Given my center-right world view, I should be able to find a Republican presidential candidate who suits me. But it's been difficult. There are various problems, remarked on by pundits everywhere, with all the candidates. So I shouldn't go on at great length in taking on the critics of the GOP field.
But I'm getting more than a little tired of the gleeful schadenfreude from the left: Isn't it sooo delicious that the evangelicals are giving the "establishment" Republicans fits, and what's a "social conservative" anyway? Isn't Fred Thompson a bloated old snore, and why is everybody afraid of Huckabee? Har, har, har.
But at least Republicans are fractious with the clash of ideas, which means they have some. That sets them apart from certain other people, who are unable to do more than circle like ravening vultures over the carrion of the only motivating impulse they ever had, which is to promote class envy as a means of redistributing wealth. So I ask of them:
What, exactly, do they have to gloat over? They are going to nominate as president: 1) a cucqueaned scold from Arkansas, 2) a cliche-spouting state senator from Illinois or, 3) a malpractice attorney from North Carolina. The Republicans are in complete disarray, with a national leader they can't stand and a philosophical core they have trouble defining. They are more dispirited than at any time since the Nixon days.
So this is, so to speak, the opportunity of a lifetime for Democrats. And those three are the best they could come up with?
Comments
Heh Heh Heh....That IS the best they could come up with. Kind of makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
You consider yourself CENTER-right? What a delusional self-image! I guess when you're as far to the right as you are, anything to the left of that becomes the center. Get a grip!
I'm interested in this Republican exchange of ideas of which you speak. What are the topics - Who can torture people more? How many decades in Iraq before a withdraw no longer constitutes retreat? Whether God could create a tax cut so big that even he couldn't figure out a way to make it cure every economic problem?
Doug, I really admire the pin point accuracy of Obama.
"We need change, because we haven't had change and change is a good thing, especially real change, the kind of change that changes things from the way they were before the change. I am the one you need to make those changes that have not changed before because change is necessary to correct the old changes that were not effective changes as opposed to my changes which would be progressive change.
See?
Clearly Thompson isn't the reincarnation of Reagan as advertised.
The most Reaganesque candidate out there is the one that Leo and the republican establishement despises so much- go figure - the one who is a great communicator and campaigner as well as a true compassionate conservative - thats Huckabee.. Huckabee has the potential to capture the so called Reagan democrats - conservative and religious democrats. Sounds like a recipe for a republican win to me - not sure why you guys dislike him so much.
If leo is a true libertarian as he professes - how come he is not in the Paul camp? this guy isn't afraid to tell it like it is and holds the true conservative message of no foreign interventionism. And no matter how many times Thompson guffaws or Mittens shouts him down he is right on monetary policy too
(Sniff. Sniff.) I smell Dentu-Cream.
AJ...The Huckster isn't even remotely "Reaganesque". No similarities whatsoever. Nice guy, not a Reagan though. As for Paul, he doesn't espouse conservative values and policy, he espouses REACTIONARY values and policy. This country can't just pick up it's marbles and come home. Whether you like it or not we ARE the worlds police force and have been all along and that ain't gonna change anytime soon.
As for Thompson, he ain't no Reagan either and he doesn't claim to be. So far he's the only guy out there on EITHER side that actually has plans and actually answers questions in a simple straightforward manner. The press just hates him, because he doesn't pander for votes and kiss their arse.
The US being the worlds policeman is only a recent development. We do need to bring our toys home and stop the foreign aid and intervention and start reinvesting in our own country - our over stressed power grid, our falling bridges, our laguishing rail system and so forth it is as simple as that. The "reactionaries" like Madison, Washington, and Hamilton warned us about foreign entanglements.
But back on topic - The mainstream media is mostly to blame for the lack of coverage of the other candidates - they have focused all the attention on the Obama/Clinton and Rudy/Mittens circuses instead of paying attn to Paul, Kucinich, Biden, Dodd and others. its funny how much a couple months make - no one is taking clinton or Ghouliani seriously anymore.
I also find an irony in that I hear more republicans giving Obama a look, just as much as many democrats are thinking huckabee.
AJ sez: "The US being the worlds policeman is only a recent development."
Uh, I wouldn't call April 6th 1917, exactly a "recent" development.
And all the infrastructure repairs you mention domestically can be repaired by doing away with "earmarks". We collect plenty of money to anything we want, unfortunately our legislators blow it all on pork.
A.J. says that Republicans are giving Obama a look and the Dems are thinking about Chickadees ...oops Hucksters. Both of these candidates are mouthing populism which poor-mouths the best of times, economic and otherwise.
Obama and his friends will not talk about our enemy whose religion starts with an "I" and Huckabee is the guy who "pulls" attack ads and then shows them to the press corps. As our friendly Democratic Congressman now spending time in the Ohio Gray Bar Hotel was deigned to say: "Beam me up!"
And nnall, Sweetie ...let us not underestimate the intelligence of DentuCream users.
I realize that Leo posted this on Tuesday morning, but Hillary and Barack Obama both left New Hampshire with 20,000 more votes than John McCain. Not really sure how that bodes badly for anyone but John McCain and Republicans.
But Leo Morris will never use actual numbers in his constant berations of the Democratic Party. This would require him to deal with concrete facts, and Leo seems opposed to such an activity.