The Evil of Five Lessers
By adamsweb Posted in 2008 — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Rarely has our Republican Party faced a choice as difficult as the one we face in the current presidential nomination process. The five men running for President are horribly flawed. From these five, Republicans must choose a nominee.
The media-designated front-runner is John McCain. Senator McCain is a hero of great distinction in the military. For the first 14 years of his Congressional Career, he was a rock solid Conservative. Since then, John McCain has championed the monstrous campaign finance reform bill, favors taxpayer financing of unethical embryonic stem cell research, has called those of us who oppose his amnesty plan bigots, has proposed onerous environmental regulations that would wreck our economy, and opposed giving tax cuts to the American people.
He supports creating a racialized Native Hawaiian Government, which would undermine not only US sovereignty, but US unity. He has been in support of the International Criminal Court and the Law of the Sea Treaty. In essence, combined with his stance on open borders, McCain is one of the worst opponents of American sovereignty that exist within our borders.
At the same time, the one-time frontrunner Rudy Giuliani is unacceptable due to his pro-abortion stance that is to the left of the mainstream of the Republican Party. The three-time nominee of New York’s Liberal Party insists he helped bring down abortions and encourage adoptions, but a study of his statements as mayor found no evidence to back that up. Abortion rates went down nationally due to the hard work of pro-life workers, with little help from pro-abortion politicos. Rudy might as well take credit for the Yankees’ 4 World Championships, he had as much to do with them as he did the falling abortion rate.
Ron Paul, if we’re honest, represents the most consistently conservative economic views in the race with a proud record of opposing taxes. Unlike other candidates, Ron Paul gives a hoot about what the Founding Fathers have written. Glenn Beck says that Paul is the closest thing we have to a Founding Father in this race and he’s right as far as ideology goes. In terms of wisdom, not so much. If Paul is to be believed, for years, racist and anti-Semitic material was published under his name and he did nothing to stop it. Paul, also having been given an amazing war chest, has shown that raising money does you no good, if you have no clue how to manage it. The level of Paul’s naivette on foreign policy is an issue that you could write reams on. Paul might make an interesting protest candidate, but not a good president.
Then we have Mike Huckabee, who has been vilified beyond measure in the blogosphere. Huckabee is not a fire breathing liberal. While his pardon and clemency record indicates flaws in judgment, his economic and spending records were little worse than those of most Republican governors of his era. Finding a Republican governor elected around that time who reduced government and avoided tax increases is harder than finding Waldo. Huckabee is average, or perhaps above average, for Republican governors in America. Given that most of our Presidents in recent years once served as Governors, perhaps the best way to insure we get a consistent conservative candidate for president is to insist on a consistent conservative governor.
Despite his record, Huckabee has signed a pledge not to increase taxes, he supports the Fair Tax, and has a solid plan to secure the nation’s borders, this plus he’s trustworthy on social conservative issues of concern. Huckabee’s fatal flaw is that at this point, he looks like a man running for the position of John McCain’s Vice-President. Either the Governor doesn’t understand that McCain has a paid staff that’s more than able to respond to Mitt Romney, or his constant defenses of the Senator are a tryout for the Vice-Presidency.
Huckabee may even be able to force the issue with his Southern strategy. He’s set to win several Southern States on the strength of the Evangelical Christian vote, while McCain and Romney will be competing neck and neck in other states. Under this scenario, we’ll get the fantasy of every political junkie: a brokered convention. Except, it will be pretty cut and dried: Huckabee will release delegates to McCain, provided McCain makes him the Vice-President.
Being the Vice-President of a 72 year-old cancer survivor who already looks beyond his years increases your chances of reaching the White House as its less likely the candidate will seek a second term and even possibly not be able to finish his term, allowing Huckabee to, for the second time in his career, ascend to a position he could not have won as an open seat (the first time was when he ascended to the Governorship on the resignation of Jim Guy Tucker.) As I’m not interested in making John McCain president, I’m not interested in Huckabee.
Then there’s Mitt Romney. I’ve written about the flip-flops before. However, the man also has an excellent family and a strong business record. Mitt looks and sounds Presidential. The pity of the campaign is that, quite frankly, you cannot trust him. A video record caught Romney on tape telling fundraisers to “promise anything” to potential donors. While Romney clearly meant in terms of primary victories, the phrase could describe his entire effort.
Every time he hits a must-win state, there’s a new promise. In Michigan, $20 billion a year was promised for automotive and energy research (hope he can do that while fulfilling the promise I heard him make Nevada to hold the growth of spending to Inflation –1%) and in Florida, he promised to do away with the payroll taxes on workers over age 65, thus speeding the decline of Social Security in order to score points with Florida seniors. If Romney’s going to get be the nominee, it better happen soon, before he has to make any more eleven-figure campaign promises that it anyone’s guess as to whether he’ll try and keep them.
In the end, Conservatives face an unenviable choice of our own making. We didn’t pay attention to the process until our best chances for a good choice had gone down the drain. Conservatives must get involved sooner and with a greater level of commitment. We must demand better candidates and then fight for them when they get in.
If the race comes down to Mitt Romney and John McCain, the choice is between the unknown and the intolerable. It’s as clear as the choice between playing Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber and drinking a gallon of hemlock.
Remember that every year, there's an automatic increase in spending for most programs. To afford $20 billion for Energy Research he'd have to cut back a lot.
I can honestly say that i supported Hunter from day one. I gave as much (which was not much) money as i could to his campaign. I feel taken advantage of by our media for not covering him more. And, I feel taken advantage of by Fred not capitalizing on what was the beginning of a great campaign. I feel a little taken advantage by my party for there not being a great candidate at this point. I guess on many levels we all have to pick the lesser of evils, but this is the first time we have had so many options but no clear choice.
MelZ
Far from being "horribly flawed," it seems to me the GOP has had an abundance of attractive choices this year.
Brad Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
Capital University website
Center for Competitive Politics website
I agree. None of them is perfect, but in terms of the three- legged conservative stool:
Paul has two good legs, but the missing one is very important.
McCain's stool has one strong leg. The other two are short and unsteady enough to be worrisome.
Huck has all three legs. All three somewhat shakey, but there.
Rudy has two strong legs. The third is there, but pretty short.
Mitt has shown three sturdy legs. Not the strongest, but pretty well balanced. He started with me as "A MA Republican? You must be kidding!" But worked his way up to a very acceptable spot.
I'd take Giuliani, Romney, or Thompson over Bush. If, as seems likely, it comes down to Romney, I'll consider that an improvement over what I had to settle for last time.
McCain is doing a great job now of reminding me why I supported Bush in 2000.
As for bozos like Huckabee, etc., let's not forget what a bunch of losers constituted the rest of the pack in 2000, so bad that we were forced to choose between Bush and McCain
Agreed with most of your post although I find Huckabee has a mean streak in him that he tries to disguise with humor and charm. Kind of the polite Southern gentlemanly way of jabbing at someone. I know a few folks like that.
I personally wouldn't use the term "horribly", but I do see that each has serious shortcomings in some way or another. I would say that holding ones nose was last election - it's gas mask time this time around.
--roxer
"Where I stand does not depend on where I'm standing."
--Fred D. Thompson, 2008
"Finding a Republican governor elected around that time who reduced government and avoided tax increases is harder than finding Waldo."
Mitch is a little later--elected in 2004. Some will find some fee increases, but he has actually cut the size of government and balanced his budget without income tax increases. That budget was millions in the red and is now in the black. He balanced the Indiana budget in less than two years.
It IS possible. Mitch is not the perfect governor and I am not pushing him for higher office. I am just saying that it is possible to be a fiscally conservative governor in a state with a balanced budget requirement and make it happen without tax hikes.
Daniels proposed a temporary income tax increase of 1% on income above $100K. In fact, it was one of the first things he sought in office as a measure to shrink the deficit.
It put on him Norquist and Club for Growth's s**tlist, in fact. The legislature never considered it.
So, technically, you're right. But he only hasn't raised taxes because the legislature wouldn't do it -- not because he didn't want to.
That said, I think Mitch Daniels has been a fantastic governor for the most part. More Republican governors should take pages from his playbook. He's been aggressively seeking private foreign investment, establishing private/public partnerships, etc. etc.
that was only to be a one year tax increase.
He has raised other taxes--cigarette taxes come to mind. But he has been an example of how to get your house in order.
Good post.
I think another flaw of Huckabee's, and it's similar to Romney, is that what he says on taxes isn't believable to anybody that knows his record. I don't care if he signed a pledge. We've had the "no new taxes" stuff before, and what we need is somebody who you can depend on to not do it at the first sign of opposition.
to ask ourselves about our candidates is who do we trust to do what they are saying they will do? They all have "flip-flops" (I begin to regret that term) but is there one that we can trust?
Do we trust Huckabee and Romney to keep their promises on taxing even though their history shows that they have no real problems with taxing? Do we trust McCain to secure the border first even though he was one of the writers of the Amnesty bill that so many of us despised? Do we trust Rudy on gun control and judicial appointments given the bans that were put into place in NYC and his position on abortion? None have a history that agrees with their current campaign.
This disagreement does not mean that they do not mean to do what they are currently promising! Running a state or city is different from running the Federal government. What it means is that we have to evaluate their believability.
Of our field, I trust McCain most to do what he says--I just don't like what he says (i.e. environment, etc.). The person I trust second is Romney and I like most (much?) of what he says. That level of trust is not high with me.
I'm more positive about our candidates than you are, but this is great.
1. Romney promised to cap spending at inflation minus 1% long, long before he hit the ground in Nevada. He has beat this drum repeatedly since the beginning days of his campaign, in speeches, at Ask Mitt Anything town hall meetings, on the stump, etc. This was not something newly rolled out to pander to NV voters and is inaccurately labeled as a new promise to a new state.
2. As for promises in general, Romney keeps them. He made a specific point to have all the promises he made during the Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign written down so that he could check them off while in office. In total, he tallied 100 promises, and he fulfilled them while in office.
I see 1996 all over again for the GOP.
McCain will get the Bob Dole lifetime achievement nomination (also known as the "it's my turn" award). He will then get soundly drubbed in November.
Romney may be slightly better, but that's not saying much. He can't keep pandering so much to each primary's residents like he did in Michigan. He doesn't need to.
Giuliani is sinking like a bowling ball in quicksand and Huckabee is turning into McCain's attack dog.
I will vote Republican this November, but I am severely disappointed by the GOP's cast.
Unless the GOP nominee has an epiphany and gets across to the public in a resounding way, I am resigned the country will get a Billary presidency. NOTHING good will come out of that, period.
and the analysis is good too.
The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds..unbelievable -Brennan Manning
... assuming about a 4% rate of inflation this year, that would allow for the budget to grow almost $100 billion next year. It's a start, but it's quite apparent that you can still have a lot of new spending in that envelope if that were your prerogative.
"No matter how much lipstick you put on the taxation pig, it's still a pig... and it's currently snout-down in your wallet." - Michael Fisk