Sunday, June 12, 2011
Sunday Question for Liberals
How about the same question for liberals: if the choices are Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Rick Perry, do you think there are any significant issue differences between them that matter to you? For that matter: do you think there are any significant differences between them as far as how they would behave in the White House that matter to you? Presumably, Democrats voting sincerely in GOP primaries next year would vote for either Jon Huntsman or, if libertarian-sympathetic, for Gary Johnson. But if you were to vote sincerely (that is, who would make the best president, not who would be easiest to beat) and the choices were only Romney, Pawlenty, and Perry, does one stand out?
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Romney, just because he's been flip-floping on issues so much since he was governor of Mass. perhaps he'll flip back to a moderate by the time he is in the white house, oh and he doesn't deny Climate Change, which is saying something for Republicans these days.
ReplyDeleteAmong this group, Romney would be best, especially in foreign policy, because he'd listen to advisers, moderate, bend, and be less rash, provocative and ideological. Qualities that hurt him with the GOP base and establishment would make him less objectionable to liberals. He is more likely to accomplish something and less likely to do something foolish.
ReplyDeleteIt makes no difference which Republican becomes President. A Republican victory will doubtless mean gains in the House and Senate, which means that the hard Right will dictate the agenda no matter who's President.
ReplyDeleteI'll go with Romney as well. He certainly wouldn't be good, but he would probably appoint more moderates and technocrats than Perry or Pawlenty, if only because so many of the people he knows are from the Northeastern wing of the party. And he seems like he'd be the most managerially competent--so hopefully we could at least dodge disasters like the Bush FEMA, where it's not caused by ideology so much as rank incompetence. This is just my impression, though, so don't ask for cites.
ReplyDeleteI think Romney would be the best President of these three. Pawlenty would be the easiest for Obama to beat in the election.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to tell how they'd differ from each other except by looking at their gubernatorial records, which can still be misleading. (Especially when it comes to Texas, where the governorship is very weak.) I wouldn't put too much stock into expecting Romney to suddenly turn all "moderate" once he enters office. For the last several years, he's been trying his utmost to prove his right-wing credentials, and I don't see how that's going to change once he captures the presidency. By then, he'll have already surrounded himself by hard-right figures. It'll be like McCain '08 on steroids. If he wins, I have little doubt that he'll work as hard as any other candidate to repeal Obamacare.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have no reason to listen to anything the candidates say on issues at this point. I think examining the policy proposals of candidates is overrated to begin with (remember Obama vs. Hillary on the individual mandate?), and the current GOP race is just a contest of stupid envy, from Cain's 3-page bills to T-Paw's Google Test to Palin's Paul Revere remarks to everything that ever comes out of Bachmann's mouth--none of which tells us much about how each of these individual figures will govern, all it tells us is what a pathetic muck the Republican Party has evolved into.
As a liberal, if I were able to vote in a Republican primary next year it would be for Gary Johnson, yes. Johnson says a lot of things I'd like to hear from liberal pols, come to that.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, although I am no particular fan of Romney's he clearly is a sensible person who wants to be President for reasons in addition to gratifying his enormous ego. In that sense, he is similar to the Democratic candidates from last time out, and in fact I thought (again, through my liberal lens) that he was the only competent and serious person running on the Republican side last time; and he might well have won had he achieved the nomination given how well McCain did.
I disagree with Kylopod that Romney would go out of his way to repeal Obamacare - the fact that he says nutty things to court his party belies the fact that he obviously thinks this kind of program is perfectly livable. I suspect he'd want to spend political capital elsewhere.
Perry would be an interesting Republican choice, if only because he is so extremely generic (can one be extremely generic?) He really would be Bush II all over again, just better hair and cowboy boots, possibly without the Svengali problem.
They are all religious fundamentalists which makes them off the wall for me and I couldn't vote for any of them. If they were the only choices, I'd have to turn to a third party with no chance to win as I won't put such a person into the White House with the ope they can't do too much damage, not after Bush.
ReplyDeleteI think Romney is far and away the best choice. I think it's true he's likely to be the most moderate of the three - although its hard to know. (One could credibly argue that Pawlenty/Perry would have more credibility with conservatives, allowing them to pivot more to the center once they get the nomination.)
ReplyDeleteBut I think, much more importantly, Romney's the most likely to be a competent manager. I think the experience of the Bush years shows how important this is. By contrast, Pawlenty comes off as disengaged and generally not that smart. Perry also seems not that competent, and also seems like the only true ideologue of the group.
I agree with all of the comments here so far, although I don't know anything about Gary Johnson.
ReplyDeleteSince Pawlenty wrecked my home state, and Perry presided over one of the most sustained attacks on science in the public schools in recent memory, I'd have to go Romney.
ReplyDeleteI'd say Romney hands down, as I think establishment GOPers would lead Pawlenty around by the nose ala Cheney and Dubya - and I'd fear that Perry might get an itchy trigger finger with Iran.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I'd have said the same about McCain being the liberals' least worst GOP option in June 2007, and by the time the election rolled around I watched Sen. Walnuts toss all but the last shred of bi-partisan street cred overboard. (He refused to push Rev. Wright videos down America's collective throat as part of an official campaign.)
Voting sincerely in a Republican primary I'd vote for Ron Paul. At least he'd keep us out of wars. If he's truly a Constitutionalist, he'd leave much of domestic policy to congress.
ReplyDeleteAnd he'd offend enough of the Republican party to really shake up domestic coalitions
I know people are thinking "Paul? Really?" but it's right-wing authoritarianism that is most offensive to me. Paul is no authoritarian, he'd leave a lot of presidential powers on the table, and he's the only Republican that would take on the military industrial complex instead of focusing myopically on domestic spending.
In order to win the GOP nomination and re-nomination in 4 years, any GOP candidate is going to have to act like a Teatard. I see no reason to expect a President-elect Romney or Pawlenty to suddenly become sane once the campaign is over since they would need to prevent a primary challenge from the wacko right in 2016. No way would I waste my time voting in a GOP primary and certainly not sincerely. None of these people would be anything other than a horrible President.
ReplyDeleteRomney. I agree with what others have said about him. In particular I agree with Tybalt, right up to where he started talking about Perry.
ReplyDeleteI think Perry is even stupider and more partisan than George W. Bush. We all talk about W as if he were stupid because of the standards we have for him. We (by we, I guess I mean liberals, conservatives don't seem to care) want our presidents to be very smart. W is of average intelligence, probably on the high side of that. Perry is also of average intelligence, but on the low side of that. Compared to what we expect of a president, it would be like having a retarded monkey in the oval office.
It may also be worth pointing out that as a governor W was actually somewhat bi-partisan. It was not at all obvious what a partisan nightmare he would be as president. On the other hand, Perry is not bi-partisan at all.
So, Romney if I am voting for real because his is actually smart, which has to count for something. I can also at least hope that his technocratic instincts would balance out the structural pull towards the hard right agenda that others point out.
T-Paw if I am voting strategically. At first I was scared of him because I thought he might be the moderate generic Republican everyone could accept. Now though it looks like he is incapable of catching fire and he has that McCain stink of "I'll say any crazy old thing if it will get me the nomination." But like with McCain, the crazy seems to take the form of "can you believe he said that?" rather than "can you believe he wants to do that?"
Perry scares me because he is charismatic enough to actually go toe to toe with Obama.