Best Presidential Candidate, Republicans 1481
A few days ago we posted a story for you to discuss the best presidential candidates for Super Tuesday, but I figured it would be an interesting idea to try that again, but split the discussion into 2 halves. This is the Republican half — please only discuss the Republican candidates in this story. Huckabee, McCain, and Romney only.
Pro and Cons (Score:5, Informative)
Pros: experience in Washington
Bush's Donor list
"Maverick" Reputation broadens appeal to moderates, independents
Negatives: Famous temper
Conservative base loathes him
"Washington Insider"
Senators rarely do well as President
Will hit funding bind (accepted Public Funding)
Romney:
Pros: Executive Management experience
Can rely on personal funds
Not a "Washington Insider"
Governors often do well as President
Negatives:
Reputatation for switching positions
Some will take his religion against him
Slick image
Huckabee:
Pros: Willing to look at new solutions (i.e. "The Fair Tax")
Negatives:
The entire "religious right" issue
Lack of broad appeal outside the evangelical right
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Huckabee? (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:My candidate is not allowed? (Score:5, Informative)
He broke double digits this past weekend in the Maine caucus, getting 19% of the vote [yahoo.com]. He trounced Huckabee, who only got 6%, yet Paul is supposed to be excluded from this discussion for some bizarre reason.
He's on the ballot here in Ohio, and I'm going to vote for him since I agree with him far more than I agree with any of the other candidates.
Re:To all those complaining about Ron Paul (Score:5, Informative)
I feel about this subject and Ron Paul the same way I feel about my room mate. He was adopted as a kid because his parents couldn't afford to raise him, so instead of an abortion they put him up. As a result, he is vehemently against abortion. However, he still thinks that it should be up to an individual state whether they want to honor Roe v. Wade...just like Ron Paul. He thinks it's an abomination that should be stopped, but thinking about what would be "best" for the country as opposed to what they personally would prefer to see happen. This is one of the things about Ron Paul that I really like.acknowledges that it should be the states decision, not the federal governments. Regardless, he still thinks it isn't the morally correct thing to do, but doesn't think it should be made outright illegal.
I like that. They both have a very strong opinion about a touchy subject, but are
For what it's worth, I am pro-choice but against late-term abortions (unless the mother's life is threatened)...by that time, you should have been able to figure out if you wanted the kid or not.
Re:He's still in (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Arguments (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:1, Informative)
$14,000,000,000,000 (Score:3, Informative)
Correction. The estimation of all the gold ever mined in the world would be worth closer to $4 trillion on today's market value. ((2001 estimate of "all the gold ever mined" + modest production for 6 years) x current market value)
Re:My candidate is not allowed? (Score:3, Informative)
Enough with the uniformed people calling Ron Paul's supporters names.
Ron Paul has a fanatical support base, at least they contribute money. And they are vocal all over the internet. However, this hasn't translated to him even breaking into the double digits, much less winning ANY of the primaries.
Ron Paul has broken double digits in many states, and finished 2nd more than once. You don't know what you're talking about.
He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I have. And I'm not running.
Nonsense, not even 10% of the vote has been counted yet. I bet you thought Rudy had a chance, yet Paul got more votes than him.
I do think he has some good ideas, and some that are crazy. But I am really sick of the Ronulans spamming internet forums and polls. A lot of us are annoyed by you, and this actually harms your candidate.
That is ok, we're annoyed by you too. Maybe you can go read about Ron Paul, or the primary process, and get somewhat informed before you go off whining about people who believe in something.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: The Primary Process, Changing the Debate (Score:3, Informative)
These issues obviously have active support, he has out lasted three other candidates, including two "first tier," and his block of delegates (completely different from the number of votes and based on separate caucuses where he is actually doing quite well) will affect the national convention which almost certainly will be brokered, and Huckabee has actually changed some of his rhetoric based on Dr. Paul's platform. The idea of excluding anybody in the race from the *debate* is idiotic, win or lose.
Even Giuliani supporters affected the issues and had a voice that needed to be heard. That's how a Republic (you know, "Republican") is meant to work, and that is why I support Dr. Paul's campaign as much as anything else.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:3, Informative)
Paul can't say the same. Paul is only relevant for the fanaticism of his supporters in spite of/because of his somewhat radical views.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:3, Informative)
Ron Paul has technically won 1 Primary - Louisiana.
Basically, Ron Paul is the only Republican running.
The other guys are running under the Republican ticket but do not have core Republican values.
If McCain gets the nomination, the republican party deserves to be fragmented or even dissolved. This is a guy who wanted to be a Democratic VP 4 years ago.
Anyway, what's not being reported that is relevant is:
A) - Huckabee's rise with basically no money
B) - Romney won Nevada with 52% of the vote - reported nowhere.
C) - McCain, frontrunner to be, won South Carolina with what 36% of the vote which means that 64% voted against him.
If anybody would get the nomination, it would be Romney
If anybody should get the nomination, it should be Ron Paul - as he is the only candidate that will talk or bring about issues.
Honest talk from Ron Paul (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-treul/an-interview-with-ron-pau_b_71108.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Brief Overview of Congressman Paul's Record:
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/about/ [ronpaul2008.com]
Alot of candidates in this race like others in each presidential race have promised change and many time and time again abandon promises and by doing so betray the American populace.
Regardless of issues you may have with Ron Paul he is by far the most honest of all the candidates and surely intends to do what he is talking about.
Remember to vote this coming November!
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:4, Informative)
The way our voting system is set up, it guarantees that the stable state is exactly two dominant parties. If at any point a small party begins to draw significant support from a larger party, the vote is split, both parties lose, and the opposition wins. At that point, everyone either goes back to the old large party, or rushes to the growing, previously small party, and we have two stable parties again.
At least we have two parties, which is better than one-party "systems"...
Media = Effort to exclude Ron Paul since day 1 (Score:5, Informative)
A growing list of media blackout events has been, and continues to be documented at RonPaulTimeline.com [ronpaultimeline.com]. The greatest grassroots movement for a presidential candidate in history, being ignored by the media, is also being documented there. Some examples:
The reason that we get less-than-adequate choices for candidates year after year is because WE LET the media make the choices for us! If you don't believe this or don't understand why, then you're not really paying attention. With this article, Slashdot has proven that it is no better than any of the major news outlets, and the comments prove that Slashdot readers are as much sheeple as the rest of America.
The middle class already pays most of the taxes. (Score:2, Informative)
Charles Keating and McCain (Score:4, Informative)
Charles Keating bribed 5 Senators (aka The Keating 5) to carry legislation for him that relaxed rules on the Savings and Loan industry. The ensuing S&L meltdown in 91 was partially due to that legislation. The Senators kept their jobs while Keating went to jail. In my book, all of them should have gone to jail.
To make amends, McCain teamed up with Feingold to "keep money out of politics." Together, they crafted the McCain-Feingold act which didn't do a thing to keep folks like Norman Hsu and Tony Rezko from bundling huge amounts of money for favored politicians. What McCain-Feingold did do was muzzle advertising critical of incumbents which comes as little surprise as it was written by two long-time incumbents.
McCain might be able to beat Clinton but Obama would thrash him.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:3, Informative)
Not to mention the lack of news when it comes to Ron Paul's fundraising. The day he raked in $6 million was a very quiet day in the media. The day he raked in $4.2 million was almost as quiet. Pretty big numbers for a nobody.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:4, Informative)
He is running as a Republican because he is a Republican. He was elected as a Republican to Congress TEN TIMES. The constant reminder that the media insists on that he is a "libertarian" forgets to mention that he was a libertarian for just one year of his life when he ran on their presidential ticket. Well, why don't they mention that Ronald Reagan was a Democratic-leaning Republican. After all, Reagan was a Democrat for a large part of his life, same goes for NYC mayor Bloomberg. Seriously, how is one year failed election indicative of the man's party affiliation if he served in another party half of his life?
Why is he still running? Because his campaign is growing tramendeously. The polls don't say so, but the polls said Giuliani was the front runner and McCain was finished the day before NH primary (McCain won that). Ron Paul got 19% in Maine. That's double the 8% he got in NH and 10% he got in Iowa. If his numbers doubled in 3 weeks, why in the world would he not be running?Re:To all those complaining about Ron Paul (Score:4, Informative)
Ron Paul's most basic views on economics are flatly incorrect in ways that are trivially easy to verify.
Examples:
Ron Paul has claimed that going back to the gold standard will fix a large variety of economic woes. Two things he has said the gold standard will resolve I can think of now are inflation and he's said that it will "smooth" the boom-and-bust cycle of the economy. Yet obviously this country has already spent a lot of time under a gold standard, and it's very easy to verify that during this time inflation was about the same as it is now or slightly worse, and the boom-and-bust cycle was considerably worse. It's really easy to google for graphs of these things, it's not some obscure data.
He also thinks that when the government runs a budget deficit, the federal reserve creates the extra money, creating inflation and thus constituting a silent "tax" on everyone's savings. This idea is simply counterfactual. When the government spends more than it takes in, the treasury department sells bonds. A bond is basically an agreement that says in exchange for X dollars today I'll give you slightly more than X dollars at some set point in the future. If the government literally printed up money every time it ran a deficit, it wouldn't owe anything when it was all said in done. Think about it: under this scenario, there would be no national debt. Isn't there, in fact, like a 9 trillion dollar national debt? The national debt is actually the sum of all of the outstanding treasury bonds. It's really easy to verify this story and it's not some subtle point.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:3, Informative)
Now, if you believe that people will actually do the Right Thing without a government telling them what to do, then Ron Paul is your man. Of course, then History is not your subject, but (for different reasons) that's pretty much true of Neorepublican religious wackos as well.
Hell, the Constitution is supposed to be THE CONTRACT between the states and the federal government. So he is right on target legally, as far as I can tell. My quibble is that the Constitution is obsolete (for environmental reasons). But Paul is probably the very best candidate by a long shot for bringing the government back in check and forcing it to limit itself to what The Contract allows it to do.
Re:Ron Paul? (Score:4, Informative)
Presumably because they turned out to be invalid. People use a provisional ballot when the precinct isn't able to determine if they're registered to vote, or should be voting at that precinct. These ballots are opened and counted if, and only if it's decided that the person did have the right to vote there. As a former precinct worker, I'm not at all surprised that so many provisionals weren't counted; in fact, I'm almost surprised that so many were.