The Secret Blog's endorsed candidate for the 2012 presidential election will be the Republican nominee, but who should be the Republican nominee?
The obvious answer would seem to be Romney. He is, in some ways, the anti-Obama and, as the frontrunner, could move to the nomination with a minimum of fuss, plus he could credibly move to the center in the general election. But there are very substantial reasons not to want Romney, the most substantial being that it's always a mistake to pick the candidate who would best deal with the current crisis. The trick of picking presidents -- and the reason democracy works better than other systems -- is to pick the right person to deal with the completely unforeseen crisis that will be occupying us four years from now. Plus, having put time, effort and his own money into his complete failure of an attempt to elect Republicans to the state legislature in Massachusetts, Romney quit on the Commonwealth. That leaves me cold when it comes to supporting him now.
Pawlenty is the next obvious candidate, but he's one of the those obvious candidates that has no real chance of winning. Everyone's second choice, he's not anyone's first choice.
The radical conservative in my is attracted to Bachman, but the moderates and liberals in this country are too bigoted to vote for her. Of all the current candidates, she's the most likely to be Ronald Reagan come again, and the most likely to be Obama come again.
So who should the moderate and reasonable radical conservative nutjob endorse?
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23 comments:
Thanks David. It's so nice of you to perform this public service so the rest of us can ignore campaign.
I'll await your pick and if it's not Romney, I'll probably go with it.
Again, thank you.
Oh, I don't think it's that hard to predict what crisis a prez will be facing 4 years from now. Incurious George's chickens will be coming home to roost in the Persian Gulf by then, or sooner.
I am unpersuaded that any of the known politicians will have a policy adequate to the issue, and for sure they won't have an instrument.
The 60-year cycle is on us again.
Sorry, Harry, I don't have 60 years to spare, so I prefer to be optimistic -- get rid of the lefties and RINO's and we can put things right (pun intended) again.
I definitely like Bachman but I think she might be better as a red meat leader in the House than as President. She would, of course, be vastly preferable to our current President but I might lean more toward Pawlenty. I've soured on Romney, he's just too shifty. Perry, meh. He seems too much like our first President Bush.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The 'Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama’s stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled “fantasy economics.” Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House.'
Umm, I hope you will take this as concern from a friend, but do you really believe any of these characters (Pawlenty is now out) can win, even against a weakened Obama? Will the middle support any of them?
If the voters really prefer a permanent recession and decline to voting for a GOP candidate, then there's not much hope left for the nation. I would look at the 2010 midterms and the events in Wisconsin to see how Obama's prospects against anyone.
SH,
You think any of the electable republicans presidents will do significantly better? I mean not just optically, but really leading the country back to a more robust economy?
I didn't vote for president in the last election because I guessed Obama would preside more or less as he's doing, but I didn't think McCain would be much better. I still don't.
I think most of the GOP candidates would do better than Obama, Clinton, or McCain. Even Romney would be a step up.
The primary exception would be John Huntsman.
The choice is between the left and right, not among different candidates. Leftwing politics cannot deliver a robust economy, only free enterprise aka capitalism can allow for and encourage growth.
I don't see the left/right split making much difference really. I think it's more of a Statism/Big Governmentism versus Free marketism/Federalism/Libertarianism split that's important for the economy and that's not how the parties line up. Except for a brief period under Reagan, government spending per capita has always gone up, regardless of party.
Politicians like government, no matter what their ideology, otherwise they wouldn't become politicians. Thus, they have a natural incentive to grow government.
As a general proposition, I don't disagree with that. But I think that we might be in a different situation right now.
The question is whether employment and investment aren't being held back by uncertainty caused by HCR in particular but also by a suspicion that the Obama Administration is always going to regulate against business (which may also be true of the Republicans) and is looking to vastly expand the areas subject to regulation (which is less true of the Republicans).
So the best thing that could happen to the country is a Republican sweep of the Presidency and both Houses of Congress sufficient to get rid of HCR. Unfortunately, because that means 60 senators it's unlikely to happen, but even with fewer than 60 senators, it might be possible to cripple HCR. Without the Presidency, it's not possible.
Bret;
Even PA is looky iffy for Obama.
Peter:
It's only a slight overstatement to say that, with an incumbent Democratic president, either any of them can beat him or none of them can. Right now, it looks more like any of them can.
Unless the electorate has changed fundamentally, no president can win reelection with 9% unemployment.
As for Bachman, etc., remember that in 1979 Reagan was considered every bit as much a dim, unelectable extremist as Bachman. I would argue that Reagan's path to the White House was less likely than Bachman's. In 1976, this really was a center left country. In 2008, it was a center right country that really disliked George Bush.
Bret,
Statism/Big Governmentism is what I mean by the left and Free marketism/Federalism/Libertarianism is what I mean by the right.
So who are your candidates of the right? Any of them have any chance of winning?
I don't have any. I'm waiting for David to do the heavy lifting and will abide by his decision (see first comment on this string).
The idea of crowdsourcing is that everybody needs to join in, including you, erp.
I promise to give my opinion on "who should the moderate and reasonable radical conservative nutjob endorse" on late September 3rd", or within a few days after.
Bret, According to Wikipedia’s definition, crowdsourcing seems to be the opposite of my plan which is to leave to a single trusted source, namely the host of this blog, not a crowd, the task of sifting the evidence and analyzing the data to come up the best candidate for the future of our country and by extension the future of my six grandchildren.
I look forward to your pick too, but isn't it about a year too soon.
Well, Palin didn't yet announce one way or the other whether she's running yet. I suspect she will. If so, even I think she'll a pretty flawed candidate (or may a flawed, but pretty candidate), I think she's an excellent choice for "the moderate and reasonable radical conservative nutjob", primarily because she can inspire those americans that I think need to inspired and discouraged those americans who need to be discouraged far, far better than any other candidate.
So, Bret, is Palin your pick?
Well, David specifically asked "who should the moderate and reasonable radical conservative nutjob endorse?" I believe such a person should endorse Palin.
Whereas many consider me "radical" and "nutjob", it's less clear whether or not I qualify as "conservative", and a large group of people consider me both quite "IMmoderate" and "UNreasonable", so I may have to consider which candidate someone like myself should endorse. Nonetheless, even for me, Palin wouldn't be a bad choice.
Bret, No argument.
I don't know a lot about Palin's platform, if she has one, but one thing is clear, she isn't an narcisstic egomaniac with delusions of grandeur and that alone makes her preferable to Obama who is now apparently ruling by fiat/diktat.
Lefty programs and isms having failed badly and the race card having been trumped (BTW I'll even vote for Trump if he's the candidate) they have nothing left (pun intended) but the class warfare card and childish name calling.
... and if you've only been called a immoderate, unreasonable, radical nutjob, you've got a way to go. I was called a nazi by several other members of a state board of mental health 30 years ago when it wasn't even fashionable. The reason: I opposed deinstitutionalization, i.e., shutting down the institutions housing the mentally ill and the severely mentally retarded and putting them on the streets to fend for themselves.
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