Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Lesser of a bunch of Lessers...

The Republican Party is in the process of a self-destructive race to see who will be the Party's nominee for President in 2012.

It seems to me that the race it between a bunch of damaged goods candidates that are unlikely to win in the general election.  Let's look at the field:

Mitt Romney: Mitt has tracked at 25% support as others have risen and fallen.  He is telegenic, well spoken, appears to be presidential.  Sadly, he is not a philosophical Republican, nor is he very electable.  As I discussed in another post, he will be outed as a 'weird Mormon' who sacked companies and destroyed the 'little guy'.  And that criticism is coming from fellow republicans.  Most crucially, Romney will not repeal the biggest socialist program created by Obama, thereby dooming us to a future of socialism.

Newt Gingrich:  I wrote a letter to the editor in 1998 outing Newt as a communist and statist.  His recent pronouncements attacking Romney only confirm his ideology as socialist.  Echoing Obama's 'at a certain point you have made enough money' comments, Newt stated that Romney should have made less money if it allowed the companies he bought and sold to stay in business longer.  There is no room in the Republican party for people who attack capitalism and make populist pitches for 'little guy' votes.  Incredibly, Newt Gingrich is running to the LEFT of the moderate Romney.

Rick Perry:  Outwardly a good candidate with his steely good looks and his record as a military pilot and successful governor, Perry has been very disappointing since he has declared.  His debate performances killed his approval ratings, and now he is wading into the populist fever swamps by declaring Romney to be a 'vulture capitalist'.  His record has few problems, most notably his positions on treating illegal aliens as citizens.  His electability is hampered by the fact that he sounds a lot like George Bush, who managed to alienate just about everyone in the country by the time he left office. 

Jon Huntsman:  Huntsman is a Democrat.  Period. End of discussion.  He has a lot of nerve running for president as a Republican, especially now that he said that he hopes the Republicans become 'sane' again.  He is polling lower that Stephen Colbert, and Colbert is not even running.  When your biggest fan is Chris Matthews, it is time to throw in the towel.

Ron Paul:  Ron Paul is a Libertarian.  This makes him excellent on fiscal issues, good on most social issues, and a complete whack job on foreign policy.  His ideas are philosophically grounded, they are just not connected to reality.  The complete abandonment of our allies and our military obligations will come back to haunt us in very short order.  There are people in the world that want to kill us simply because we exist, and pretending otherwise is foolish. 

Rick Santorum:  Rick is the anti-Ron Paul.  Excellent on defense and foreign policy, he is a disaster socially and economically.  He is not a friend of liberty.  He is a catholic missionary, no different than the mullahs of Iran in his desires to use the power of government to enforce his view of religious morality.  He has been a consistent support of big government, and so we cannot expect him to govern any differently than Obama, except in the details.


I am not sure how the Republican party escapes the corner into which we have painted ourselves.  None of our candidates are very strong.  None of them possess a Reagan-like vision that they are clearly articulating, and none of them seems likely to be the next President.


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