On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that what millions of Americans simply want is a reasonable person for president.
“We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good,†she wrote. “We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.â€
Noonan’s reasonable list included Democrats Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, and Republicans Mitt Romney, John McCain, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson.
64 Comments
Fred Thompson sounds real reasonable:
http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2007/12/29/fred-thompson-too-much-fire-in-the-belly-not-good-for-a-president-in-dangerous-times/
You want a plain speaking down-to-earth guy from the south like Thompson, or a New York snob like Clinton or Giuliani?
Big city lawyer or country lawyer?
Thompson is lookin good!
Thanks for printing Noonan.She has always been one of my favorites.She understands American culture, and history, very well.She was Ronald Reagan’s best speach writerShe has written some very good books.
MaxI was waiting on Thompson but have been disappointed, thus far.
He is just not catching fire, though I really like the guy.
speech
LOL.
Noonan is a kook.
Oh and Thompson?
I saw him on absent HANNITY and colmes.
Um….the guy looked roused from a coffin.
Isn’t half of what Peggy Noonan writes about the clothes and hair styles of the candidates? One might mistake her for an actual reporter.
Gawd. Do commentators get any more vapid than Peggy Noonan? No surprise to see that she’s the preferred mouthpiece of Max and Econ101, two guys who never let reality come between them and their ideological shibboleths. About the only good thing you can say for Noonan is that she isn’t Bill Kristol.
As for Fred, well, I guess he’s the candidate for voters who like their leaders both lazy and dumb.
There’s nothing wrong with Noonan standard of “reasonablness” when evaluating presidential candidates, until she demonstrates just how low her standard is. After insisting, “We are grown-ups…. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it,” Noonan attacks John Edwards’ *hair!*”…we can’t have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair.”
That’s Noonan’s “prudent understanding of the world.”
First thanks Max for the link, it was interesting.Thompson, ah no his greatest trait is his is fifty-fifty half the time he is witty in a quip and the other half witless. He does seem to have a common trait among the rest of the Candidates, his answers seem more read from written talking points then from his actual thought process. Giuliani and Romney? I have seen empty Coke bottles that struck me as not being as hollow and plastic! Huckabe would still not be my first pick, he is coming across a little more real. But still is far from what I would call a core Republic view.
Mc Cain, boy he does tear me sometimes, I can not express the respect I have for him and his service!
But his view of illegal aliens and the not seeming to have a clue what the next step is in Iraq after the surge. Leaves me wanting, it is too much like the lack of thinking done by Bush&Co. before, during and after the invasion. (NOW Alan Keys! ahh WHO? kind of like Ralph Nader what he is running again?)
Hunter to be honest is just lost in the mix, he get less air time then Ron Paul.And speaking of Ron Paul, well he is not the savior of the GOP or the country I have no illusions about that. But he is the best candidate who has come along in quite some time( less you forget I am a Republican and will always go for the strict Constitutionalist and fiscal conservative every time!).As for the Democrats, Hillary is a total wash-out to me, talk about someone that seem driven by the polls!“I feel some pressure, what are the demographics and opinion polls on me going to the bathroom?”.Obama seem at time kind of lost in the woods, thought I do think his heart is in the right place.Edwards is the core Democratic candidate, center line and might may it through four years OK.
Richards is OK too, seems to be a thinking man and insightful but recognizing a problem is only one part of solving a problem and he seems lacking after that.
But yes reasonable would be great…
“might may it through four years OK”
Should have been “might make it”sorry.
If we wanted a “resonable” President we would not have elected Bush!
Peggy Noonan is reasonable? Sure she can only hope for someone who is reasonably moderate, ergo, someone who MAY side with the conservatives from time to time.
We would have liked to have had reasonable…back when you elected that thing who sits in the White House now. She’s been supporting for the last 7 years- which is totally unreasonable. Her credibility is nil on this issue. See, this is why Hillary is the best candidate, because SHE is against all these doofuses stand for.
Everybody thought Bush was reasonable and that Gore and/or Kerry were nut cases. So, how to know? Not based on what some writer says.
“writerdog” –
You might note that Fox News has rejected Ron Paul from the New Hampshire Debate just before the primary.
That should tell you something about the Republic Party and so-called “conservatives.”
I’m a liberal and I admit it. Most of my life has been spent disagreeing with conservatives. But this current Republic Party shows me nothing that might have been considered “conservative” 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago.
No “conservative” I used to argue with would accept George WMD Bush’s stripping of black-letter Constitutional rights such as habeas corpus. No “conservative” I used to argue with would wage un-provoked war halfway across the world. No “conservative” I used to argue with would embrace torture as an act of state. No “conservative” I used to argue with would have promoted George WMD Bush’s $3 *TRILLIOIN* National Debt.
I’ll grant you, people on all sides of the political spectrum will trot out tropes such as “the other side simply wants power!” But for the life of me, I’ve never seen so-called “conservative” principles so compromised as in the last seven years.
MonkeyHawk,
Indeed–which leads me to conclude that “conservatives” never had any principles in the first place, other than that “natural” superiors (i.e. rich folks and the traditional aristocracy) should rule over their “natural” inferiors (i.e. the rest of us).
“Conservatism” hasn’t advanced a step since its stillbirth in the writings of Edmund Burke. It is, and always was, a faux political ideology that, at its roots, was nothing more than an apology for the “because I said so” belief that one class rules and the other is ruled.
Ron Paul holds Classic Liberalism views which are the views this countries Fathers held, and he also holds some conservitive views in the true sense. So it gets kind of confusing if your trying to label him one or the other. Remember he was a Libertarian, and if you do some research on Libertarians people are often confused by them because they hold views from both sides of the specterum.
I’m still amazed Faux News has the Jewels to invite every (R) canidate except Ron Paul. This should tell people something.
I really hate it when news organizations decide who is ‘viable’. By excluding someone who is a major candidate they help decide the election.
What happened to we report you decide?
Hillary did not make her list. News media will always try to make decisions for us just like the politicians. No Hillary care!
Should have been “might make it”sorry.by writerdog
don’t waste time appologizing to people to stupid to figure that out. These aren’t feces or defecations for a Masters or Doctorate. If people are reading slowly enough to even catch the typo they’re either too ignorant to understand your whole message, or are actually cogitating on what is written as they’re moving on.
Boils down to appologizing to those who aren’t worth your time so is wasted, and appolgizing to those who already knew what you meant, so is still a waste.
Writerdog, I agree with many of your posts, see a tiny kenel of truth/wisdom in a few, and 100% think you should be fitted for a huggy coat on others. I feel that for many of the other rabble-rousing, sabre-rattling extremists in this forum. I’d hate to see you waste your time on something so superfluous.
(sorry, kinda a peeve of mine, y’all can continue your protracted back-biting)
I am a Republican but after the last 8 yrs of GW and Cheney I will never place another vote for them. But you can rest assured I would never place a vote for Clinton or Obamma. I am turning to INDEPENDANTS.
If we continue to vote in a Rep. or a Dem. we can expect to recieve the same old thing and it’s honestly getting old.
Our whole system of politics needs to be refreshed. 95% of the ones in office are corrupt in one way or another. You can almost bet if a person is a senator their on someones give me list.
“Peacemakergdom” –
I hear your frustation. But it reminds me of the old canard that people “don’t want professional politicians” in office.
It’s always struck me as absurd as saying, “I don’t want professional surgeons in operating rooms,” or “I don’t want qualified mechanics working on my car.”
I sympathize with your frustration with America’s political system, but unless you’re willing to wait and work for 20 or 30 years before you see any change, you probably won’t see any change by voting for Independents.
I could, perhaps, gather up a bunch of kids from Kansas and coach them and train them and put the best damned football team the world has ever seen, but if I’m not in the NFL it won’t matter.
The Republic and Democratinc Parties are the NFL of government. Deal with it. Work with it.
2008 is an election year for change. But the changes will be incremental because that’s the way the rule book (the Constitution of the United States of America) is written.
Look at the issues and positions of John Edwards.
Max, I would hardly call Hillary Clinton a “New York snob”.
She grew up in Illinois, spent several years in Arkansas, lived 8 years in Washington DC, then moved to New York. And while officially a New York resident, much of her time has still been spent in Washington DC.
Though she has been accused of many things, I hardly think “New York snob” fits.
Ghotiphazel in part I try to do it naturally with a nic like mine people expect better. Also to be honest there are some that since they may not be able to argue against what I may say, will attack such things as grammar and spelling. But thank you for the complement I try to express and convey the most honest of opinions and news. As you may suspect these days actually finding honest news is not easy. And having an honest opinion is not always popular.
It is juvenile to always refer to the appearance of a candidate. Though, I admit, I commented on Hillary when she had that awful picture.
Noonan is not a kook. She is a very intelligent writer who really understands the United States “melting pot” for what it was and what it should be.
Her insights helped put Reagans ideas into words.
pmomWhat, exactly, is Hillary against?
She contradicts herself almost every day, on what she is for.
I am sure that she is against anything that would get in her way.
On that, she might be consistent.
Peacemakergdom and Monkeyhawk, I do agree with Monkeyhawk’s assessment it will take time.My personal opinion and vote is for Ron Paul, but I have no delusions even if elected he alone will not change things much. He is just a step in the right direction and one of the firsts in more years then I can count. But we can no longer stand around with our hands in our pockets and just excuse what has happened in our government and our country. To do so is the same as just giving over this country to the junkyard.There maybe a real test coming in this country as to whether we are still a Republic/ Democracy. It could be the once the citizens finally say enough is enough and stand up and demand a real change. We will have found that the cards have been so stack against us. That we no longer have say and are a dictatorship.
AND NO I AM NOT ACCUSING BUSH OF BEING A DICTATOR!
What I am saying is the system have become so rigged and corrupted that the very system that had been put in place in order for us to have redress has vanished. A sore spot with me has always been the Electoral College. It did not help that recently I was watching Mike Decacus (misspelled I think) he was saying that the whole principle of the Electoral college was set up by the founding fathers because they did not totally trust the general population with the power of the vote. I note something everyday, I go to the Ron Paul website and read how well he did in polls, yet in the MSM he is always well below fourth though on his website he constantly finishes within the top three and the majority of polls as number 1. Just today I read he is tied with Thompson and Giuliani at 8 percent in N.H. But on the morning political talk shows, both Thompson and Giuliani were mention in rating but not Ron Paul? Now for those of us who are paying attention almost every day such things are a momentary thing. But for the majority of voters in this country who will only pay any attention on Nov. 8th 2008. They will not have noticed anything out of the ordinary.
For them as far as they know the only two candidates have always been the one Republican and the one Democrat.
I guess what I am saying is that to give up on the process is the same as giving up on the United States.You do not need a weapon to vote, but if people do not vote they may need a weapon to stay free.
on Thompson:
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/30/news/iowa/31b24975ed2c263e862573c100054e2b.txt
The public is conflicted. We say we don’t want the “power hungry” but they we get mad, when someone like Thompson, who is qualified, does not seem like he is completely motivated.
Thompson is a joke. I heard his comments about the situation in Pakistan and his response was basically, ‘It’s a country and things happen and stuff.’ Thompson, like Huckabee and Gouliani and completely clueless on foreign affairs. Huckabee can’t even find Pakistan on a map.
“someone like Thompson, who is qualified”
He’s qualified because of all the years of service he played acting as a congressman on television?
“Econ101″ –
Fredrick of Hollywood’s problem is he doesn’t give a damn. Or maybe that’s his appeal.
Perhaps we should go to Lewis Black’s suggestion:
When the next “American Idol” is named, we blindfold them and have them throw a dart at a map of the united states. Then we fly a monkey over that spot and throw him out. Wherever than monkey’s parachute lands, the first person he holds hand with is the President of the United States.
Couldn’t be any worse than the President we’ve got.
Thompson did say his greatest accomplishment was the acquisition of a “trophy wife”. Perhaps that is what Paul means by qualified.
Monkeyhawk,
I have a better plan.
Toss the *current* president out of the plane. Forget the chute. Whomever he lands _on,_ that’s our new president.
And it’s *still* an improvement.
Plus, it’s safer for the monkey.
Can someone honestly answer me as to why the government gave the oil companys a $13 Billion dollar write off? When they are reporting Trillion dollar profits.
Peacemaker,
Two words: Dick Cheney.
Lol GOOD one Tom!
I am truely embarassed anymore to say I voted for George Bush. The man has single handily set the United States of America back decades in being a leader among the nations. The only thing we lead anyone in now is DEBT.
Peacemakergdom, the tax breaks were given to the oil companies when the price per barrel was around $20 or something (back in those evil Clinton days). The oil companies were only making tens of billions, not hundreds of billions so they were scrounging as the CEOs had to make a choice between a new mansion or a new airplane, but not both.
So they were given the tax breaks and the Republicans figure they can be repealed when the oil companies are not scrounging. The problem is, the Republicans don’t believe there should ever be a cap on wealth and greed at the expense of the taxpayer.
DougIt is not the business of government to set limits like you want.Yes, I think some CEO’s are overpaid, but you liberals tend to oversimplify this.If you took the top pay of the top 100 people, in most Fortune 500 companies, you would find that those total salaries were only a tiny fraction of total corporate revenues.It is the stockholders and the boards of these companies that should take a closer look at perks and salaries.Unless you OWN the stock, yourself, it is none of your business, really.Also, those salaries are TAXED are they not?So are corporate profits.
So, you want the “rich” to pay, but you don’t want them to pay “too much”???
You are shooting yourselves in your collectivist feet.
We have a system where the “rich” pay the overwhelming share of total taxes.
We should want MORE rich people, therefore, not fewer of them.
We should want MORE rich people, therefore, not fewer of them.Posted by: econ101 | December 30, 2007 at 01:51 PM
In theory, yep! But you and I know it doesn’t work that way. Many of the people who have theirs, do everything thing in their power to make sure no one else gets a piece of the pie.
It’s not a conspiracy thing, it’s just the way it is. It wouldn’t matter, except for one thing: Those “haves” have control of the government, and use the various powers of the government to keep new competitors from popping up or becoming successful. It’s kind of like the discussion on the Westar thread – the corporation wants the government to use it’s monopoly power to give them more money, but doesn’t want to suffer any competition from co-generators.
Both parties have the same problem: candidates have to run to the ‘edge’ to get their nomination and then have to try to run back to the ‘center’ to win the election.
The sad thing is that there were things about Romney and Huckabee that could have attracted me. However, they both seem to be running away from those things. Add to that Romney’s ‘religion’ speech in which he seemed to tell me to go away and I cannot support him.
My preferences are still those I have seen as ‘reasonable’ – notably Richardson. But, I doubt that they will make it to the time I caucus in February.
TomActually, I tend to think that higher income tax rates discourage competition.
Low tax rates encourage new businesses.
I don’t see very many entrepreneurs who want to “limit” competition. That is usually a fault of the larger, established companies, when we see it happen, anyway.
There is no rational reason for the “rich” in general, to want to keep others from becomming rich.
They have to sell their stock to someone else, some day. They have to sell their house to someone, someday. Why limit the market for what they, themselves, own?
There is no rational reason for the “rich” in general, to want to keep others from becomming rich.Posted by: econ101 | December 30, 2007 at 02:49 PM
HAH!! Who said these people are rational??
And yeah, most entrepreneurs don’t want to limit competition. It’s the vested interests that do. On that, you and I agree.
Happy New Year, Tom!
I am off for now. Going to see if Homeland is open today, on Harry. The going out of business sales have been pretty good!
I’m just curious if anyone else has been invited to this conference call tonight for Kansas Hillary Supporters?
Ya PMom see ya there lol
Monkeyhawk
Edwards is your guy huh?
Well maybe I will read more about him. It’s just he strikes me as kinda fake. So much money but says he is for the little guy. I don’t NEED for him to be poor but the money and the thing with the hair. I don’t know.
The guy who impresses me most so far is Dennis Kucinich. I also like how Senator Clinton is not afraid to talk about things the right does NOT want to hear.
Yeah, “J R” –
I’m getting stronger and stronger for John Edwards almost every day.
He’s 54 and looks 34 which makes the “pretty boy” attacks seem more like jealousy than substantive criticism.
Perhaps the best analysis of this issue can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/2tjzg9
The Great Divide
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: December 31, 2007
Yesterday The Times published a highly informative chart laying out the positions of the presidential candidates on major issues. It was, I’d argue, a useful reality check for those who believe that the next president can somehow usher in a new era of bipartisan cooperation.
What the chart made clear was the extent to which Democrats and Republicans live in separate moral and intellectual universes.
On one side, the Democrats are all promising to get out of Iraq and offering strongly progressive policies on taxes, health care and the environment. That’s understandable: the public hates the war, and public opinion seems to be running in a progressive direction.
What seems harder to understand is what’s happening on the other side — the degree to which almost all the Republicans have chosen to align themselves closely with the unpopular policies of an unpopular president. And I’m not just talking about their continuing enthusiasm for the Iraq war. The G.O.P. candidates are equally supportive of Bush economic policies.
Why would politicians support Bushonomics? After all, the public is very unhappy with the state of the economy, for good reason. The “Bush boom,” such as it was, bypassed most Americans — median family income, adjusted for inflation, has stagnated in the Bush years, and so have the real earnings of the typical worker. Meanwhile, insecurity has increased, with a declining fraction of Americans receiving health insurance from their employers.
And things seem likely to get worse as the election approaches. For a few years, the economy was at least creating jobs at a respectable pace — but as the housing slump and the associated credit crunch accelerate and spill over to the rest of the economy, most analysts expect employment to weaken, too.
All in all, it’s an economic and political environment in which you’d expect Republican politicians, as a sheer matter of calculation, to look for ways to distance themselves from the current administration’s economic policies and record — say, by expressing some concern about rising income gaps and the fraying social safety net.
In fact, however, except for Mike Huckabee — a peculiar case who’ll deserve more discussion if he stays in contention — the leading Republican contenders have gone out of their way to assure voters that they will not deviate an inch from the Bush path. Why? Because the G.O.P. is still controlled by a conservative movement that does not tolerate deviations from tax-cutting, free-market, greed-is-good orthodoxy.
To see the extent to which Republican politicians still cower before the power of movement conservatism, consider the sad case of John McCain.
Mr. McCain’s lingering reputation as a maverick straight talker comes largely from his opposition to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which he said at the time were too big and too skewed to the rich. Those objections would seem to have even more force now, with America facing the costs of an expensive war — which Mr. McCain fervently supports — and with income inequality reaching new heights.
But Mr. McCain now says that he supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Not only that: he’s become a convert to crude supply-side economics, claiming that cutting taxes actually increases revenues. That’s an assertion even Bush administration officials concede is false.
Oh, and what about his earlier opposition to tax cuts? Mr. McCain now says he opposed the Bush tax cuts only because they weren’t offset by spending cuts.
Aside from the logical problem here — if tax cuts increase revenue, why do they need to be offset? — even a cursory look at what Mr. McCain said at the time shows that he’s trying to rewrite history: he actually attacked the Bush tax cuts from the left, not the right. But he has clearly decided that it’s better to fib about his record than admit that he wasn’t always a rock-solid economic conservative.
So what does the conversion of Mr. McCain into an avowed believer in voodoo economics — and the comparable conversions of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — tell us? That bitter partisanship and political polarization aren’t going away anytime soon.
There’s a fantasy, widely held inside the Beltway, that men and women of good will from both parties can be brought together to hammer out bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems.
If such a thing were possible, Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani — a self-proclaimed maverick, the former governor of a liberal state and the former mayor of an equally liberal city — would seem like the kind of men Democrats could deal with. (O.K., maybe not Mr. Giuliani.) In fact, however, it’s not possible, not given the nature of today’s Republican Party, which has turned men like Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney into hard-line ideologues. On economics, and on much else, there is no common ground between the parties.
“Mike Herroni” –
“A Fidel Castro rant?”
Wow. You’re even more insane than that poster who used to show up in this forum. What was his nym? “Kansas,” or something.
“J R” –
Here’s a good background piece on John Edwards:
http://tinyurl.com/2ann6t
“Mike Herroni” –
I think I speak for most of us when I say, “Huh?”
Perhaps you might restate your questions in the form of something rational.
Monk,That the republican candidates have found themselves stuck with the policies of a failed president isn’t any surprise. The republican party has been ideologically driven since the days of Reagan. Constant use of terms such as “Playing hardball” and “RINO,” and the drumbeat of “Clinton Clinton Clinton” to anything that doesn’t toe the party line has served to keep the current party members in line and drive away any but True Believers in the absolute doctrine that now defines the party. Conservatism has become so utterly rigid that when confronted with changing times, it can’t bend; it will break. And the current crop of candidates know that, but can’t change it without losing the vital monetary support of the extreme right. They find themselves up a certain creek, And the only allowable means of propulsion has irreparably broken. They have two choices; take back their party from the extremists, or continue to sink in the failed Reagan canoe.
We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.
WOW! This from a Reagan-enabling “superpatriot” . . .
You know its bad when even the CONs are saying indirectly that our current occupant of the White House appears “obviously insane.”
Thanks for finally getting a clue, Stupid. Thanks to you people our beloved nation has endured eight years of WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
Yup, MH. I saw that awhile back.
Good article. Compromising with the Ann Coulter-Rush Limbaugh wing of the Republic party is like comprimising with Satan.
You don’t compromise with people like that. You crush them politically and hang up their dead corpses as a warning to others . . .
I could say, “Max is a stupid ass” over and over if you prefer . . .
Hi Max.
I used to think as you do.
I voted for Ronald Reagan and a straight GOP ticket in 1984.
I was young and dumb and just outta high school.
Well, it didn’t take me long to start changing my mind. I won’t walk you through it but…
“when you have principles, you don’t change your mind based on the direction the wind is blowing.”
I read something like that and I just shake my head and chuckle.
Max? The Republican party is about one thing and that is money. Oh they pay lip service to other things. But if you boil down conservatism THESE days it always comes down to money.
Exactly right, JR.
The poorest counties in the US routinely vote for the Republic party.
They have gotten massively poorer under Reagan-Bush-Bush.
Maybe the Republics are right when they say that poor people are stupid and deserve to be poor.
A majority of them keep voting for Republics and they keep getting screwed.
But thank God! they’ve still got their guns.
Yeah capn it is sad.
I worked with guys like that. Otherwise good, union all American guys.
But it ALWAYS came down to “the Democrats will take my guns away!”
Heh. I had one really good friend who I just could not convince how wrong he was. He spouted that line once in front of another co worker who happened to be a vietnam vet.
“Jack? Do you know how damned stupid you sound saying that?” the vet told him.
Of course, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t said a hundred times before.
Ya know what? The dems have had the house AND the Senate for almost a year! I’ve not heard of any massive gun grab.
I’m a staunch Dem and I went shooting this very morning.
Got to fire my bro’s M1 Garrand, his Chinese AK47, and his Romanian SKS.
Not a single gun has been confiscated under any Democratic president and never will be . . .
(There was a silly “assault weapons” ban but that won’t happen again . . . )
JR
It is now only about money, but there was a time when it was responsible.
There was a time when the Republican Party understood that well paying jobs meant more customers and we could work our way out of poverty.
Then this new bunch starting attacking those paychecks through the utility companies.
At one time my phone bill was 6.50, water 3.00, electric 15.00 gas 3.00 and the sales tax was 1%
I also paid 14 cents a gallon for gasoline.
And no, incomes are not that much higher today.
Max,”That rigid Reagan conservatism you complain about Jed, is what makes conservative strong.”
No, it’s what makes it brittle. If you aren’t willing to bend a bit, you will shatter when enough force is applied. I realize you want to live in a universe of absolutes, but this one is built on probabilities. You can adapt to that, find another one or perish. You seem to have chosen the latter.
“While you libs say you want alternative energy sources, you are not willing to pay for it, at least not out of your own pocket.”
Need I remind you that we paid and paid out of our own pockets for promises from the energy companies that they were developing new energy sources. They chose to spend it on corporate jets and golden parachutes. All we want is what we paid for!
“The republican candidate that gets back on that conservative agenda, will be the most likely to win the nomination.”
The conservative agenda which once actually meant something has been taken to an extreme of absurdity not seen since the days of the robber barons. Yes, the candidate that most pleases the extreme right will probably win the nomination, but being tied to the horrendous Bush failures, is unlikely to win this election or many to come. The “Clinton” mantra you have tried to foist off on the public has become the “Bush” mantra. As a forgotten republican once said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time…….”
[Krugman Op-ed]Posted by: MonkeyHawk | December 30, 2007 at 11:21 PM
That’s a sobering op-ed.
Krugman is arguing that Democrats shouldn’t shirk from a showdown with Republics. If you are a Democrat and find yourself wishing for domestic peace and hoping that we can all just get along, you will be disappointed, according to Krugman.
His evidence? He argues that if Norquist wing of the GOP can bring to heel a maverick (McCain) and a blue state country-clubber (Romney) — and they have — then there are no Republcs other than Huckabee who have anything in common with Democrats when it comes to fiscal policy (economics). When it comes to fiscal matters, Krugman (an economist) concludes that the GOP is now 100% in the pocket of movement conservatives.
It’s a very strong argument.
If you’re an Independent or a Democrat who would be willing to compromise if it’ll just bring domestic tranquility (ie, vote for a non-polarizing, “reasonable” Republic instead of a polarizing Clinton), you can’t: that peace doesn’t exist.
If you find yourself repulsed emotionally and intellectually by movement conservatism, then your only Republic choice (among the frontrunners) is Mike Huckabee.
Wow. If Krugman is correct, then this election is going to be “worst case” ugly.
The only true conservative running is Duncan Hunter. He is right on with every issue.
http://www.gohunter08.com