January 17, 2008
Now that I've dispensed with the Democrats, let's look at the GOP:
1) McCain: honorable service to this country, but I wouldn't vote for him if my hair were on fire. That bastardly repeal of the 1st Amendment of which is the proud co-author disqualifies him from the presidency all by itself. Add in his open borders stance, his anti-tax cutting positions and his overall delight in sticking his finger in the eye of conservatives in general makes him a non-starter as a candidate.
2) Huckabee: we already have one of these currently sitting in the Oval Office. A pro life social con who wants to use the powers of the federal government to force his will on you.
3) Rudy: while I respect his anti-crime work and I admire his ability to clean up what I assumed what was an impossible city to govern, you'll have to work to convince me that a pro-choice, big government guy will be the nominee. Think a pro-choice Bush.
4) Romney: a very astute businessman, which I think this country needs. I find his recent conversion on some issues troubling. And his pander to the auto workers in Michigan about the government partnering with the industry to the tune of 20+ billion a year to bring back jobs that, frankly, won't come back, makes me question his sanity. A good tactical position for the campaign perhaps, but I'm sick and tired of candidates promising more of my hard earned money to some group's boondoggle. Truthfully, I don't care about the whole Mormon thing. While I think that Mormonism is pretty kooky, the vast majority of Mormons that I've met are people I would love to have around. So his religion isn't the issue, it's his other positions that are.
5) Paul: I agree with the vast majority of his domestic positions, but I disagree almost entirely with his foreign policy stance. A guy I work with lived in Ron Paul's district and voted for him every time. He agrees with me on Paul's foreign policy. Please, no screeching from Paulbots about how he's the only true savior of this country. And this recent spate of writings that at best were written by someone with Paul's tacit approval kind of make me think that either he or some of his supporters are people that I don't want to be associated with.
6) Fred Thompson: now Fred says lots of things that I agree with, especially his statements concerning federalism. His record pretty much backs up his conservative positions, but he voted in favor of the McCain-Feingold abomination. Maybe he did so because he believed in the crap theory that money was corrupting the political process, but at the end of the day he voted to abridge our right to free speech. This alone makes him damaged goods in my eyes. Yes, he says now that he was mistaken and he might be entirely honest in that statement, but it's a big leap of faith for me.
Where does this shake out? Well, when I took that quiz which matched my answers with presidential hopefuls, my closest match was Tom Tancredo. Looks like my wish won't come true this year. And while I did vote for the Libertarian candidate Browne in 2000, it looks like the national party has decided that nominating kooks is its best bet to to grow. I think they choose poorly. In any event, I will vote in the primaries here in Virginia -a recent development, as we used to have caucuses(cauci?)- and in the general next November. I just don't for whom I'll be voting. The reality is that I don't think it matters as I believe that the country's electorate has decided to do a swam dive into the abyss this year.
By the way, here's the complete quotation from Asimov's book: "Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." I think that that, in a nutshell, describes perfectly this election season.
Posted by: Physics Geek at
08:55 AM
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Posted by: stardot at January 22, 2008 03:42 PM (WdOFn)
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