Sunday Discussion Group

June 17, 2007

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was interviewed the other day and asked for his opinion about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who, of course, is a leading Republican presidential candidate.

“The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsoever,” Frank said. “He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics.”

Josh Marshall added that he wants to warn the country about “the terror of a Romney presidency.”

Romney seems so transparently phoney, so willing to say anything that I find him genuinely frightening. And this is something I don’t feel about any of the other credible Republican presidential candidates, though I obviously have criticisms of each. Romney seems almost like a caricature of the political phoney.

Josh went so far as to suggest Romney is more worrisome than Giuliani and McCain, and for that matter, even more alarming that George W. Bush.

Jonathan Chait, meanwhile, suggested Romney is bad, but not that bad. “To me, Romney’s phoniness is exactly why I’m not terrified of the prospect of him as president,” Chait said. “I see him as a competent, moderate-minded manager who has decided his only chance of being elected is to masquerade as a whacko.”

This got me thinking: who is the most genuinely scary Republican presidential candidate?

All things being equal, I suppose the idea of a President Tancredo would drive much of the country to consider fleeing, but I think any reasonable analysis of the election tells us that Tancredo won’t win any primaries, worse yet the GOP nomination.

So, let’s stick to the top tier: Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Fred Thompson. (I’m using recent polling to define the top-tier, and these are the only four candidates to break double-digits in national, Iowa, and New Hampshire polls.)

* Rudy Giuliani — Matt Taibbi recently made the case that the former NYC mayor is actually “worse than Bush.” Giuliani is autocratic, thin-skinned, and self-absorbed. He’s inexperienced, ignorant about policy specifics, and his only selling point (performance on 9/11) doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny. His campaign is built around demagoguery — driven solely by fear.

* John McCain — A shadow of his former self, the senator appears to be a man who’ll do anything to win. McCain is combative and intolerant of dissent. He defends the indefensible and lashes out angrily at anyone who dares to disagree with him. He’s become dishonest, condescending, and egotistical, while pandering shamelessly to some of the worst elements in Republican politics.

* Mitt Romney — The man appears to have no real convictions at all. On most of the major political issues of the day, Romney believed the exact opposite fairly recently, and has struggled to explain his metamorphosis from moderate governor to far-right candidate.

* Fred Thompson — The actor/lobbyist/senator doesn’t seem to have any real rationale for seeking the presidency, other than the belief he might win. Thompson is at least as phony as Romney — the red truck story should be humiliating to him — and developed a Bush-like reputation for being lazy and incurious. He considers moving to northern Virginia “getting out of Washington” and his most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else.

When describing his concerns about Romney, Josh Marshall said he’s “never seen a presidential cycle when the Republican field looks more feeble, dispirited and generally languid than this year.” I’m inclined to agree (though the ’96 GOP field was a real doozy).

But who’s the scariest of the bunch?

Giuliani, hands down. His 9/11 competence consists of locating the city’s disaster response unit in a building that had already suffered a terrorist attack, just as a favor to his buddy Silverstein who couldn’t find tenants for his Twin Towers.

He fits right in with the “let the world burn, so long as my friends profit” crowd.

Fortunately, he’s also a cross-dresser, which would lead to some interesting “America’s Choice”-type campaign posters if the Democrats grow some stones.

  • Scariest of the bunch? That’s a toughie – At face value, it’s kind of like picking the scariest between Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear and George Jetson.

    I’ll go with Romney because he’s such an empty suit – The Stepford candidate. The damage he’d do would depend entirely on who held his remote control.

    McCain? He’s scary because he actually knows how things get done in DC. Once elected he’d dump the wingnuts and their social agenda pretty quickly. But he’d definitely push the greater repub agenda of welfare for the rich.

    Thompson? He’d be a caretaker until the repubs figured themselves out. I see him as a do-nothing. The damage he’d likely inflict would be things he failed to prevent.

    Giuliani? I suspect a Giuliani admin would collapse under the weight of it’s own scandals within 6 months. He’d be too damaged to do much damage.

  • Alll would be bad, Giuliani would be a disaster, especially following Bush. He would take the unified executive to even greater heights of lower depths.

  • This is impossible. I can’t even pick one who seems less scary than the others, although each is scary for different reasons.

    The scariest of all would be Dick Cheney, but thank goodness he isn’t running. So far.

  • What’s scary is that no one know what we would get with any of these guys. But I agree with Antonius above that we would see policies & actions as bad or worse than under Baby Bush. Worse because I see an even stronger drive toward a police state under this clown.
    The country swallowed the lies that got Commander Codpiece close enough in 2000 that the Republican crime families could steal it. Will it happen again? Perhaps not in 2008, but as long as the MSM is still controlled by this same group, yes it could.
    Anyone want to live in a country as free, lawful, prosperous, and full of opportunity as Mexico? That’s where we are heading on today’s trajectory.

  • What scares me the most is that in an election that will be one of the toughest in years for Republicans, they can only come up with a bunch of liars, phonies and empty suits as candidates.

    Of course, they do have the Rove-Gonzales DOJ as well as Diebold on their side. Add the Democrats’ recent history of running miserable campaigns and this one will be close – close enough to steal.

  • Mitt “I Love Immigrants” Romney is the scariest. Did you know he was previously a Game Show Host? The Emmy Award winning show was called “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell the Truth to Me.” Rudolph “Hess” Giuliani is a close second on this week’s episode of America’s Scariest ReThugs. His sustained, highly-skilled psychological attacks on the American public through the continued exploitation and manipulation of fear, hatred, and lust for vengeance have deliberately elicited a broad array of conditioned, terroristic reflexes from, and promoted the zealous proliferation of, Das Base.

    Heard somewhere that Romney has ties to Rove, the architect of the Loyal Bushie Browshirt Cabal, that makes him scariest. That would be another living nightmare worse than the Cheney Administration’s Dark Empire, that is, assuming, this current nightmare actually ends.

  • Whichever can win.

    This republic cannot survive another Republican presidency.

    And no, I’m not exaggerating.

  • J Flowers expresses my sentiment: the entire ensemble is a cast from a horror movie. You can split the bunch into two groups — the wackos in their own right (McCain, Giuliani) and the proto-Bush puppets (Romney and Thompson).

    John and Rudy would drive this nation off a cliff of their own volition while Mitt and Fred would drive this nation off the cliff when they are told to do so. Either way, any of them are bad news because none of them will reverse Bush’s diabolical plan to infiltrate the government with eight years worth of loyal Bushite idiots. The Bush era cancer will continue to spread if any of these guys are elected. ANY Republican will be this nation’s worst nightmare.

  • Yeah, they really are that terrible. Though given his previous stances on guns, gays, and abortion, if Guliani gets the nomination, a democrat will get into the White House either way.

    I’d say Fred Thompson is the scariest. Recently when asked what he’d do as president, he said he’d “do things” and then refused to elaborate. And this is the guy that the far right is getting in a frenzy over.

  • The scariest thing of all is that anyone would consider voting for any one of them.

  • I think it’s a photofinish.

    But I think the cameras will show McCain edging out the others by a micron. A guy with such little control over his temper with his finger on the button…

  • The ghost of Ronald Reagan..
    living through all Republican candidates and the forces of darkness which Reagan has unleased are ever so close to extinquishing our democracy through the attack of his zombie clones.

  • They’re all scary – on both sides of the aisle.

    The only candidates who make any sense in this time of global uncertainty (on so many levels) are marginalized and dismissed as irrelevant. Kucinich, Gravel, Paul are treated like a joke, just like others in the past who have also offered an enlightened voice to this morass of myopic vision that will eventually kill us all.

    The world population needs leaders with a vision of inclusion, generosity, compassion, true courage, and love. What we get are visionless empty-shirt charlatans posing as leaders as they play the mindless, meaningless, and mendacious political game of power and money.

    I used to think that deep beneath the posturing of politicians lay sincerity and a true desire to do good. I no longer think that way. The damage the current political systems, and those who aspire to exploit them, have wrecked upon the earth and its people is immeasurable.

    To coin an “AA” adage – all our best thinking has gotten us here. It’s time to think differently, and yet all the current “front runners” simply reflect different variations on the same old scary mindset.

    As Lewis Black says – our choices are just between different piles of crap, the only difference is the smell.

    In my opinion, all the front runners are scary!

  • I don’t find any of them scary, since none of them are going to win. Yes, the Democrats could flub spectacularly, but I feel pretty confident that the country is absolutely sick enough of Republican incompetence, corruption, and warmongering to elect a Democratic candidate.

  • They are all scary now. Eight years ago they would not have been as scary, but Bush has so weakened our country that any of these bozos would be incredibly destructive. When your only virtue is that you’re just pretending to be a whacko, then all standards have gone out the window. The only good thing is that the Democratic investigative machine is up and running and maybe it won’t take 4 years to figure out the next Republican president needs to be impeached.

  • Giuliani is the scariest of the bunch. He is Bush on steroids plus the brain.

    As mayor of New York, he was secretive, thin-skinned, paranoid, intolerant of dissent, self-promoting, and dictatorial. If elected President, he would rapidly shred what remains of our Constitution.

  • JoeW> Scariest of the bunch? That’s a toughie – At face value, it’s kind of like picking the scariest between Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear and George Jetson.

    Must disagree. More like picking the scariest between Godzilla, the Blob, and Lex Luthor. Any one of them could cause genuine damage.

  • almost like a caricature of the political phoney.

    See, many Dems have probably been saying this to themselves all along, but they’re too polite (???) to realize that they should just start saying it, right away. Repubs realize Romney gives a greasy/filthy impression, so they immediately start with all this, “Wow, he gives such a great impression,” BS. Instead of catching onto it and starting to do what they should do (what they should have been doing a long time ago) the Dems sit around thinking of whatever they think about.

  • Scariest depends on who would most push the neocon agenda, because that’s the conservative cause that has most immediate potential to be pushed too far. Therefore, McCain is the scariest, with Giuliani being second: as far as being devils we know, because McCain has actually expressly and repeated supported this cause, and because Giuliani seems second-most compliant and in the pocket of the Repubs. Thompson and Romeny are really only less scary as being what we don’t know, but of course, either of them could turn out being worse than McCain or Giuliani would have been.

  • Now, when I use the terms Dems and Repubs, I tend to use them imprescisely and varyingly, and I should stop that and use more qualifiers to describe who I am particularly talking about from occasion to occasion. When I write “Repubs,” nowadays I most usually mean not Repubs at large (which may confuse rank and file Repub voters, who may think I am misunderstanding or misdescribing them) but, rather, the most influential of the Republican activists nowadays, principally defined by their dedication to the racist and neocon causes, and their willingness to use power to advance those cause (and less often, those activists who are motivated more by the religious than the neocon agenda, and are willing to use power to obtain it). That’s how I meant “Repubs” in comment 21.

    Usually when I write “Dems” nowadays, I mean Dems in the national Congress. Maybe in second place, I’m refering to Dems activists who are close to Dems in congress or are involved in lobbying or activist groups in Washington- Dem activists who are most well-positioned to influence policy. But in my comment at 20, I meant rank and file Dem voters, anyone who’s in a position to use their voice to write a lettter, call into a radio show, talk to anybody or influence anybody.

  • But, I agree that it’s less important who is scariest now, and more important that we get someone who is going to lose, as eventually any of them is going to be subject to a lot of influence. That’s why I don’t go on a lot about who’s scariest.

  • I’d like to turn the question around and ask who among the four is the least scary? For me it would have to be McCain. He’s always been a conservative republican but before he decided he would do/say anything to be president, he was a fairly serious senator who worked with the other side on a number of issues. I would hope that if in the off chance was elected, he would return to that form.

    OTOH, he’s the scariest because he’s probably the only one who possibly could be elected.

  • I’m from NYC and have worked in city government for many years, including during the Guiliani Administration. So as bad as all these guys would be as president, I would have to go with “America’s Mayor” as being by far the most troublesome, for reasons nicely stated by Antonious and Devil’s Advocate above. All of them would do whatever it takes to get power, but we best know what Guiliani would do with power. He would try to develop the imperial presidency in ways that the Bush family and others only dream of.

  • Since all the Republican candidates are scary and since “scariest” and “terrorist” go hand in hand……
    Bush was right, they did follow us home.

  • (which may confuse rank and file Repub voters, who may think I am misunderstanding or misdescribing them)

    Re: comment 22, it’s difficult to speak of groups of people categorically, but it’s still useful to speak of them generally. Difficulty comes in mistaking the statement that’s meant as a general description for a categorical one. That said, a lot of description, especially psychological motivation, bad traits and tactics that I make of dedicated Repub activists does apply to many or most Republican voters, so there’s even a danger when I try to distinguish between groups.

    In comment 23, I don’t mean to imply that the most-likely to lose Repulican isn’t the scariest (and I do think McCain is pretty weak) but I just mean that the most likely to lose isn’t necessarily the scariest. I think that trying to figure out who the scariest is is worth while, but, as I noted in 21, it could always turn up for unpredicatable reasons that the less scary turns out worse. All you can do is try to predict who’s dangerous and who’s scary.

    But, what I noted in 23 still stands, and it will be to our advantage to depict different candidates as the most scary at different times.

  • I think we should speak of “our worst nightmare” in the present tense, not so much anticipating one in the future. Certainly Sonny Bush and his dumb thugocracy have layed waste to the country, economically, morally, philosophically, politically, and constiutionally. One can argue all that is left is for the next delusional Rethug to administer the coup-de-gras. In that regard I think Romney and Guiliani are the most likely to be capable of doing that.

    Having lived very near NYC while Emperor Rudy was mayor, and more recently in Massachusetts while Romney was governor, a closer look at either one of these guys is enough to give anyone with a scruple agita for a month of Sundays.

    Guiliani, in his political and personal behavior, is an autocrat, if not an out-and-out fascist. He hated the media because they dared question his version of reality. They hated him back enough so that by the time of 9/11 he was all but a political corpse. He turned the NYC police force into a roaming band of swaggering blackshirts; but he removed the homeless from view, cleaned the streets, got rid of the vagrant car-window washers, and disnified Times Square to make it safe for suburbanites to visit. If you disagreed with Caesar Rudy you weren’t just wrong, by definition, you were sick, sick, sick. And he would tell you so on the radio. He had no sense of environmental values whatever. He announced his intention to divorce his celebrity wife, Donna Hanover, at a press conference before telling her. Guiliani really is dangerous.

    Romney, who did an aerial entrance into the governor’s race wearing a Superman outfit in early 2002, chased the interim governor, Jane Not-So-Swift, from the field, and bought enough support to get elected over a Democrat, an Irish-American Beacon Hill veteran woman with roots deep in the Democratic machine that actually runs the state. Massachusetts had elected two Republican governors before, William Weld and Tom Salucci, starting in 1990, in an effort to temper the excesses of the Democrat, but both were failures and wound up quitting before their terms were up, although Weld served part of a second term.

    Romney took moderate positions as a campaigner on abortion and gay rights (the gay marriage issue was in the courts, but not really on anyone’s political radar in 2002), appealing to wide-spread liberal sensibilities, a large Roman Catholic population, and the corruption-fatigue many Democrats felt for the legislature. But it was also quite clear that he had little genuine connection to any of these issues, and more importantly little genuine concern for the state even though he had maintained a house in the tony suburb of Belmont just to west of Boston while he was globe-trotting. He wasn’t a Bay Stater, and it was obvious. His TV personna struck many as phony, and while he wasn’t technically a carpetbagger, he definitely wasn’t a native either.

    When he got into office he immediately began to drift to the right, and it also became obvious that all his policies, public pronouncements, and posturing was done through the lens of appealing to a nationwide conservative constituency, i.e., presidential aspirations, and not with the view of developing a working relationship with the legislature to more effectively govern the state. In conversations with my legislators they said quite openly that they had no sense there was a governor in the state during his administration. Romney was effectively invisible and made no effort to cultivate any relationship with the legislative leadership. The bills he introduced were meant more for media consumption and PR effect, rather than any real effort to affect policy.

    Two years into his term there was no longer any doubt that Romney was interested in a national stage, and not the well-being of Massachusetts. He was away more than he was here. He began doing stand-up comedy routines for his conservative audiences mocking Massachusetts as the bluest of the Blue states, and how futile it was for him as governor to have any impact on its ingrained and indiginenous culture of liberalism. Of course neither did he try very hard to impact that culture. His last real effort tohave an impact, to show a national audience that he could deliver conservatism in Massachusetts, was when he personally persuaded about 50 Republicans to contest entrenched Democrats in the legislature in the 2004 state elections. He needed six seats in the Senate to end a veto-proof legislature. He gave them money, support of all kinds, put himself on the line. By that time he had flip-flopped on abortion, and gay marriage had become legal, with opposite reactions from the highly conflicted Roman Catholic voters who are by-and-large pro-choice, but more divided on gay marriage. In that election cycle, every one of Romney’s candidates lost. The Democratic majority in the legislature became higher, and his popularity was sinking like a stone. After that he just gave up, and we effectively had no governor at all for the next two years. It was obvious he wouldn’t run again. He then replaced some good people, Democratic reformers, he had selected originally for his administration, who quit in frustration, with ideological hacks, and the legislature has been in charge ever since.

    I’m not sure the man is evil, like the current crowd in Washington or Guiliani, but he definitely tailors his convictions to his audiences, and one has no sense of a moral center other than what he finds politically convenient at any moment. For those reasons my guess is, however, that corporate America will choose Romney as their best bet, and that he has a good shot at being the Rethug candidate in ’08. I think that would be bad for the country, but given our appreciation of shallowness, and our easy seduction with good looks, he may have a winning formula to make him the first Mormon to be president. That alone gives me nightmares.

  • In comment 23, I don’t mean to imply that the most-likely to lose Repulican isn’t the scariest (and I do think McCain is pretty weak) but I just mean that the most likely to lose isn’t necessarily the scariest.

    I think what I meant to say here is that I don’t mean to imply that the most-scary candidate is the most likely to lose, but just suggest thatwe have to think of whether the least-scary candidates are or are not also the least-likely to win before we decide to hope for one of them.

  • Given the odds against the Gop winning, I’d say the scariest would be W choking on an olive in the next few months. Enough time for Cheney to nuke Iran and tell the rest of the world to go fornicate itself.

  • It’s a shame the country and the GOP in particular has sunk to such low levels that people like these would even be candidates for President. None of them are even close to being viable candidates and if this is all we have to run our country we are in deep dodo.
    Truly viable people with integrity and strong convictions and a good moral compass are prevented from running by the very process we use to select our leaders. Candidates should not have to spend all their time pandering for campaign contributions.

    We would get the best candidates by taking profits out of campaigning, free air time, 16wk campaigns, and a tax to cover public financing. Taking the money and profits out of campaigns would bring us real candidates not just special interest indebted wealthy people.

    $30 million for a Senate campaign in California, Senators must get $5million a yr to run to keep their seats, so how are they to deal with legislating with this hanging over their heads. How are they to avoid special interests and still come up with that kind of money.

    It’s up to the American public to free our representatives from election profiteers. Public financing of campaigns is the only way to drive corruption out of government.

  • I had a whole heartfelt spiel to type in here until I read the above from bjobotts. Bjobotts said it all.

  • Giuliani, his rhetoric lately has frankly scared the shit out of me.

    I’m still shaking my head about McCain, while I didn’t agree with him on too many things, he used to be a straight forward guy and I respected that. Now, he’s…well I dunno what he is, but he’s not the McCain, I used to respect.

  • I have to go with Rudy Giuliani. I now live in NYC, and in 2001 I lived in Hoboken. The very fact that a man whose incompetence caused the deaths of so many firefighters makes political hay of the tragedy makes him a despicable human being and unworthy to be president. Then there’s the affinity for faschism, and racism displayed in his rein of terror in nyc. His entire rep is built on not hiding or losing his head for a few days in Sept. 2001. Big damn deal. America’s Mayor my ass. I have nightmares about what he would try if elected. However he won’t be-the religious conservatives will never vote for a guy like him, and the core bigots of the republican party are not putting an Italian in the White House.

  • …and his most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else.

    Biggest laugh of the day so far. Thanks. 😉

  • Sam “Keep ’em barefoot and pregnant” Brownback is scarier than these guys because of his fervid opposition to women’s rights and his sheer political imcompetence. We’re ashamed to have him associated with Kansas.

  • Tough call. Reminds me of the quote by Winston Churchill speaking of a political opponent. “He is a modest man, who has much to be modest about”. The problem we have in DC is that all you can see are politicians. You will see very few, if any, leaders. All they do now is sacrifce every shred of integrity in hopes of getting elected. Romney shares only one quality – ambition. Beyond that he doesn’t know who or what he is. Not long ago I felt McCain was a truth teller. Now he’s an ass-kisser and may be the saddest of all candidates. Giuliani on the stumpmakes W look tame. As a politician, Fred is an average actor. All in all, a sorry lot.

  • Romney is the most scary, for all the reasons that Josh Marshall brought up. And for the reason that he is a Mormon. Before you call me a religious bigot, John Kennedy could go before the Baptists in 1960 and say that “On issues of policy, the Pope does not speak for me.” No Mormon can say that and not be excommunicated. Their “pope” (the current “Prophet”) does in fact speak for all Mormons on all issues, and any Mormon who refuses to carry out any directive of the Prophet will be excommunicated. The religion is a theocracy! Some Baptists might be theocrats, some members of other religions may be theocrats, but the religion itself is not theocratic. The. Mormons. Are. Theocrats. And their religion calls on them to impose their will on the “gentiles.”

    Anyone who thinks the droolers of the Republi-Klan party won’t believe that Romney has had a “born again” experience and now deeply believes anything he now says that is in opposition to his lifelong record of belief and actions, probably believes the sun rises in the west.

    Put this guy in office – with his “shoulders you can land a 767 on” – as Dear Leader of the wannabee brownshirts of the Republi-Klans, and the result will make us think as well of Bush as Bush makes people think well of Nixon.

    A man who will say anything to get in office will do anything once he’s there.

  • Hillary Clinton is every bit as scary as any of these Republicans. She voted for the war in Iraq, would keep troops there and would torture. She would also do everything in her power to help the corporations and rich people in general.

  • Easier to pick the “least scary” than the “scariest.” I’d have to go with Fred Thompson as least scary: he was a protege of centrist Howard Baker before becoming a seeming rational counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. He didn’t seem to be a firebrand for any particular cause or extreme view while a Senator, tho’ my not noticing him through those years doesn’t mean he doesn’t harbor such inclinations. As President, I’d expect him to bring a more collegial, legislative approach over the bombast of a neo-con executive.

    Rudy Giuliani, on the other hand, would be a disaster for equal rights and minorities, worker’s rights, and hasn’t the personality qualities of steadiness and empathy needed by an adult. He’d be scary for all the reasons our New York friends, above, point out.

  • Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the ugliest of us all?

    As far as I’m concerned, for all their — superficial — differences, they all came from the same pea-pod and they all carry the same — mutant — DNA.

  • Mitt Romney held Massachusetts towns and residents “hostage” from much needed state funds. If you wish to be held hostage like we our now than vote Romney, the true red meat flip-flop from one minute to the next.

    Hell my toilet paper role doesn’t change as fast as he does.

    I trust my dog more than him.

    NADA Republicans, return all to senders. No thank you!!!!!!

    Thanks
    Jessie James (woof, woof)

  • My choice is Fred Thompson. He SHOULD be least scary, but I figure Job # 1 (as well as 2 – 48) for any new president will be cleaning up Bush’s wreckage during his entire first term. Thompson is the new “Obama” of the right, but actually getting the job done may be beyond him — and the “job” won’t wait.

  • They all scare me but having lived in MA for a few years while Romney was running and GOV.- He scares the hell out of me. More than Thompson or Cheney do!! People should also remember that Guiliani is and has always been a bully.

  • …first time comment at this site 🙂

    …Have been slowly warming up to the idea of enduring another “Who Wants To Be The Next American President?” contest in 2008. Far too early to commence the “process” in early 2007.

    One must conclude doing so is much more about making more profits off the American political system whether that be as a political consultant,advisor or media venue.

    The GOP surely is providing the gags and gaglines at this point.

    I agree with the GOP candidates summary above.

    My two cents worth?

    Sort of like picking whether to be stranded in a big patch of nettles,poison ivy or bull thistles. You will surely wish you had more choices.

    If I were making some sort of 1950’s styled ‘monster/creature’ Grade B flick I would surely give this cast of wannabes all roles that end with the monster/creature getting them because someone told them to stay and keep a watch while they go get help. A favorite script ploy used often in order to reduce the payroll and create some cheap suspense/fright thrills early on at the same time.

    It is damn certain this is no way to select/elect the leader of this planets biggest troublemaking/bullying militarism nation.

    See G.W.Bush/2000 election.

    Sheesh.

    Aiyyeee!!

    Run!…RUN!!!….FLEE!!!!

  • Like kids around the campfire, we are trying to scare ourselves silly…

    so you want to think about something REALLY scary.???.
    Jeb Bush after 08.

  • Thompson is the new ‘dutch’. This is who they will package as the everyman. I am surprised that KkKarl hasn’t organized the next GOP selection process like Idol. Ask them outrageous questions and see how they react. Marketing for a new generation of voter.

  • Terrorist and those seeking the destruction of the USA fear most republicans. These guys are not very conservative. Pat the-Mexicans-are-coming was the last conservative to run for President.

    Bill Clinton had no choice but to support the popular Gingrich Congress’s Tax Cuts and Balanced Budget. Clinton said in 1993, I’ve worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life” and I can see nothing but red ink until 2008, 2006, 2010…. He couldn’t make up his mind. Anyway, we’re better of with a weak democrat president and a strong conservative Congress. The leftist media has become less of a factor as educated voters turn to conservative news sources (free entertainment included).

  • “The most genuinely scary Republican presidential candidate” isn’t even a Republican; it’s a Democrat—any Democrat—who would dismiss this cadre of stooges; this “Larry, Curly, Moe, and Shemp” collection of intellectually-challenged wombats as unelectable. Germany—and all of the world, for that matter, save a few thuggish misfits parading around with “crooked crosses” on their sleeves and torches in their hands—dismissed even the very idea that a little Austrian corporal from the Great War with a rather comical moustache would become Chancellor of Germany. 12 years later, many of Europe’s greatest cities were in ruins, and the death-toll was in the tens of millions.

    All without “the scary little man” having so much as a single atomic weapon.

    If Dems promote ridicule over genuine, articulated alarm in terms that the People will embrace, then the next “scary little man” will have in his possession several thousand nuclear weapons, and the casual willingness to use those weapons for nothing more than political gain, and with no regard whatsoever as to the consequences of their unjustifiable use….

  • I call Romney the “hollow”graph man. All image ,no substance.
    Watching these guys (republicans) at the debates rates like a B movie with Romney being the biggest ham.

  • — Presumably whoever ends up getting the GOP Nomination will be vetted by, and answerable to, the same folks Bush is the sock-puppet for. And each of the four has signaled his willingness to say/do whatever they’re told to.
    Therefore, four way tie, and it doesn’t really matter.

  • Perhaps the scary Republican is the Democrats’ ticket to retaking the White House in ’08.

    I personally would love to see an organized effort to get Progressives to reregister to vote as Republicans for the ’08 primary season and vote for a single, agreed upon wingnut.

    Face it, there really is no choice. We all know that we are going to vote for the Democrat in November regardless of who the nominee is. So, why not try and produce the candidate that the “independents” find so distasteful that they feel compelled to vote for the Democrat?

    I think we should try and hound sites like moveon.org, and true majority to poll those that regularly particpate in the action alerts regarding this idea. If there is enough interest and a single candidate is identified — such as Tancredo or Brownback — then an action alert should be sufficient to get a large number of people to switch parties. How many would be needed to impact 2/5/08? I don’t know. But, who knows what kind of impact this can have if we don’t try?

    I for one cannot stomach the idea of another Republican adminstration. I feel we need to play as dirty as the Republicans in order to win.

  • Don’t start talking about any of the Republican candidates not being electable.

    After all, a bumbling, disaster of a Texas governor managed to get elected President. TWICE!

    You can fool all the people all the time, after all!

  • I personally would love to see an organized effort to get Progressives to reregister to vote as Republicans for the ‘08 primary season and vote for a single, agreed upon wingnut. — David, @53

    It would be easy for me to vote in Repub primary — Virginia doesn’t require political registration. And I might, the same as I voted in the Repub primary (State Senate) a couple of weeks ago. Dems had only one candidate for my district and I’ll vote for him in November but the Repubs had the bad one (incumbent) challenged by a terrible one, so… My district is so red, the Dem has almost no chance at all, so I voted for the lesser evil (the incumbent).

    But a lot would depend on what the situation is like in February. If there’s any chance that my primaries vote might make a difference in the choice of the *Dem* candidate, then I’ll vote in the Dem primary. If it’s really a foregone conclusion, then, indeed, I’ll vote in the Repub primary — for the nuttiest of nuts (as un-electable as I can make it)

  • I find Fred Thompson to be the out-and-out scariest, since I believe he has the best chance among all the Republican candidates to win the general election. Too many Americans are star-struck beyond their ability to think clearly or to reason; just look at the walking joke they elected governor out in California.

  • Gosh the scariest republican,

    What a controversial topic, why not make it the republican most like Hitler, god you libs are so predictable, why not address the logic behind, why McCain, Obama and Clinton chose to abstain on the initial vote on the Kennedy bill on amnesty, and why should they be allowed anywhere near the presidency if they cannot be bothered to make a hard decision…….

  • Remember the Martin Sheen character in “The Dead Zone”? If only Christopher Walken were still alive to stop Giuliani!

  • Romney by far. He has been profligate in his convienient changes on various issues, so who knows who we would get. Nothing good can come from his candidacy but I fear that of the top tier republicans, he has the best machine, money, and marketing. America maybe tired of Bush, but I’m afraid Romney may be successful in marketing himself as the UnBush. Giuliani I think will implode–there is too much dirt that is waiting in the wings to come out. McCain is on the decline already and Thompson is allegedly too lazy.

  • This is all if we have another election- all this idiot president has to do is make himself Supreme leader- at that point we should all take an extended vacation- but anyway

    Guilani- mafia chief- they might be better than this Mafia?
    Rommney- another secretive religious fanatic
    Mc Cain- dead and has been taken over by demons
    Thompson- sold his soul for money- maybe a kook?

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