Being the happy little Republican I am, I am very excited that 2012 is an election year. And, being an outspoken follower of politics, I am happy to finally have people listening to me again when I speak on political issues. :)
As of now, the Republican party is still in the beginning stages of choosing a candidate to run against Barack Obama. The media and elites of the party seem to be favoring Mitt Romney at the current time. However, I personally am no fan of Governor Romney. His record is mostly liberal (moderate at best), and he has flip flopped on every position he's ever taken (you can find evidence of this without much effort). I remember in 2008 his promises to bring about what Barack Obama eventually did do: Romneycare at the national level. He was all for it until it became unpopular. He claimed in '94 to be more socially liberal than Ted Kennedy. As governor he appointed liberal judges and stood up for liberal laws being implemented in the state. He also supported raising taxes. And if all that isn't enough to dislike him, his business ventures included buying and dismantling companies in order to make a profit. Not that I'm against capitalism, but just the sort of capitalism that screws people out of their jobs while the CEOs who do it make huge profits only for themselves.
The candidate I do like is Newt Gingrich. His record surpasses any of the other candidates by far, and his ideas/solutions to help people find work, to reform the tax code and social security, to improve education by giving control back to the states, and to get America energy independant are much more in line with the type of conservatism and common sense policies that I am looking for. And, as for the baggage against him--that whole claim--all of these candidates have baggage of some sort. I'm willing to forgive (to do the Christian thing) and look much more at policy. With all of that in mind, Gingrich is the guy I will be supporting this time around.
Just take a look at the videos below and tell me Gingrich isn't the best. :)
7 comments:
I very much admire Gingrich for not going along with the anti-illegal-immigrant hysteria, and he has a number of other good positions.
As for Romney and Bain Capital, several commentators have pointed out that Republicans claim to support capitalsm, but seem horrified at the implications. Capitalism includes the idea of competition. Competition means that people can lose out in the marketplace; companies can go under, and people lose their jobs and incomes. Or, in order to stay alive, companies have to let workers go. What Bain Capital and other such companies do is lend money to failing businesses to give them a chance to recover. Sometimes they need to lay workers off to try to become fit. But sometimes the company can't recover and it has to close. Bain Capital isn't a charity; it is a business enterprise. It goes into all these deals expecting to make a profit. It would be unreasonable to expect them to write off their investment. So I don't see Romney as the villain that the anti-capitalists make him out to be.
But for me the bottom line is defeating Obama, and that means getting the most electable candidate who is acceptable. The only one who is unacceptable to me is Ron Paul. Among the others, I prefer Santorum and Gingrich's positions, but I think Romney is so much more electable that I wouldn't take a chance of losing the election by nominating one of the others.
See, I disagree about the electability thing. I honestly don't think Romney can win it. I frankly don't trust him in the least bit--I've seen him change positions too much. And because of that, it does make me doubt whether I could ever eventually vote for him. I may not like Obama, but at least I know where he stands (that doesn't mean I would vote for him or that I like his positions, but just that I honestly think I can trust Obama more than Romney, which is sad). Furthermore, Romney seems to think he can just play it safe and win somehow. He doesn't have good ideas to run on, and he can't really bring up his record because it's too liberal. In the end, he wouldn't look different enough from Obama and wouldn't turn out enough of the conservative base to support him. And just look at how horrible he did in the debate last night. Gingrich walloped him! He dodged most of the questions, looked nervous, and couldn't excite the crowd to save his life. Gingrich, on the other hand, got a standing ovation and had a good part of the crowd cheering his name!
Personally, I think Obama would sweep the floor with Romney. All he'd have to do is play George W. Bush's playbook against Kerry in 2004 to beat him. Romney just isn't different enough, is a mediocre debator, and can't do anything but play it safe because of his poor record.
And as for capitalism, I understand the business aspects, but I don't think it is right for a business to do away with jobs while the CEOs are making such huge personal gains. Maybe if they scaled back their own pay, they'd have had enough to continue the jobs they got rid of. I don't like when businessmen purposefully profit off of the misery of others when they don't have to, just to make a cheap buck. Romney made millions while at the same time laying thousands of people off work. If he'd have taken a pay cut to prevent that, I might feel differently about the matter. But the real question I have about Romney's time at Bain is the lack of transparency he's had concerning that. Did he buy and sell off companies only to make a quick/cheap profit at the expense of the workers at those companies? Did he make a profit for Bain only by laying off workers and downsizing certain parts of the company (again at the expense of workers who didn't have to be laid off)? Did he actually create any jobs at all while at Bain--a number worth mentioning? None of this has really been answered, and every time it's brought up, Romney tries to dodge the question and use rhetoric that he seems not to be able to prove. Again, I don't know if I can trust him.
All that considering, I seriously doubt he can beat Obama. And even if he somehow did, I honestly don't believe I'd like him as president anymore than I've liked Obama.
I'm with you - Newt is the best option
But Brandon, don't you know that Newt eats children?!?!?! He's working his way up from the bunnies & puppies that he served at the feast for his second wedding.
OK, OK...a cheap and easy shot.
Anyway, my own take is that the Republican party really doesn't know what it wants to be anymore. There is a civil war going on inside. You have the old-guard social conservatives fighting a losing battle to retain relevance. They are up against the rise of the Libertarians like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and his crazy dad.
When Obama was elected, the far left was all whipped up in Messianic frenzy hoping he would be their savior, and at the same time, the far-right was having wet dreams that he would actually BE a Socialist.
As it turns out, if you look at the big picture, Obama turned out to be a moderate Republcan. This is why the Reps. have run so far to the Right.
The problem is that most Americans are still somewhere in the middle, despite what Fox news hopes people will believe.
The odds of unseating a sitting President are pretty difficult to begin with. However, most Americans simply will not vote for an extremist despite his ideological purity. Now with the rise of Santorum (I giggle every time I hear his name for the obvious reason.), the GOP could face a loss that would rival Nixon vs. McGovern.
Keep your eyes open and watch. You'll see over the next four years a debate for the philosophy of the Republicans. I've got $20 riding on the social conservatives being given the boot with only a polite lip service being paid to their ideas.
I don't really care how many times Newt's been married. That's between him and the women he's been with. What I do care about is whether or not we're going to get a president who can actually come up with some ideas for how to fix so many of the problems we've got going on today. Newt's the only one coming up with any good ideas. Actually listen to the man. Romney, Santorum, Paul, and Obama could only dream of having as many good ideas as he's come up with. Just look at how scared Romney is of debating him. He's scared because he knows Newt can out think him on policy issues. I'm not saying Newt is perfect. He does have some faults. But what faults he has, I honestly don't care about. So he's been married three times. I could name a dozen others in my county alone who's been married just as many times if not more than that. So he was fined for one ethics charge that was the fault of his lawyer, while 80+ other charges were dropped because they were bogus. I don't care. So he ruffled some feathers back in the day to get things done. Again, I don't care. I just want someone with a record of actually having got things accomplished for the good and who has ideas to solve some of our problems. He's the only one out there with that.
As for the party itself, I agree it is in some disaray. I'm not sure I'd say it's for the reasons you mention though. I think it's a battle between the wealthy elites who don't mind selling their souls for a buck, and the average folk who'd rather keep their integrity even if that means they have to go against the wealthy (what I see is the businessmen--Trump and the like--trying to take over the party, and they never were social conservatives anyway).
As for Republican chances against Obama? I think if it isn't Gingrich who can actually go up against Obama on record and ideas, Obama will win. For one, I have no intention of voting for Romney if he wins the nomination. And, even though I like Santorum, I'm really not so sure he could successfully debate Obama on the issues.
I hope that if Romney actually becomes the nominee, you will be able to see enough difference between him and Obama to justify voting for him, if for no other reason that to save us from four more years of Obama.
Maybe, but as of now, I just don't see it. Frankly, I think we're screwed if it's either of these gentlemen (Obama or Romney). I don't think either of them really have even the faintest ideas about how to get us out of some of the problems we've got right now.
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