PostHeaderIcon The Great Debate

I watched the so-called “second tier” GOP presidential candidates debate last evening and was somewhat pleasantly surprised.

The so-called “first tier” crowd quite frankly contains nobody I would travel all the way to the polls to vote for. But part of this crew were different. Ex senator Santorum is a standard political hack and it showed. He has obvious appeal to the christian right portion of the GOP but his bible pounding totally turns off too many of the independents who determine the outcomes of modern elections (especially me). Ex governor Pawlenty gave a few good answers but dodged too many of the questions for my taste.

Herman Cain, Ron Paul and Gary Johnston all gave consistently straight answers to virtually all of the questions asked, including a few that seemed intended to trip them up. While more exposure might turn me off to one or more of this trio, for the moment I find them all acceptable candidates that I could actually support.

As for the first tier crowd, The Donald is providing some genuine entertainment and I thank him for that but he is in no way presidential material. Mike Huckabee is a personable fellow but is far too liberal and is another bible pounder. Newt Gingrich (CFR) and Mitt Romney are establishment types that I would not trust to walk my dog. Sarah and Michelle have little serious chance because the establishment GOP will destroy them if they seem to be making gains (they will try to do the same with Cain, Paul and Johnston but these three attract a following that is more immune to the influence of the establishment – particularly the Libertarians).

Of course, if you look at the candidates in terms of who might have the best odds of beating Obama, then you would have to look to one of the establishment candidates who, if actually elected, could be guaranteed to follow exactly the same path trod by Clinton, Bush II and Obama.

Troy L Robinson

2 Responses to “The Great Debate”

  • Well said. My impression was that Johnson is not ready for the path to the presidency. He’ll just fail to connect to either the public or the media. Cain started off well enough, but I get the impression that he can’t make a decision without consulting both his law book and his bible and thinking and praying about it for a week or two. Both duds in my opinion, but Cain should be interesting to have around while he lasts.

    Ron Paul took advantage of not having a bunch of the first-tier media savvy hacks around. He did well, but we will see how he does when everyone is hungry for a sound byte. Sooner or later, being right all the time should pay off for him.

    I actually think Trump might be running the smartest campaign so far, though it is a big gamble. He’s playing by a whole different rulebook and I’ll be interested to see how it goes for him.

    I’m hoping Mitch Daniels throws his hat in the ring too. We could do much worse.

    • Troy says:

      I have another problem with Herman Cain that I did not express in the original blog — he was once on the board of the Federal Reserve which I consider the epicenter of our fiscal woes.

      Governor Daniels seems to have been an effective governor of Indiana. He is a bit “Jesus” for my tastes but, given the current state of the U.S., that is something we have to live with.

      I thought Governor Johnston might have done a better job had the panel asking the questions not ignored him (and/or failed to ask him meaningful questions). I got the impression that the panel was intentionally creating a platform that elevated some of the candidates while diminishing others. Even if they were favoring candidates I like, this is too bad because more and more, FOX News seems to be abandoning “fair and balanced” in favor of becoming just another propaganda machine.

      Indeed, some of the FOX News people are becoming pseudo progressives. For instance, O’Reilly constantly harping about greedy oil companies RE the cost of fuel with nary a word about the devaluation of the dollar caused by the Fed. Thank goodness, FOX Business still has a few rational commentators.

      Thanks for responding.

      Troy

Leave a Reply

Political Spectrum
Political Circle

Think Up/Down not Left/Right

Archives
Blogroll
Internal Links