GOP Candidate Pros and Cons
So the GOP debate is tonight. You picked anyone yet? I hear the Vegas over/under on the number of times Ron Paul gets cut off by a moderator is 7.8. To help everyone understand this year’s crop of candidates, here’s a breakdown of their pros and cons.
Rick Perry
Pros: Texan. Has a signature handgun modeled after the one he used to kill a coyote while he was out jogging.
Cons: We don’t even know if he’s fucking running.
Jon Huntsman Jr.
Pros: Ambassador to China. Used to be in a rock band.
Cons: He’s a Mormon. Mormons creep me out.
Tim Pawlenty
Pros: I haven’t heard anything bad about him?
Cons: Cornbread is more entertaining to listen to than him.
Michelle Bachman
Pro: Super hot. Her crazy eyes say “I will go nuts on your dick.”
Cons: She’s absolutely batshit crazy and completely inarticulate. But you know…tits.
Mitt Romney
Pros: Executive experience. Good speaking skills. Solid charisma. Great genes.
Cons: Healthcare background and/or Mormonism.
Ron Paul
Pros: Consistency of views. Loves to party (probably). Is good at lecturing about Austrian economics.
Cons: No one takes him seriously. Is good at lecturing about Austrian economics.
Newt Gingrich
Pros: Strong moral views.
Cons: Lifestyle completely negates strong moral views.
Herman Cain
Pros: Business experience. Connections with Little Caesar’s (we can drop the deficit by serving discounted pizzas at all White House functions).
Cons: I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever heard him directly answer a question.
Rick Santorum
Pros: Um…he authored the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005?
Cons: Every answer he’s ever given sounds like it came from a “So You Wanna Be a Republican” brochure.
I suppose we’ll know more once the debate is over and some of the “you’re not the real conservative, I am” dust has settled. Can any of them galvanize a divided party into beating Obama in 2012? Maybe. Hopefully the debate will allow us to drop the less articulate (but infuriatingly popular) candidates once everyone realizes they’re idiots. After that, maybe we can have a candid discussion of what our goals should be.
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SPRINGER!
13 years ago at 6:59 pmSPRRRRRRRRRINGER!
13 years ago at 7:01 pmOllllllllllllld Ballgame!
13 years ago at 7:06 pmHerman Cain doesn’t take shit and he called out Bill Clinton back in the day about how he is bad at math.
13 years ago at 7:06 pmI fucking love Cain but he has no political experience…at all. I think he’d make a great VP though,
13 years ago at 12:26 amMormon’s are weird.
13 years ago at 7:08 pm^this
13 years ago at 7:12 pmcue the South Park “dumb dumb dumb dumb” tune
13 years ago at 7:19 pmBut according to South Park, they’re the only ones that get into Heaven.
13 years ago at 2:01 amyou go to heaven for the climate, but hell for the company
13 years ago at 11:02 amI completely agree, a run-off system, or proportional distribution of electoral college votes based on the individual states, would correct the problem. But a change to such a system is no more likely than Ron Paul winning the nomination much less the election. It won’t happen–at least not in time for this election, so knowing that I will, I must, vote for the candidate who has a chance of defeating Obama.
13 years ago at 2:04 pmRon Paul 2012.
13 years ago at 7:11 pmsecond
13 years ago at 7:17 pmWaste your vote on an independent who has absolutely no chance.. 2012
13 years ago at 7:18 pmWe don’t know that he’s going to be independent yet.
13 years ago at 7:25 pmYes we do know. I can personally guarantee that he will never get a Republican nomination.
13 years ago at 8:17 pmI wish Ron Paul had a legitimate chance.
13 years ago at 8:45 pmIt’s not wasting your vote if you’re voting for the candidate that expresses your views most throughly. It’s idiots that think voting for a third party is a waste of a vote that are making this country go down the wrong path. Don’t vote for someone because it looks like they’ll win and you can hop on the bandwagon, vote for the person based on their views, whether they have a good chance or not.
13 years ago at 12:44 am^ This.
13 years ago at 12:54 amSure, you can have that view, vote for the conservative independent candidate, “essentially” waste your vote, be partially responsible for the reelection of Obama by splitting the conservative vote, and create a perceived legitimacy for his pseudo-socialist agenda.
Or, you could vote for the candidate who is capable of beating Obama and put the needs of America above your own desire to vote for the (losing) candidate “that expresses your views most thoroughly.”
I am not saying don’t support them in the primary. By all means, do. But following the nomination, we need EVERYONE on board with the GOP candidate (Rick Perry) rather than asking themselves and others, “Who is Ron Paul?”
13 years ago at 8:58 amIt’s shit like this that makes me think America honestly needs a runoff electoral system. At the very least it would stop Republicans and Democrats from bitching about Ross Perot and Ralph Nader respectively.
13 years ago at 10:02 amI completely agree, a run-off system, or proportional distribution of electoral college votes based on the individual states, would correct the problem. But a change to such a system is no more likely than Ron Paul winning the nomination much less the election. It won’t happen–at least not in time for this election, so knowing that I will, I must, vote for the candidate who has a chance of defeating Obama.
13 years ago at 2:08 pmI absolutely despise Ron Paul.
13 years ago at 3:44 pmVoting for Ron Paul is like investing in a company that you know will fail. Sure you may like the company, but it is going to fail and you are going to waste your money. Why invest in a failure if you can invest in a company with a fighting chance? Get a return on your investment and don’t WASTE your vote/time/money on Ron Paul
13 years ago at 4:43 pmThe only way you can waste your vote is by not casting it
13 years ago at 12:16 pmRon Paul was a Lambda Chi at Gettsyburg
13 years ago at 12:30 amOh don’t get me wrong, I’ll take anyone from the GOP over Obama. I’d just also take Ron Paul over the others in the primary any day.
13 years ago at 4:05 amCon for Rick Santorum: last name synonymous with frothy mixture of lube and shit that sometimes is a result of anal sex.
Con for Michele Bachmann: totally incapable of winning presidency.
13 years ago at 7:16 pma gay made up that Santorum term after Santorum said homosexuality was synonymous with beastiality or pedophilia. Gays. NF.
13 years ago at 5:57 amHuntsman is a Sigma Chi
13 years ago at 7:17 pmReally? Election is over, he’s a shoo-in.
13 years ago at 7:24 pmHair gel…
13 years ago at 7:28 pmand Ron Paul is a Lambda Chi but he is still crazy what was Perry?
13 years ago at 10:13 pmCorp of Cadets. A&M was a military school when he was there.
13 years ago at 10:48 pmPerry was in AGR I believe…
13 years ago at 11:41 pmSay what you will about Paul, but he is a solid libertarian and believes in Ayn’s version of how the government should function.
13 years ago at 7:21 pmLove Ayn Rand and love Ron Paul. Last week, I got to talk to Dr. Paul for an hour about the fed, austrian economics and the debt ceiling. He knows how the get our economy back on track. I just wish he had more coverage during this debate. Of course, the media is only focused on Romney, Paulenty and Bachman. Ron Paul still has a chance though.
13 years ago at 9:05 pmIts a shame FOX news has actively avoided covering his campaign. On a list of Republican fundraisers, Paul had raised the most behind Romney, but they left him entirely off the list. I think that a strong showing in the primary, would bolster his effort considerably, and force 24 hour news to cover him and his views more. He has much more support than people realize and it needs to be accounted for.
13 years ago at 10:28 amIts too bad Ron Paul turns down most interview requests from FOX though. You can’t bitch about not getting coverage when you won’t go on the damn network when invited.
13 years ago at 10:47 amI am a solid conservative but I do not see any of these people beating obama. The G.O.P has to be on one solid front first and I do not see them doing that. Now I will also say my vote is either for Perry or Herman Cain
13 years ago at 7:35 pmTo everyone with a Rick Perry boner, please look up the Trans-Texas Corridor.
13 years ago at 7:42 pmOr, that he thinks abstinence only sex ed works.
Or the 3 or 4 times he suggested Texas could secede again.
Or his record on job creation in Texas.
I’ll take Mitt, even though he’s a mormon and created Romneycare. Fact is, for health care for anyone in this country to be sustainable at all, we’re going to need some kind of universal system to be made available, preferably optional so those of us with kick-ass insurance can keep it.
13 years ago at 7:55 pmPerry also said that we’ll never see eye-to-eye with liberals so we should just stop dealing with them. I’m as conservative as the next guy, but that’s a pretty unelectable platform to take in America these days.
13 years ago at 8:06 pmAs a Texan, I can tell you that this guy has no prayer. He’s great in Texas, but it’s a weak governorship, he’s got less political discipline than W. had, and he’s got a pretty bad record when it comes to education and job creation.
13 years ago at 9:01 pmWhile I’ll agree that he has a ton of flaws and he’s run an absolutely bizarre campaign, I have trouble understanding why people call him out on job creation. Hasn’t Texas created far more jobs than any other state by a longs shot? Albeit a lot of it came at the expense of education, if he’s got anything to stand on its his record on jobs. That and he seems like a badass shooting animals and whatnot.
13 years ago at 9:49 pmTexas has created 47% of all jobs in the US since Obama was elected. Gets your facts straight geed, Perry 2012.
13 years ago at 9:50 am^this
13 years ago at 10:16 amYeah, I’m going to disagree about his job and education record. Texas was one of the few states that never got close to double digit unemployment, and Texas has some of the strongest secondary public schools in the nation. Honestly, if Perry and Ron Paul seceded, I’d move to the independent republic of Texas.
13 years ago at 10:34 amAlso, Bronon the Barbarian, you should never concede on such a vital issue of liberty by giving them a watered down version of what they want. To get back to where we need to be, you have to fight for what is absolutely right, not a convenient half-ass right. The three entitlement programs that we already have might be enough to break us over the next 30 years, we cant add a forth pillar and expect the government debt situation to improve.
He did create more jobs than any other governor in Obama’s 3.5 years, but most of them are not long term jobs or jobs that provide workable wages for a family. It’s a lot of Wal-Mart and mom and pop store jobs. Texas needs to quicken its tech expansion and pull more of that into the state. The support infrastructure is full of new jobs.
13 years ago at 3:43 pmAs for the entitlements, I think entitlement reform needs to happen before we come up with some kind of healthcare infrastructure. Also, whatever we create, it shouldn’t be a charity. I think health care should be a fundamental human right, but I think it needs to be done in a rational, sustainable and responsible way, which allows for people to have choice in plans, options to opt out of a national policy and a continued offering of good private insurance.
Medicare and Medicaid should be reformed, rolled into one system, and serve as the basis for this. Both of them are broken, bloated and expensive. Welfare should be turned into a program that has similarities to the WPA under FDR’s New Deal. That was very effective at getting Americans back to work, even if only in the short term. Coupled with job training, we can move towards fixing the unemployment rate. Just giving people money like we currently do was a stupid, unsustainable decision from the Carter years that is going to continue fucking us if we don’t fix it soon.
13 years ago at 3:54 pmBronan, do you go to a fucking community college? Entitlements ARE charity. Healthcare is not a human right. It is only a good that is provided by those who produce it. No one owes it too you. Healthcare is expensive in this country because of those entitlement programs.
13 years ago at 2:08 pmAnd as far as the WPA programs, they were massive diversion of funds that would have been better used in the private sector. There is substantial evidence that those programs elongated the Depression by putting people to work on unproductive, unnecessary projects. You have a warped, liberal view on how economies produce wealth. Stop reading Paul Krugman, then slam your dick in a door a couple times.
ShotsonDeck, they’re also the reason we have a fucking national highway system and the little bit of non-crumbling infrastructure we have left in this country. Go ahead though, please, turn this into an argument of “nobody wins unless the conservative view and only the conservative view wins.” Here’s a clue: both parties are fucking this country over, it’s just which one gets more of the power to further fuck the future of the country over. There was a time when politicians could actually get shit done in this country without fighting each other over it, tooth and nail.
I don’t like entitlement programs. I think they’re a wasteful handout and will most likely not be used effectively to those they give the money to. However, I also realize, you completely nuke those programs and the crime rates everywhere will soar as poor people attempt to give a collective fuck you to anyone that isn’t poor. Let me highlight the best historical example of this: the French Revolution. Perhaps you’re ok with assuming that crushing the poor under the heel of resolving the debt crisis will work out just fine. Personally, I think it will end with, at the least, riots, and at the worst, armed insurrection.
Entitlements are a problem, but there are better ways to fix the system then eliminating it and telling the poor to fuck off. It hasn’t worked any other time in history, and, in more recent history, doing just that was part of what allowed the Nazis to come to power in post-WWI Germany. If you’re so stuck to that damn ideology of yours that you won’t listen to ideas for rational reforms that won’t turn this country into a war-torn 3rd world hellhole, you’re just as bad as the fucking libs.
13 years ago at 2:35 pm“As a Texan, I can tell you that this guy has no prayer. ”
Actually, considering how much he sucks up to the Religious Right, all the man has is prayers.
13 years ago at 3:24 pm“you should never concede on such a vital issue of liberty by giving them a watered down version of what they want. To get back to where we need to be, you have to fight for what is absolutely right, not a convenient half-ass right”
You know, for as much as you Rick Perry/Tea Party types blather on about the Constitution, you seem to overlook the fact that it was laid out so as to prevent rule-by-faction and force compromise. Good luck getting the 535 members of Congress, not to mention the separate branches of government, to agree on what is “absolutely right.”
13 years ago at 5:13 pmi’ll be voting for brother huntsman
13 years ago at 7:56 pmHe’s a fantastic fly fisherman, too. His family owns a very large portion of the fly lodge my family frequents. IHSV.
13 years ago at 10:16 am