I want to vote Repulican but how??
 

Ok we got a snow day to play with so let me start stirring up the pot with some political observations. This week the guys that want to be the Republican candidates for president went to Iowa to audition for the Koch Brothers. Let me tell you I want to, I need to vote Republican. As part of the Eastern Liberal non elite I am begging you to find a candidate that I can vote for without feeling like an idiot.

So far it has been a lot of retreads. Lets cover them.

Rick Perry. If you look closer his glasses they don't have any lenses, someone told him he wouldn't look or act so stupid if he wore glasses. They forgot to tell them about why they are called glasses in the first place.


Sarah Palin. WTF she sounded like she was having a stroke. Just a series of confusing Haiku's that only she could understand. Please just go away. You are killing us.

Mike Huckabee. Buddy come on, If you can look in the mirror and truly love the guy you see then you can run for president if you cant then get some help. Small steps friend it will be okay.

Ted Cruz. You know the cliché about the closet homosexual politician that votes against gay marriage. Cruz is that guy on immigration. How can a guy with the last name Cruz be against immigration. He must cry himself to sleep every night.

Rand Paul. Do you remember that really smart, smug #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& you knew in college. He got elected Senator. Has zero friends knows he is surrounded by morons. Cant believe this idiots won't vote for him.

Chris Christie. The guy can be mean and mean people suck. One of his first acts of office would be arranging payback for all those fools that crossed him.

Milt Romney. I like Milt, he doesn't like me. If your goals, just happen to be the same as his goals than great, if not then your screwed.

there some other guys sniffing around the party. No real feel on them yet.

I tell you if this great party that brought us Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt and the greatest president Lincoln, wants us to vote one of the above guys in. If this is the best we can do. then maybe its time to start a new party. I do not mean the tea party. That's a whole other s-show.

If you want my vote, earn it. Don't pick on the poor and needy, don't harass the president, don't be us against them. Be humble, be cooperative and be inclusive. I really don't feel like any of the guys that went to Iowa are electable. Clean house and get moving.

How about Scott Walker?

Follow your heart Duke
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You forgot Trump!

Duke, the ones you mentioned are a sideshow. At this point, the serious candidates are Jen bush (hugely popular in Florida, which is not a red state, so he's not a hard liner), Marco Rubio, Scott walker. Walker is doing good things in his state, also not a red state. There are some great republican governors...not a lot of impressive GOP congressmen...
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Trump ! Yes!!!!!!!!
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Following your heart may be great in creating or appreciating art. but doing so in politics will usually lead to a broken heart. Politics is an unusual beast.

The "art" of politics is persuasion rather than creation of beauty. On the contrary, it usually creates ugliness and dissatisfaction. The "science" of politics is the study of political history to satisfy intellectual curiosity, or to better understand what and how politics has worked. presumably, to produce politicians who have some idea about what they are doing.

Human nature, in all of its glorious imperfection, will tend in the end to drift, out of necessity or lust for power, from the honest scientific inquiry into demagogic persuasion. Into the "art" of politics. And, as in the other arts, what is persuaded is the heart.

The tyrant first persuades your "heart," your emotions. Without some basis in the historical record, and some solid universal principles, the voter is persuaded to be an emotional slave.

Milt Romney. No wonder he doesn't like you; you can't even get his name right........

I like Scott Walker. Rubio is OK. But Jeb Bush?!? What's so good about him? Talk about retreads. He retreads the same BS of what's gone on after Reagan left the scene

ha your right

[QUOTE=detbuch;1063077]I like Scott Walker. Rubio is OK. But Jeb Bush?!? What's so good about him? Talk about retreads. He retreads the same BS of what's gone on after Reagan left the scene[/QUOTE

He's better than Hilary on every issue that matters to me
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[QUOTE=Jim in CT;1063105]Gee golly . . . just what we need . . . a continuation of Bush vs. Clinton . . . wonder if Chelsea is being groomed. Weren't Bush Senior and Clinton good buddies. And, oh, hasn't it been established time and again on this forum that Obama continued and expanded Bush policies? Perhaps the Obama girls are waiting in the distant wings to join in the ruling class charade.

Are Jeb and Hillary more different from each other than are Jeb and Cruz from each other? Is Jeb more different from Hillary than he is from the Tea Party?

all set with the Bush thing....no Jeb...no Mitt...thank you...it's too bad the Republicans can't locate quality candidates to battle for the nomination each year the caliber of Joe Biden, Howard Dean and Al Sharpton.....Dems don't even need a nominating process, just crown Hill...she's apparently "entitled"......sounds like Liawatha is Plan B if Hill crashes and burns....remember that O was elected because while having no experience or expertise he was really smart and spoke the right words and whenever he didn't, well that was ok, he'd grow into the position because he was "really smart".....he's successfully lowered the bar for all future candidates in terms of qualifications and now performance...if you voted for him you really have no business asking the GOP to provide some candidate that meets your criteria this time around because what?...you want to now change/reverse the socialist/progressive trend of the nation?......you were "DUPED"?..you voted for the most left leaning of any president in memory and now you want to give the house, senate and Presidency to the Republicans? "Please GOP, save us, give me a great candidate that I can vote for so that we can put the government completely in control of the Republicans"....that's funny...

I think many of the folks that will compete will be far more accomplished than the current occupant when he was considered....that's a good start...electing a president is always a crap shoot...they have history to deal with and how they deal with it determines their legacy...I've noticed that some Presidents and their supporters, particularly on the democrat side, like to pre-determine the legacy of their Presidents...establish them as GREAT before they've even taken office...doesn't work that way...

Scott Walker..Marco Rubio...Ben Carson, not necessarily in that order

Hilary was a SURE THING in 08' and look what happened

whomever the candidate is
they should be least likely to start WW3

If you look at the support staff behind the candidates I would prefer the Bush v Clinton race. I think the big problems start when you get a person that comes from nowhere and does not have the Federal government experienced support staff to get things done. My guess is it might be hard to tell the difference between the two a lot of times over the course of the campaign.

Your absolutely right. If the goal is to continue our present course, the Bush v Clinton race is ideal. No matter which one wins, nothing will change.

if we are at a point where only entrenched pols and family dynasties are capable of wielding the experienced support staff to get things done by harnessing the expanding bureaucracy....then we are truly screwed...

seems to me we don't elect politicians to be experts and anything in particular, we elect them to have good judgment in representing us

[QUOTE=detbuch;1063113]I loved Dubya, I'd have no problem with his brother - they both respect life, they both grasp that we're at war with radical Islam, they both believe that the free market can do more good than a massive federal government. Jeb's not my first choice either, but I like him a lot.

"Are Jeb and Hillary more different from each other than are Jeb and Cruz from each other?"

i would say yes. By a wide margin.


"Is Jeb more different from Hillary than he is from the Tea Party?"

Yes again, by a wide margin.

Depends on what your priorities are. Personally, abortion is huge for me. So are good old fashioned family values and Christian values. Through those lenses, Jeb couldn't be more different than Hilary...If all I cared about was immigration, maybe Jeb looks more like Hilary...but when I line them up side-by-side on the issues I care about, no comparison.

Whoever wins the GOP nomination would be a zillion times better than Hilary.

I agree, I'm not a fan of oligarchies either. I just happen to like Jeb Bush a lot more than I like Hilary Clinton. I'm not sure Jeb is electable, as there is still a lot of "Bush fatigue" out there...

Yes, and that requires a fundamental process through which they can represent. Government is, basically, process. And the process by which we are governed determines the limits of our freedoms. As well, therefor, it determines to what degree we are dependent rather than free.

So, shouldn't we be concerned as voters with what process those we vote for intend to govern more than what they intend to "get done"? Shouldn't we want most of what gets done to be at more local levels by those most responsive to what our communities want, rather than to be done by one-size-fits-all distant bureaucracies? Shouldn't we demand that the distant federal Presidency, rather than inserting itself into the daily lives of the entire population, be limited to a specifically designated process rather than governing as an all-powerful autocrat?

The "progressive" process is basically fiat rule by autocratic bureaucracy. The Bush and Clinton dynasties are separated in their progressiveness only by marginal degrees. They are both prone to the progressive concept of President as one who is not limited by a constitutional process, but one who expands power well beyond the scope of the Constitution, one slightly more "progressive" than the other.

We are pretty much stuck into the progressive process of government now, but if we want to reverse course toward a more limited government process, the separation in ideology of the candidate we vote for must be in large rather than small degrees different than either Clinton or Bush. There may not be a perfect candidate at this time, but if we wish to "go in the right direction," we must wean ourselves from the notion of The President as the driver of getting all things "done." And we must promote candidates who respect us as individuals and execute, "do," the laws that we, through our representatives, enact as the will of the people, rather than execute their own personal whim and will.

Nobody mentioned John Kasich governor of Ohio....we do not need a jeb bush or hillary....R we going to be like the british and keep it in the family?

Want my opinion on what is required to vote republican? :hihi:
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So, shouldn't we be concerned as voters with what process those we vote for intend to govern more than what they intend to "get done"?

No, I am more concerned with what they will try to get done, as long as the process through which they do it, is constitutional. And so long as their "to do" list isn't intrusive. I want someone who will appoint judges who don't see their role as legislative activists; I want someone who is willing to say out loud that we are at war with Islamic jihadists; someone who believes in the free market; someone who concedes that SS and Medicre are, in their current form, a top-heavy Ponzi scheme about to tip over, etc...Per the liberal narrative, Hilary will get every single one of these things wrong.

Oh, and I want someone who will use caller id to send all of Al Sharpton's calls to a spam junk voicebox.

He is doing some great things in Ohio, no doubt. From an electoral perspective, I like Jeb Bush with Kasich as his running mate. If that ticket could deliver Florida and Ohio, NOW we have a chance to win. I'm not saying that's my dream ticket (my dream ticket is Newt Gingrich and Condaleeza Rice), but that ticket has some serious electoral muscle behind it. The GOP ain't winning without Florida AND Ohio. Have to have them both. That ticket could well deliver those 2 key states...Romney picked Paul Ryan, who was absolutely useless. I like Ryan, but he couldn't even deliver his home state...

I really like John Kasich, good you brougt him up.

As I said, I don't lik ethe idea of political dynasties, it's not healthy. But if Jeb Bush i sth eonly candidate with a realistic chance to beat Hilary in the general, that's who I want running against her.

Not all dynasties are equally bad. The Bushes are made up of Clinton anti-matter...Couldn't be more diametrically opposite in terms of values (one family has values, one has none). That goes a long way with me.

Hilary lied through her teeth about getting shot at by snipers in Kosovo or somewhere. I still don't understand how that doesn't end her career right there.

I do. Seriously...

I'll post my thoughts after work today.
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Don't see it continuing the present course so much as having a better chance to work things out with the Senate and Congress and get things working better than they have been.

That would be the only way to pair them up and I could see an argument made to the party that it's the only way to win.

I don't think there's anything to the Bush fatigue angle. Independent voters will go for the least worst like they always do and if it's a Bush/Clinton race it's a wash.

Hillary's secret weapon is Bill on the stump. I'd like to see her paired up with Jim Webb.

I agree with Duke that the GOP field in Iowa looked more like the F-Troop than a serious party.

That being said the GOP nomination will either go to Jeb or Walker.

You're not gonna like to hear this Spence but Hillary isn't going to make it because Benghazi has not been done to death .
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How so? What new is going to come out at this point Buck... :fishslap:

What is it 7 investigations?

It actually has been done to death.
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QUOTE=Jim in CT;1063164]So, shouldn't we be concerned as voters with what process those we vote for intend to govern more than what they intend to "get done"?

No, I am more concerned with what they will try to get done, as long as the process through which they do it, is constitutional.

Sorry, Jim . . . but what you say in your second sentence is an affirmative of your first sentence. The "as long as" clause is the controlling factor for you in accepting "what they will try to get done". So the second sentence should start with a "yes" rather than a "no," and the process, indeed, as you say, makes valid, or invalid, what is done.

When I posed the question if we shouldn't be more concerned with the process our politicians follow in governing than in what they intend (promise) to do, I was pointing specifically to the current political process of our regulatory state, the administrative form of government rather than the representative republican form we were originally given. So long as we are stuck in a system that governs through unelected regulatory agencies hand in hand with progressively minded politicians who unlimitedly expand the power of the Federal Government and its bureaucratic machinery topped off with autocratic presidential power, we have little chance, as folks below the top 10%, to be more than a pawn of a despotic oligarchic system. And so long as our Presidents choose to act progressively rather than constitutionally, it won't matter much who is elected. The constitutional process would reign them in. The progressive process frees them to do anything which restricts or abolishes freedom for the rest of us.

Jim in CT:
And so long as their "to do" list isn't intrusive. I want someone who will appoint judges who don't see their role as legislative activists;

And the process you chose, the constitutional process, would lessen or negate the ability of government to be intrusive. And the constitutional process, if followed as intended, would proscribe what you consider judicial activism.

Actually, process limits action in prescribed ways, and desired goals dictate the manner or process by which those goals are achieved. The goals and the process go together. Without goals, process has no meaning. Without process, goals cannot be reached. That was why and how the Constitution was created. It was a process, a structure, a form of government, which would best guarantee the desired goal of unalienable individual freedom for all.

The progressive process, on the other hand, is a creation founded on different goals. What "freedom" exists as a goal in progressivism is firstly freedom of, by, and for the government to do whatever it considers necessary for the collective "good" and welfare. The secondary "freedom" would therefor be whatever it allows to those who are governed.

Jim in CT:
I want someone who is willing to say out loud that we are at war with Islamic jihadists; someone who believes in the free market; someone who concedes that SS and Medicre are, in their current form, a top-heavy Ponzi scheme about to tip over, etc...Per the liberal narrative, Hilary will get every single one of these things wrong.[/QUOTE]

Well . . . someone can say and believe those things, but, unless the process by which we are governed changes, what someone says, other than speaking about, and fighting for changing the process, and succeeding, then nothing substantially will change. If you cannot understand that the SS and medicare systems, as intrusive, expansive, and impossibly costly as they are, and that the tightly regulated market, and all such dependency or freedom restricting controls all contribute to the GOAL of unlimited progressive government, you will be continually bewildered by the fact that no matter who we elect, we will continue down the same path.

As for the big difference between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, I tried internet searches looking for a concise depiction of the political differences between them, thinking I could come up with some, but article after article failed to actually point out what I was looking for. They mostly went on about other stuff or what they did, just stuff, but no point by point actual differences. One that made me laugh was a list of 10 bullet points, one through ten, with a blank after each number. And after the end of the empty list the quote "what difference does it make." I know, I know, there are some differences, some things like nuanced differences on abortion, which matter to you (which, by the way, should not be part of presidential responsibility), and so forth, but I was looking for something which would substantially make a difference in how we are governed. I did find this interesting little piece by Glenn Greenwald:

"Jeb Bush yesterday strongly suggested he was running for President in 2016. If he wins the GOP nomination, it is highly likely that his opponent for the presidency would be Hillary Clinton.

"Having someone who is the brother of one former president and the son of another run against the wife of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class mobility. That one of those two families exploited its vast wealth to obtain political power, while the other exploited its political power to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally oligarchical framework that drives American political life.

"Then there are their similar constituencies: what Politico termed “money men” instantly celebrated Jeb Bush’s likely candidacy, while the same publication noted just last month how Wall Street has long been unable to contain its collective glee over a likely Hillary Clinton presidency. The two ruling families have, unsurprisingly, developed a movingly warm relationship befitting their position: the matriarch of the Bush family (former First Lady Barbara) has described the Clinton patriarch (former President Bill) as a virtual family member, noting that her son, George W., affectionately calls his predecessor 'my brother by another mother.'

"If this happens, the 2016 election would vividly underscore how the American political class functions: by dynasty, plutocracy, fundamental alignment of interests masquerading as deep ideological divisions, and political power translating into vast private wealth and back again. The educative value would be undeniable: somewhat like how the torture report did, it would rub everyone’s noses in exactly those truths they are most eager to avoid acknowledging."

Nothing to bush fatigue? Did you read the posts here, a few stated they don't want to see that name. Bush fatigue...
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Jim, I'm not going to post my thoughts on voting republican. I thought about it all night and am going to stay silent. I know it will piss off a lot of people and there's no point.

My prediction- Bernie Sanders will be our next president.
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Jim, a more succinct way of getting at the difference between Hillary and Jeb insofar as it would affect the way we are governed (the process), is to examine what you claimed as differences important to you:

"Depends on what your priorities are. Personally, abortion is huge for me. So are good old fashioned family values and Christian values. Through those lenses, Jeb couldn't be more different than Hilary...If all I cared about was immigration, maybe Jeb looks more like Hilary...but when I line them up side-by-side on the issues I care about, no comparison."

Abortion, family values, Christian values, are not issues for which the constitution empowers the President to politically act. Nor do they even constitutionally fall into the purview of Federal authority--in spite of some progressive SCOTUS judgments such as Roe v Wade.

So the important differences for you between Hillary and Jeb are not constitutionally valid political differences on which either could act as President.

On the other hand, on immigration policy, even though the President constitutionally is only given the power to execute congressional legislation, but not to create his own, there is that limited scope of power. But it is precisely in that constitutional empowerment that you admit that Hillary and Jeb appear to be similar. So politically there is more similarity rather than difference.

Granting that there are, for you, great non-governmental differences between them, the difference in how they govern as President may not be as great as you think. Especially insofar as they both tend toward the progressive view of presidential power, Hillary perhaps a bit more than Jeb. So, given that we have evolved into a progressive process of administrative government, and establishment politicians such as Bush and Clinton tend not to devolve that process toward first principles, it would be reasonable to assume that there would not be an essential political difference.

In fact, it seems that you may be caught up, as most now are, in the progressive mode of governance. Those personal things that most importantly distinguish differences between Jeb and Hillary, are the very type of things that the original progressives, and even more so by those that have followed, have wished to control at the Federal level. Constitutionally, those things were to be matters concerning mostly personal, individual rights with some local state control.

If, by being concerned that those non-political differences should somehow affect how the President executes his duties, if by that you assume a President, or even a Federal Congress, should have any say in regulating behaviors which are unalienable rights, then you are far more progressive than you think.

Again, the limitation of process, whether constitutional or progressive, will dictate or steer the direction in which you govern. One who would politically impose his personal views on the rest of society against the unalienable rights of others, is no better than those who would in reverse impose their views on him. Those who seek to so impose subscribe to the progressive notion that they know better than the rest and so are morally, even socially empowered to exercise power without bounds.

you're no fun...


surprised Spence isn't picking Biden again, you'd think after 8 years as veep he'd be the most qualified dem.....

Fair enough. I hope your prediction is wrong! Have a good day...

"Abortion, family values, Christian values, are not issues for which the constitution empowers the President to politically act."

True, I guess, to a point. I'm not saying I want a Preident who will make it a federal law that we all watch "Leave It To Beaver". I'm saying I'd like a President, unlike the incumbent, who won't go out of his way to undermine those values. I don't want to pay for anyone else's birth control or abortion. Also, it woul dbe nice to have a President whose chracter, whose essence, didn't make me want to vomit.

Per abortion, i don't want a President to make it illegal, since as you say, that's not granted as a power to the feds. I want a President who recognizes that, and who will appoint Supreme Court justices who recognize that, and who will therefore let that question be decided by the states, which is exactly where it belongs.

I don't want Bush to instill his beliefs at the federal level. I want him to leave these decisions where they belong, at the state level. I think he's way more likely to do that, than Hilary.

If the choice is Bush or Hilary...if I'm an unborn baby, I want Bush. If I'm a terrorist, I want Hilary. If I own a business, I want Bush. That's about the end of the story with me. I'm not saying that Jeb Bush would reduce the scope of the federal government to a smaller level than any other GOP candidate. But I like his stance on the things that are most important to me.

We aren't getting a libertarian elected President in the next 25 years, it simply will not happen. While Bush isn't my dream candidate, I believe that in this country, for the office of President, at this time in history, just about any Republican is better than just about any Democrat.

I'm saying that ultimately it won't make a difference.

Here's an interesting data point to ponder. The Republicans haven't won a Presidential race since 1928 without a Bush or Nixon on the ticket.