The always awesome Paul Krugman has a great column in today’s New York Times that sums up the problem the U.S. Republican Party is having finding a presidential candidate. In short, the party’s ideas are so crazy they have a choice between honest candidates who are nuts or sane candidates who are liars.
Here’s Krugman:
Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!). And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.
So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless.
It’s a terrific read.
But what about Ron Paul, say people who think he’s great? He’s not crazy AND he seems to stick by his statements. Well, possibly (or not). The problem with Ron Paul is that his ideas screw everybody but the billionaires. Here’s an excerpt from a recent column on Salon:
The guts of Paul’s grand scheme, where its rubber hits the road, is in the all-important theme of cutting programs that benefit the poor and middle class. Despite all its window-dressing and spin, the heart of every libertarian plan for this country is a kind of mammoth subtraction: making deep cuts in programs benefiting millions of Americans, out of a belief that such programs are morally wrong. Restoring America is a moral statement, an enshrinement of the Randian belief that aid to one facet of the population (the poor) is really “looting” of resources from other facets of the population (the wealthy) … Ayn Rand believed that there is no such thing as a “public,” and that the public was a collection of individuals, each having no obligation to the other. So when you read through this budget, and see the deep cuts in food stamps and child nutrition, what you are seeing is an expression of a philosophy that is at odds with the Judeo-Christian system of morality embraced by most Americans.
The more you know! And now please enjoy this video of Ron Paul’s fake eyebrow falling off.
There hasn’t been a good Republican candidate since 1984, only bad (Dukakis)/under-performing (Gore, Kerry) Democratic candidates.
Esp. pre-9/11, GDub was a terrible presidential candidate, but the genius GOP election machine revved up the red state rancour against Clinton/Gore’s blissful 1990s Seinfeldian nothingness just enough to pull off Florida with Jeb Bush & the Supreme Court’s help.
I’ll always look back on 2000 and the almost-promise of Al Gore’s dreamscape America that was totally snuffed out by George W’s ham-fisted war on the stable 90s status quo. Well we all know what happened, and yes, it was all George W’s fault. Gore’s America of euphoric peace and prosperity was replaced by this unsolicited and unforeseen garbage decade of profiteering, financial meltdown, fear, and loathing. Yet, we still had Apple and Web 2.0 which just felt misplaced under Bush.
The difference was, the Republicans just worked harder, better, smarter, dirtier. Repubs have clearly lost their way now, with no heir in sight. (Bush benefited tremendously from his family name.) Instead, those incredibly sophisticated Republican games have migrated north, now mastered by the Conservatives and even the Sask Party. It’s largely about seeking out and developing and grooming a grassroots infuriated on wedge issue polly-tics.
In the case of the CP and SP, they’re merely capitalizing on divided opposition loyalties (and lesser-prepared opposition parties) to earn big majorities. (The 2000 Repubs sweated out every single vote.)
The 2012 Repubs are finally showing their disarray that’s been 15 years in the making. While Obama has sorrowfully underwhelmed, he should hold in 2012 and someone good should succeed him in 2016, provided that America doesn’t fully implode.
Even
Ayn Rand,gets almost blamed for this ? lol
Isn’t being in a “union”, a form of collectivisum ?
Ron Paul is Right.
The less Fed gov’t the better.
harp0′s ; Nat daycare program, went where?
When we are considering the root causes of our current economic mess, lest we forget that the Clinton administration basically repealed every New Deal regulation on investment banks.