. He was just after the attention.

I think Huckabee saw the writing on the wall. No big money Republicans behind him, easy choice to back out.

Newt Gingrich is probably just trying to be politically relevant. He’ll get another book or two out of the deal.

Others are just names that typically get thrown out there. Palin is a sideshow. The media want Mitch Daniels, and will hype him up much like they did with John McCain. I think the Bush clan is backing Daniels too. That’s probably who will be matched against Romney as the “choice” for the GOP candidate.

The Republican party seems to want a moderate candidate because it may think public opinion has turned against the left and Obama to the point where they are assured victory. They’ll shun the far right or original thinkers like Paul because they know they own them.

Perhaps the common voter sees through this and elects someone different. I think we’ll end up with another Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama clone. They’ll claim to represent one thing, but end up doing what their predecessors did. Yes, the elections are a sham.

One thing I would love to see is Paul get in the top 2 so that he can get better exposure and have at least enough backing so that he doesn’t get excluded from debates.

I wouldn’t place my hope on any candidate for president to much to help change the course of this nation. They’re more likely to do more of the same, and depending on your perspective that might not be such a bad thing in the long run (i.e., to hasten the point when the US no longer exists).

15

Does anyone know why Republican candidates are taking so long to announce whether they are running or not?

Two reasons:

  1. Obama’s numbers are so bad that dead people could beat him.

  2. Running for POTUS, even in the early stages, costs a lot of money.

We are at the point though where we’ll see things pick up - not that I really look forward to it.

Probably by July or August when the Republican political action committees start their annual meetings. It’s around that time when people start donating. No need to campaign before the donations roll in. Let the begging begin!!!

16

Herman Cain is the man.

hermancain.com

17

I think Gingrich has the greatest chance of winning. He is evil like the others, but he throws enough bones to left and right. People like that ‘calmer-than-thou’ centrism. And he is educated and knows history. He can probably outdebate Obama quite easily. He is also a relic of 90s which is back en vogue right now.

I’m only sad that Chris Farley is not alive anymore to impersonate him.

I had to laugh when Brit Hume got pissed at teh Newt for calling that Ryan guy a right-wing social engineer. He said that Ronald Reagan told us never to criticize other Republicans! We promised back in the eighties to never do that! Totally pathetic, even if Ryan is probably right. The principle is that we need to lie if need be just because we’re Republicans. Or accept mediocrity because of this. Hence, overinflated praise of many of these candidates.

18

I dont understand why the Republicans dont put down money on Cain to win… He has the sterotypical republican jargon and minorities have more of an incentive to listen to him because he is black…

19

I wish.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/gallup-daily-obama-job-approval.aspx

20

Cain couldn’t do any damage in the black precincts. Maybe they would listen to him, but when push comes to shove, Obama represents what they view as support for the entitlement system. When push comes to shove, they are going Democrat. I’m not painting people with a broad brush, I’m only saying this with regards to the people that voted for Obama because he’s black (and it’s un-PC to say that, but obviously that was the case for many).