Who will be the Republican Nominee for President (post Cain)

[Grallon]

Whichever of these mongrels manage to win the presidency - you guys are fucked 




G.

[Jaron]

mongrels?

[CountDeMoney]

They're mongrels, J.  Mongrels.

Except maybe Huntsman.  But he's still a Republitard.

[grumbler]

The trouble is that Ron Paul is to today's Tea Party what Abraham Lincoln is to today's Republican party.

There is an element of truth in that, for sure.  A lot of people have climbed on the Tea Party bandwagon who could never live with Paul's indifference to personal choices, but the fiscal conservatism (maybe better described as reactionary conservatism) is still pretty much where Ron Paul started out.

Not nearly so much is left of Lincoln in the Republican Party as a whole.

[Ideologue]

Whichever of these mongrels manage to win the presidency - you guys are fucked 




G.

None of them will win the presidency.

[Berkut]

Nah, the only reason it has legs is that the Dems love the idea of Paul being a legitimate voice of the Republican Party. Most of the discussion is driven by that, I suspect.

He is a legitimate voice the Republican party.  He'll never be a leader of it but he's got his own hard-cre of support. 

In addition I think his campaign in 2008 has since shaped the Republican party in two ways, one negative and one, I think, quite positive.  The negative is that I think he infected Republican discourse on the economy with anti-Fed, Gold Standard silliness - I think that's now reflected in the support he got for his audit the Fed campaign (previously a lonely endeavour he shared with Bernie Sanders) but also in comments about the Fed in the debates and what Perry said.  The postive I think is that his brand of isolationism has reinvigorated a more conservative foreign policy.  Huntsman's indicative of this.  They may not want to pull out of everywhere as Paul does but basically support scaling back the wars and not starting any new ones.

You may not like Democrats saying Paul's a legitimate voice of the GOP (though an eccentric one: anti-war, anti-torture, isolationist eve on Israel, fine with the gays, loving the gold standard) but I think he is.  Just as much as Jesse Jackson once was in the Democrats.

I don't mind them saying he is THAT voice at all.

My point is that the reason THIS issue has legs is that DG and Raz want him to be the voice of the racists in the Republican party, because they very much want it to be the case that the Republican part is all about racism.

Of course, "racism" as a political concept has not existed in US politics in a generation, but why let that stop you? It is so juicy and exciting! Oh, Paul is going after the KKK vote!

[CountDeMoney]

My point is that the reason THIS issue has legs is that DG and Raz want him to be the voice of the racists in the Republican party, because they very much want it to be the case that the Republican part is all about racism.

Like it isn't.

[KRonn]

My point was that at least some of these guys and gals do put innovative ideas out there, things that actually address issues. Something that more mainstream pols don't do, since they go along to get along, take baby steps and fear angering anyone. Gingrich is one with innovative ideas and not so much the nutty stuff. He expresses views and ideas that are sweeping changes, and isn't afraid to go against the grain of usual politics. In time that will ruffle people more but he has some good ideas.

Take Romney, Perry, and most others. They have ideas but nothing paticularly sweeping. Cain had his 9-9-9 plan. That wouldn't likely have passed as is but he was pushing a flat tax, Federal sales tax while eliminating many other taxes to make up for it. Innovative ideas that at least get us talking outside the box, food for thought to look at some issues differently.

Thing is, our government and the political process it runs on, by its very nature is not amenable to "innovative" ideas.  It's the nation's largest bureaucracy, the largest corporation.  You just don't introduce novel and new concepts to an established machine; it just doesn't work that way.  You make the machine, and the way it works, achieve the results you need.

That's why "Washington Insiders", for all their faults, usually get things done to a much greater degree than the "Washington Outsiders".

Hehe, yeah, things have been going so well for so long now.   

[ulmont]

Of course, "racism" as a political concept has not existed in US politics in a generation, but why let that stop you?

Have you seen the studies estimating Obama lost 5% of the vote in 2008 for being black?

[sbr]

Of course, "racism" as a political concept has not existed in US politics in a generation, but why let that stop you?

Have you seen the studies estimating Obama lost 5% of the vote in 2008 for being black?

Are there any studies on how much he gained from being black? 

[CountDeMoney]

Has anybody ever realized that he's not really black to begin with?

[Neil]

Did not like it when Wolf asked him point blank if the hypothetical man should be left to die and he started warbling on about some stupid tangent about churches and licensing requirements.  The answer is "yes."  Well, actually the answer is "hospitals should be nationalized and everyone should receive practically free treatment, unless the cost of treatment outweighs prospects for success," but if the latter is not possible I guess the former is fine.

Also, Ron Paul twitches in an uncomfortable manner.  Physician, fine, but I hope he wasn't a surgeon.

The fact that he declares that one of the major problems is "there is no competition" in the healthcare industry tells me all I need to know about what he knows about the healthcare industry.

It's the wrong kind of competition.  Ron Paul would repeal the Endangered Species Act in order to allow Americans the benefits of eating rare penises.

[DGuller]

My point is that the reason THIS issue has legs is that DG and Raz want him to be the voice of the racists in the Republican party, because they very much want it to be the case that the Republican part is all about racism.

I like it how you always know what other people think.  I do think that Republicans picked up the racists when Democrats dumped them in 1960ies, but this has nothing to do with Paul.  Paul has always been his own fruitcake, even if he were nominally a Republican for much of his career. 

I've said this many times to you, and I'll say it one more time:  sometimes people mean what they say, and don't have any hidden motives.  There is no need to play a game of Kremlinology with my words, I'm not really that complicated.

[Ideologue]

My point is that the reason THIS issue has legs is that DG and Raz want him to be the voice of the racists in the Republican party, because they very much want it to be the case that the Republican part is all about racism.

Like it isn't.

Now, now.  They hate a lot of white people too.

[Maximus]

Has anybody ever realized that he's not really black to begin with?

He's no true Scotsman either.