Sunday Discussion Group

July 15, 2007

A month ago, we had a terrific discussion, with a number of fascinating insights, exploring which of the Republicans presidential hopefuls is the “most genuinely scary.” Today, I thought we’d consider the inverse.

Whenever I consider the Republican field in the abstract, I’m amazed. “One of these guys,” I think to myself, “is going to be the GOP nominee next year. There’s a chance that one of them will take the oath of office in January 2009.” This is usually accompanied by the beginnings of a cold sweat. Josh Marshall recently 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.

It got me wondering, though, who is the least scary candidate in the GOP field? Under no circumstances would I vote for any of them, but if I had to pick one of them, who’s the least offensive choice? Who, in other words, is the best of the worst?

What got me thinking about this was an item the other day from M.J. Rosenberg, who wrote a piece suggesting Romney is the least-bad.

He is smart (he was an incredibly successful businessman). He was, for a Republican, not a terrible governor and the Kennedy-Romney health care plan is better than most states have.

He is a flip-flopper. To me that means he does not believe the rightwing garbage he puts out with such abandon. Am I really to believe that he used to be accepting of gays but, with time, learned to be a bigot? Or that he used to be pro-choice but stem cell research (stem cell research!) made him favor back alley abortions? Or that a guy who never fired a gun in his life is now a die-hard gun nut.

Nope. I don’t believe it. I think he is lying through his teeth to get the GOP nomination and that, as President, could well flip flop again…. It’s a scary thought but compared to Presidents Giuliani, McCain, Brownback or any of the others, Romney is only half a nightmare.

Maybe you’d find this persuasive, maybe not, but given the current field, it’s slim pickings.

As far as I can tell, these are the possible up-sides to the various candidates:

* John McCain — He’s not that bad on campaign-finance reform.

* Rudy Giuliani — If he chose to govern based on his actual beliefs, he’s moderate on a handful of social issues (abortion and gay rights).

* Mitt Romney — See above.

* Fred Thompson — He might be too lazy to actually try to do anything too damaging.

* Sam Brownback — He’s not bad on Darfur.

* Mike Huckabee — He once showed a semblance of fiscal responsibility by raising taxes in Arkansas.

* Ron Paul — He’d probably withdraw troops from Iraq.

* Tommy Thompson, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo — Um, give me a minute…. I’m sure I’ll think of something….

Obviously, we know all the reasons why these men would all make awful presidents. Equally obvious, at least to me, is the fact that the nation desperately needs to elect a Dem in 2008.

But this is just for the sake of discussion. Of the bad, who’s the least bad?

I haven’t focused on any of the candidates outside of the big ones, but I’d guess it’s probably one who isn’t one of the big ones. All their major people are just like Bush, except not as bad. That’s why I can appreciate this, although I’m not old enough and haven’t been following politics closely enough to have as much an opinion on it:

“never seen a presidential cycle when the Republican field looks more feeble, dispirited and generally languid than this year.”

  • A good discussion topic, and something I’ve been mulling.

    Romney–I’m from Massachusetts, and though I’ve seen enough already, thanks, he indeed may be the only marginally tolerable one. However, in his case we’d have to pay great attention to the *vice president*, since Willard gets bored easily and pretty quickly stops doing his job to pursue his next whim. As a nominee he’s the most scary because he could win; as winner, he’s someone we probably could survive.

    Ron Paul–at least he’s honest and brave enough to say what he believes, even in public. I’m not sure that his more extreme positions could gain traction–Bush got as much done only because of his legacy team and the NAC crew, who already had done most of the work.

    The rest of them are the evil of many lessers:
    Maybe the McCain of six years ago, not this one.
    Giuliani has lost his mind and retained only his ego (and viciousness).
    Thompson–Would we have to move the White House to K Street?
    Brownshirt, er, Brownback, Huckabee and both of the TTs–fuggedaboudit.

  • I hope that one of the lessons Democrats have learned is “Better the devil you know. . .” Bush came in with a reputation of reaching across the aisle, of being a uniter rather than a divider, and picked up some non-hardcore base votes for it, I think, at least in 2000. That didn’t work out too well for us. That is, any thought that McCain, Romney, or Giuiliani wouldn’t be quite as bad as they sound right now, because they’re only pandering to the social conservatives, means taking an enormous risk that they’ll actually be worse.

    This bumps Huckabee to the top of my least-bad list. (Ron Paul, another possibility, might totally destroy the country in four years, given his libertarian views.)

  • This is like talking about the best way to get murdered.

    I agree Romney isn’t a true wingnut, but other than that I got nothin.

    If one of those clowns gets elected by Diebold, I am outta here.

  • I agree with Racer X. But, can the country survive four more years of Republican rule?

  • What continues to amaze me is that anyone cares what a few religious nutcases and NRA gun nuts think. All those people you listed have had some experience with real governing. They got elected and served through real-world processes. They have to know better than to pander to the drooling hillbillies, i.e., to lead traditional Republicans toward something better than race hatred and Jesus-jumping. Yet they all seem to be playing the game of “how low can you go” in their desperate craving for the nomination. It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.

    It certainly says something about what’s become of our political system, though I’m not sure what exactly. They’ve all either read, or behave as if they’ve read, Chapter XVIII of Machiavelli’s The Prince, the one entitled “Concerning The Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith”. There it is argued that a prince must appear to be religious (to keep the boobs happy) but must never succumb to actual religious feelings (and risk losing power). Still, you have to wonder with the GOP: how long can one pander to kookery without becoming a kook oneself?

    I really couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them, though I guess for the sake of discussion I would reluctantly have to go along with your arguments regarding Romney. Based on what evidence we have, he seems to be the least damaged by the process so far … or, rather, his pandering is so blatantly obvious that it can’t possibly be serious. Yet.

    Still, I do wonder about a political system which makes such obvious appeals to our baser natures, one which specializes in playing to our fears (“mushroom cloud”, “fight them here”, “immigrant”), one which just barely avoids using heartfelt words like “nigger” and “queer” (at least in public). I also wonder about a press, a TeeVee punditocracy, which fosters such base appeals, or at least doesn’t expose them for what they are. The phrase “lowest common denominator” comes to mind. Which I guess is appropriate once you realize that highest value American culture has anymore is making a buck in a purely fictional “market economy”.

  • I said in that previous thread that I thought McCain was least scary. I think I still may think that (equivocate much?). His experience alone sets him apart from the others. On the other hand, he has a famous temper and would be the oldest president ever elected.

    I’m starting to move toward Romney as least scary now. He has executive experience and I don’t see him doing anything too crazy (unless he make campaign promises to big money or big religion interests and they hold him to those promises). He is a say anything kinda guy, however.

  • Last time we did this, I suggested a useful way to answer this type of thing that would focus us in a useful way would be, who is the Republican we are most likely to beat. If anyone looked at my above comments and feels gypped because you wanted to see my opinion on who is the weakest, in terms of being the chump that we are going to be able to beat, I’m sorry. But I am not going to sharpen that inquiry unless its result is going to be kept mum as long as possible by those who would implement it. For all I know, this website might be checked out by a bunch of corny, suit-wearing, Frank Luntz and Karl Rove wannabe young Republicans who got jobs for the party, the candidates, or big Republican organizations and actually have the candidates’ or their consultants’ ears on these types of things. From what I’ve seen, our response v. their response in that type of situation would tend to be like this: Dem: “Well, I can see that we have all mostly decided to form our opinions of x as the weakest candidate, and there are some great arguments why y is the weakest canidate, but I tend to want to have myself distinguished as having the right answer no one else has, so I am not going to come to pasture to implement this for weeks until I have prevariacated about this for a while.” Rep: like a running-back unopposed towards the end-zone with the ball, after the Repubs quickly formulate a sensible answer to the question of who their weakest adversary will be.

    I could think up the greatest argument in the world as to why one of their candidates would be really weak, and if I was really right, I bet our people who make all the decisions will still be debating this for weeks, and (if my answer was really right and my reasoning really compelling) some rightwing moron, or three or four or five, would latch onto it and spread it around and they’d totally be working on it way before we would because would all be busy working through our personalities and thinking about idle shit.

  • Since we are dreaming…
    Ron Paul strictly for the entertainment value and the assumption he only lasts one term. This will, of course, have to be balanced by a veto proof Democratic House and Senate that has (miraculously) developed the balls to stand up to the President and the right wing spin machine.
    One can dream.

  • My entire life there has never been any candidate from any party who has even come close to reflecting anything resembling my views on just about anything. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. The result, depending on my reserves at the moment, range from feelings of total alienation to merely having very low expectations.

    If Kucinich ran against Paul with Jerry Brown, Hagel, Fiengold, and Ralph Nader all running as independents – then I would feel embraced by the political culture and this country we live in.

    None of this will happen of course, so it’s back to the same old game of trying to figure out which cookie-cutter, non-person, co-opted, inane, say-nothing, think-nothing, same old same old, myopic, unimaginative, cowardly, unethical, self-serving candidate will be the “most” honest and do the “less” damage to humanity and the world.

    It’s been said we get the government we deserve. If that’s true – we must be a miserable lot indeed.

    The least scary Republican candidate – Paul.

  • I meant to mention in my previous post that the VP choice by whoever ends up getting the nomination will be very revealing and probably a make-or-break decision. Would the choice be someone more moderate or less moderate than the ultimate presidential nominee? My guess would be less moderate, unless the nominee is Grigrich (shudder), and would signal how the party wants to move in the future.

  • I can’t buy that Romney is the least scary…. He is now beholdent to the crowd that is sending him money based on his extreme right agenda… I think he would stick to the agenda even if he didn’t believe in it. Tommy Thompson would be my pick…. if the presidentcy thing didn’t work out he could always sell used cars…it would be nice to have a president who could bring in a little money on the side.

  • Ron Paul is definitely not the least scary Republican candidate, because of that racist stuff he supposedly said.

  • Unable to simply ID one individual, I thought I’d list 10 attributes a “least scary” Republican candidate might display. Around #4, I decided the question was similar to “preferred method of death” with “in my sleep” not an option. Around #6, I realized I was fighting the last war. After #9 I concluded my approach was futile and punted on #10. For what it’s worth…

    1. The person least likely to be controlled by radicals in the party from behind the scenes.
    2. The person most likely to infuriate the evangelical right.
    3. The person who best appreciates why there are 3 branches of government.
    4. The person least likely to cultivate fear in order to consolidate or maintain power.
    5. The least skillful propagandist — preferably, one with an obvious tell.
    6. The person most likely to protect individual rights, and reverse current infringements.
    7. The person who best understands that talking to adversaries is not a weakness.
    8. The person least threatened by science.
    9. The person who understands that there are about 6,602,224,175 (current world population) reasons why world domination is not a desirable nor sustainable goal
    10. The person most likely to lose the Republican Party nomination.

  • Okay, slightly off topic, but just as scary as anything we’ve been discussing above is the article by Bill Kristol in todays Wapo. I’m going to try to link, but I don’t really do this well. If the link doesn’t work, just go to Wapo and select the “most read” articles.
    /www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301709.html?nav=hcmodule

    Anyway, try this link.

  • It’s the Constitution, stupid.

    In my less than humble opinion, Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who takes the Constitution literally and would literally preserve, protect, and defend said document. P.S. The Republican establishment is in a frenzy trying to exclude Ron Paul from further debates (even though he has surpassed Baghdad John in fundraising) — reminds me of a post from earlier this week about a few Dems trying to limit the choices of the American People.

    And, again in my less than humble opinion, there is scarcely any leadership from the Democratic candidates on upholding the document that our Nation was founded upon, except for Kucinich and Gravel.

    But I don’t think it makes much of a difference anyway, considering the Constitution was voided by King George and the Dick-tator and their Court of Loyal Bushie Brownshi(r)ts. So I’d be surprised to see legitimate elections come 2008.

  • Okey dokey, well, THAT didn’t link didn’t work.

    Just go to the site and read the article. Words of warning, don’t read it on a full stomach.

  • What disturbs me most about this discussion is that it implicitly evidences misgivings and uneasiness about the quality and strength of the Democratic candidates. If the Dems had a strong candidate would we be discussing the least of the Republican evils?

    Most of us have been voting almost our entire lives for the candidates we disliked the least, and that may be the case again in ’08, but we’re settling early aren’t we. Our political system is thoroughly degraded, much as the country has been dumbed down by laziness, a disdain for education, and three decades, at least, of anti-intellectualism triumphant. We are reaping the harvest of lowered expectations, and it is a rich harvest indeed.

    Having said that, McCain, Guiliani, and Brownback are beyond the pale, and only the first two really have any shot to begin with, although I suspect McCain will be out by Labor Day or Columbus Day. Thompson is a flash in the pan, although a seemingly bright one at the moment, and would be a dreadful president. Laziness in a president empowers others to make messes. Witness the boy-czar, and his Rasputin. Huckabee and Romney have been governors, and have some sense of the tension between the legislative and executive branches, although Romney (I’m from Massachusetts) ignored the legislature for four years. His every move was seen through a lens aimed at a national platform not the needs of the Bay State. The legislature ignored him back and promptly overrode ALL his vetos. A Democratic Congress and a feckless Romney are a recipe for more gridlock, which would benefit only the rich and corporate America. That is bad.

    A pretty face, lots of money and corporate support could probably be enough to hand us empty-suit-Romney as the latest stooge for corporate interests pretending to lead. A woman, a black man, a Mormon, a fascist Catholic, a righwing religious wingnut, and a senile militarist give everyone something to vote against, although being black or female is of no concern to me it is of great concern to many in the hinterlands of the homeland. I agree Romney may be the least of the evils, but what a risk, and what a statement, yet again, about the sad state of this country.

  • There is no way anyone of these guys could govern responsibly. They are (or would be) after all, beholden to the most
    corrupt organization on earth: the RNC (Repugnant Nut Cases).

    This from a lifelong Republican (who has never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, so I’m not a troll). My first
    vote for President was cast for George McGovern. To me it doesn’t matter what party I belong to, it’s a matter of voting
    responsibly. In more than thirty-five years worth of votes I have voted for a mere handful of Republicans, the last being Ed
    Brooke. Had I lived a little further south I’d have gladly cast a vote for Lowell Weichart. That changed permanently with
    the ascent of the religious right into politics, Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, et al.

    I maintain my affiliation as a tribute to my grandparents, who were active in local, state and national party organization
    during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. They believed they were working for the party of Lincoln. While they generally believed that
    Roosevelt had the right idea, they thought he did a diservice to the Constitution and took short cuts with governance.
    They thought Dewey was without ties to the Tom Prendergasts that haunted the Democrats in the Truman era. After my
    grandfather passed away my grandmother went to the 1952 convention and cast her vote for Eisenhower. She felt that Stephenson
    was an honorable, intelligent man albeit naive in dealing with Stalin and therefore not the best man for the job. Twenty
    years later she voted for McGovern saying Nixon was an ego-maniac with a lust for power, who while capable would consistently
    do what was good for himself, not necessarily the country. She always voted a split ticket choosing who she believed to be
    the best candidate. I have nothing but respect for that kind of thinking and will continue to work to regain sanity in this
    now god-forsaken party. Damnit, I believe in a two party system (checks and balances) but not when the other party is run by
    corrupt, hypocritic ideologues.

    I cannot in good conscience forsee voting for any Replublican candidate in the near future. Indeed, best of the worst.

  • The way I look at the Republican nominees: which one would be the best fodder for Stewart and Colbert?

    My nominee, therefore, is Guiliani. He was a clown as mayor and would be a clown as president. On top of that, he has a nasty habit of being visibly corrupt and could probably be impeached easily.

  • To me the question is answered by consideration of three criteria:

    1) Who takes governing most seriously?

    2) Who understands and venerates the Constitution and our best governance traditions?

    3) Who is least dogmatic and partisan and has shown good judgment?

    Oddly, this leads me to the conclusion that Huckabee–a relatively successful governor who was willing on occasion to go against the Norquistian fanatics when he thought his state’s interests dictated raising taxes–would be the least awful of the Republican nominees.

    I’m tempted to say that McCain would be relatively okay–on campaign finance reform and military procurement he’s been solid through his career, and at times he’s shown a sense of fiscal responsibility–but his judgment on Iraq has been shown to be awful.

    Romney does okay by my criteria… but I just find his opportunism too repulsive to countenance, and if his all-time-moronic “double Gitmo” comment was sincere, he’s truly an idiot as well.

    Giuliani is the scariest by far. I think he’s legitimately mentally ill, and his view of the “unitary executive” could make Bush look like James Buchanan. Il Rudi’s “social liberalism” is a sideshow; he’ll be more dogmatic on the Norquist issues than any other Republican in the field.

  • I’d like to see Ghouliani get the nod…

    I’d love to see southern state republicans gulp thier bile and vote for a two-timing Northeastern crossdresser with the family values of a hungry crocodile…

    That should be a wonderfuly humbling moment for them.

    On the other hand…

    I think great gobs of them will refuse to be humbled and surrender yet again to the north.

    The disenfranchisement of the south’s angry whilte males would be the greatest thing that could possibly happen in 2008.

    I am going to be registering as a repug just so I can vote in the primary!
    Go Ghouliani!

  • I have actually been thinking of moving to some Central American country when I start collecting Social Security for the value of lower cost of living and the presence of a national health system. Right now, the most likely candidate is Belize since it’s a British colony and therefore also has the British rule of law and basic civility – global warming and hurricanes do figure in so I haven’t made a decision yet.

    If one of these guys gets in, and there aren’t 62 real Democrats (i.e., not counting Holy Joe in the mix) in the Senate and a 2/3 majority of Democrats in the House, then I will be on my way earlier than planned.

    They’re all scary. Romney is the scariest because he really will say or do anything – the guy is a weather vane of non-character. Thompson is a lazy asshole who would also do anything. Guiliani is a fascist nut case. John McCain is just crazy. Ron Paul is a libertarian idiot. Brownback and Huckabee are religious right nuts and theocrats. The rest are the kind of candidate that make you say to yourself “where are you when we really need you, Lee Harvey Oswald?” In fact, you can say that about the whole bunch of these scummy assholes.

    My family has been here for 337 years. It really pisses me off to think of leaving. I won’t go until the results are in and I am going to work my ass off to defeat whichever one of these traitors to the Constitution gets nominated.

    In fact, that’s my advice: make sure we don’t have to make this choice of “who’s least awful.” Run the futhermuckers back under their rocks for the next 50 years, like we did in 1932!!

  • Are we that disappointed with the Democratic candidates that we have to settle for the ‘least offensive’ Republican (again)? ROTFLMLiberalAO made a good point, maybe we need to change our affiliation for the primaries and vote for some of the wackier ones on the Republican ticket, that way ensuring a win for the Democratic party.

    I’m registered as an independent, and since I’m not considering ever running for a political office, I don’t care if someone labels me as a ‘flip-flopper’ when switching party affiliation.

    Has anybody thought about the possibility of Cheney resigning for ‘health reasons’ sometime in the spring of 2008? That way the republicans will steal the thunder from the Democratic candidates’ sails for a few months, while the major networks, and news papers droul over all the potential Vice-Presidential nominees who have to be run through the Senate for confirmation. Nothing like a a little boost for the Republicans when it comes to name recognition and having the bully pulpit from the Vice President’s position.

    Just a thought, and given what they’ve done to our country so far, I wouldn’t put it past them, after all it is less damaging than some of the stuff they’ve already done.

  • The only one who would get us out of Iraq is Ron Paul. All the rest are already bought and paid for. Romney would probably rule more like Reagan. I just cannot stomach the idea of any of these as president. I do believe though that Romney will win the nomination as he is the least offensive to the varying factions of the Republican party.

  • Huckabee! He’s a cool guy, and presidents don’t set science curricula.

    But, as a Democrat, my dream GOP ticket has to be Romney-Gingrich. Romney may be smart, but he’s also addicted to the taste of his own foot. And he’s a passive cluck, while Gingrich is an egomaniac attention hound. The two of them would put on a comedy that would bring an extra half dozen states into the Democratic column.

  • McCain is the least Bush-like, which would make him un-scary, except for that he’s got a lot of potential to continue or extend war. Also his schilliness (also called ho’ie-ness) makes him kind of scary.

  • I’m bettin the % of the pop. that is Republican is way higher in Belize than in the US.

  • At the risk of simply repeating some points made above:
    My gut reaction to this post was: (1) Why are we even bothering to have this discussion? It is too depressing for words. I would have much preferred to talk about something uplifting and constructive like how best to get our elected representatives to watch and take to heart the Bill Moyers Journal discussion of impeachment that was broadcast (at least in the Seattle area) this past Friday.

    I have to admit I have not studied the GOP field too closely. But, Mitt Romney handed me my most palpable “Be afraid, be very afraid!” moment of the campaign so far. His “I would double Gitmo!” proclaimation at one the Republican debates revealed him to me as an opportunist without any moral center other than gaining opportunity for himself – and not a very bright opportunist at that. Who the hell does that remind me of? That people find his obvious lying, policy contortions, and “ain’t I cute” slams of his Massachusetts electorate reasons to think he is less scary or maybe “tolerable/survivable” is baffling to me. I think he is a big helping of “more of the same.”

    Other than my recoiling from the notion that Romney is the least frightening of the bunch, I cannot bring myself to go further. This is a bridge I will never cross for purposes of making a decision in the voting booth. If I find myself confronted by one of these goons in possession of the Oval Office, I will then have to decide how to soldier on through his term.

  • This reminds me of when I tried to look on the “bright” side of the prospect of electing George Bush, back in the summer of 2000, when mainstream news outlets decided they hated Al Gore.

    There is no bright side to electing a Republican. Ever.

  • phoebes,

    Use the string below and replace x, y, URL and TEXT according to the key below the string.

    STRING = xa href=”URL“yTEXTx/ay

    x = “less than symbol”

    URL = http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/ (for example, and don’t forget the quote marks in the string)

    y = “greater than symbol”

    TEXT = words that describe the link

    x = “less than symbol”

    y = “greater than symbol”

  • 13 re: Willard
    “He is now beholden to the crowd that is sending him money based on his extreme right agenda… I think he would stick to the agenda even if he didn’t believe in it.”

    This is not a fellow who stays bought. He’ll say anything he thinks will get him money and votes, and then does whatever he chooses. He’s Bush-like in his my-way-or-the-highway and his I-know-best-you’re-just-peons positions.

  • Phoebes (#23)

    Here’s the basic code (stuff you type in your comment) to create a link:

    <a href="url">Text to be displayed</a>

    It’s basically the text you want displayed, with “anchor tag” brackets in front containing the URL (universal resource locator) of what you’re linking to, and brackets behind which close the anchor tag.

    If you want to link to The Carpetbagger Report the code would be

    <a href="http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/">Carpetbagger</a&gt;

    which would appear as Carpetbagger

    There are all kinds of descriptions of HTML (name of the code) on the web, e.g., here. BTW, HREF stands for “Hypertext REFernece”, and HTML stands for “Hypertext Markup Language”. Hope this helps.

  • Ed, thanks for the simplifying the what I wrote; I couldn’t get the “less than symbol” to display.

  • We also have to wonder who the candidates will pick as a VP. Bush alone is not half as bad as Bush/Cheney.

  • The problem with that Romney analysis is the idea that the Massachussetts liberal positions are the “real” ones, not the bogus ones he adopted for the purpose of getting elected. Plus, that PBS documentary on the Mormons got me scared.

    I have to say that Huckabee seems the least toxic in terms of megalomania and core anti-American tendencies, if you could keep his Christianism in check. Rudy’s a friggin’ Nazi, and we’ve already seen how hard it is to restrict a President who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him.

  • SKNM (#37),

    You have to somehow distort or disable the normal code to make the code you’re trying to teach not be automatically encoded. Make sense? It’s sort of like covering up your email address so the robots can’t collect it and deluge you with spam, e.g., by putting “at” in place of the “@” and assuming the user can figure out how to change it back.

    Entering “&-lt;” (without that hyphen) produces “<” (lesser than, i.e., the left bracket)

    Similarly, “&-gt;” produces “>” (greater than, i.e., the right bracket)

  • On considering any of the current R presidential candidates:
    Too. Scary. For. Words.

    I agree with those who say we need to keep an eye on who the VP nominee would be.

    The biggest thing we need to do in case of an R presidential victory (getting a quesy feeling as I type those words) is to make sure we elect plenty of Dems into the Senate and House (as others have mentioned above).

    Above all, I’m waiting for one or more of the Dem candidates to start speaking the truth – aside from Gravel, who is an entertaining nut. My hope is that Gore will run, but aside from him… my next choice would be Dodd. I guess. There are plenty of Dems who aren’t running that I would support, but oh well.

  • I just want to say that while I do not find him the “least scary” by any stretch (indeed, the whole field is scary), Brownback’s record on international human rights in general, not just Darfur, is pretty good. On North Korea, for example, he’s been pretty far ahead of the pack on pushing good HR packages in Congress.

    Brownback is the ultimate true-believer. Since rightwing Christian theocrats scare me, that’s not usually a good thing. But the thing about being a true believer is that occasionally you will come down on the right (and surprising) sides of certain issues. Brownback takes plenty of extreme right-wing positions knowing he comes off as a loon, but for that same reason he takes some sensible stances knowing that it will piss the right off to high heaven.

  • I tend to agree that Romney is the least bad. Guiliani and McCain are warmongers who scare the hell out of me. Thompson strikes me as a reincarnation of Bush: a lazy idiot with a faux folksy manner. All three of them could be counted on, in different ways, to continue Bush’ task of flushing the Republic down the toilet. Romney’s the least likely of the bunch to do that, IMO.

  • That’s a really tough question. Knowing that either party can win a general election I generally hope that the person who would make the best President gets the nomination from both parties. That’s opposed to hoping for the candidate who can get beaten as those predictions are often faulty. Look at what happened when Jimmy Carter’s people got their wish as to GOP opponent.

    This year it is very hard. Huckabee has had a few reasonable statements for someone I disagree with so much, but it is hard to back someone who questions evolution as he does. A social liberal like Giuliani on paper might be closer to my views, but his authoritarian streak, position on Iraq, and memories of him at the 2004 Republican National Hate Fest (ie convention) make it impossible for me to consider him. There is logic to seeing Romney as the lesser evil, as maybe he doesn’t really mean it when he says he has now become a conservative. It is sort of sad when you have to hope a candidate is now lying, or will flip flop on the issues yet again, in order to consider him.

    Ron Paul serves value in the race of providing some argument to their positions on Iraq and civil liberties, and the realization that he has virtually no chance makes it easier to applaud him for these positions and simply ignore his other positions.

    Incidentally, for those who might be interested in Ron Paul’s views beyond Iraq, I posted the video of a ten minute interview with him at Liberal Values:

    http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=1828

  • CB, one of these days perhaps you can point out a discussion for us spelling out how Libertarianism is so much worse than liberalism or conservatism.

    Socially, libertarianism is MORE progressive than most libertarian Democrats. They seek to legalize prostitution, drugs and gambling so they can be watched, treated and TAXED, Democrats pander and engage in paternalistic protection from ourselves. Thanks, but no thanks, boys.

    Fiscally, they’re more conservative than Republicans. If taxing people is wrong how much WORSE is it to borrow trillions of dollars from us, the US citizens without our express consent? (Other than this borderline futile gesture we do every other November called “voting.”)

    The only problem I’ve had with Libertarianism is a few of them being unable to cope with the idea that some government monopoly is inevitable because some infrastructure cannot be private because redundancy needed to make market forces work would be horrifyingly destructive. (Imagine triple the road capacity so the toll operators can all claim their prices are competitive.)

    All things considered, the Libertarians are not my idea of boogeymen we need to fear.

    That said, as CB has proven in previous posts, Ron Paul is a LINO.

  • CB, one of these days perhaps you can point out a discussion for us spelling out how Libertarianism is so much worse than liberalism or conservatism.

    Socially, libertarianism is MORE progressive than most Democrats. They seek to legalize prostitution, drugs and gambling so they can be watched, treated and TAXED, Democrats pander and engage in paternalistic protection from ourselves. Thanks, but no thanks, boys.

    Fiscally, they’re more conservative than Republicans. If taxing people is wrong how much WORSE is it to borrow trillions of dollars from us, the US citizens without our express consent? (Other than this borderline futile gesture we do every other November called “voting.”)

    The only problem I’ve had with Libertarianism is a few of them being unable to cope with the idea that some government monopoly is inevitable because some infrastructure cannot be private because redundancy needed to make market forces work would be horrifyingly destructive. (Imagine triple the road capacity so the toll operators can all claim their prices are competitive.)

    All things considered, the Libertarians are not my idea of boogeymen we need to fear.

    That said, as CB has proven in previous posts, Ron Paul is a LINO.

  • That’s opposed to hoping for the candidate who can get beaten as those predictions are often faulty.

    Hm, that is a good point. But I think if you look at Clinton v. Dole, Bush v. Kerry, and Bush v. Gore- who won had something to do with who lost, more than just who had the better campaign team to make their formula look great. There is something of the element of a popularity contest in an election, and that is why it’s acknowledge than things like youth consistently provide for a more popular candidate (look at the relative ages of the candidates in the match-ups I listed, or at least the impression of youth/vigor or age they give). That said, I think a good campaign team can take a wide variety of candidates and make them look good.

  • I’d beware Fred Thompson because that same assessment “He might be too lazy to actually try to do anything too damaging”, is what a lot of people applied to Bush in 2000.

    Paul “would withdraw troops from Iraq”. I’d say that puts him at the top of the list for our GOP options, but unfortunately it puts him at the bottom of the list for the GOP. He claims to be a libertarian which means he won’t be a complete hack and will occasionally support progressive policies, like getting out of Iraq. But, you know, libertarians, so YMMV, buyer beware.

  • I came to this a bit late but it’s been interesting to see some of the comments about Huckabee. I’ve tried to watch most of the Republikkkan debates and watch when these a-holes are on MTP or whatever. I have to admit to having some level of respect for Huckabee. He’ll never win, but he seems to have a certain sense of genuineness about him that I like.

    My biggest concern is the fundamentalist Christian part about him but I’ve heard him say a number of times that those are his personal beliefs and that he doesn’t believe that it’s the government’s role to foist that upon citizens. Score.

    I admit to not having researched him in any detail but my gut tells me that he would be the lesser of the available evils and not so quick to trash the Constitution as the other clowns.

    In that respect, I’d probably have to say McCain as well, although he’ll be dust before Huckabee…

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