OK, Fine. I'll Talk About It

I’ve finally gotten interested in the 2012 election. There is a great website called ontheissues.org, which breaks down the positions of each of the candidates (both declared and potential). They also have a quiz that you take, where you respond to a series of policy questions, and then they categorize you on a graph with Liberal/Populist/Conservative/Libertarian at each corner, with the middle being labeled Moderate. Once you take the quiz, click the link at the bottom that says something like “analyze” or “explain” results for a fairly detailed self-report. It turns out that I am a “Moderate Libertarian Conservative.” Even better, based on your responses to the questions, they line you up by percentage with the candidates, from the one you agree with the most to the least. It turns out Jon Huntsman is my man. Well, sort of.

Now, the quiz isn’t perfect, as it just focuses on policy positions. It does not take into account the important intangibles, such as Bachmann’s shrill insanity or Perry’s deep, deep stupidity. Even with Huntsman, my positions lined up with his less than 50% of the time. So I don’t really have an ideal candidate for me out there running. Perry, thank God, was pretty low on my list.

I watched the Republican Debate the other night, and I thought it was quite good. It is clear that this is already really a two person race between Perry and Romney, from positioning them in the middle of the stage of 8 candidates to asking them the first set of questions. (Ron Paul is there for entertainment, it is fun to listen to Cain mangle the English language, I don’t know why Newt is still there other than to complain about the media pitting Republicans against each other (Newt, this is a debate), Bachmann tries mightily to keep her bumper sticker quips straight, my guy Huntsman makes sense but he is not Red enough for the primaries, and they hardly let Santorum even speak). Between those two serious candidates, I will strongly support Romney. The man is intelligent, and despite what he has to say in the primaries, I think that his record shows a reasonable leader willing consider good ideas, regardless of their origin.

Perry touts Texas job creation, which sounds great, but when most of the new Texas jobs amount to serving fries at the drive-through, it is not so impressive. Also, Perry does not believe in working too seriously to educate our next generation for better than minimum wage work, because Texas ranks dead last in the Union in graduating high schoolers. Perry’s solution was to slash budgets and fire teachers (as opposed to fixing a broken property tax system that will continue to deliver deficits every year until it is fixed). The only benefit to Perry’s winning the presidency is that at least he would be out of the Texas governor’s mansion.


ABOVE: Nightmare scenario

And what is Palin’s game? I know she craves the limelight like a third rate reality TV star, but I think it is more. I think she is gunning for a VP slot. She would be much more likely to be chosen by Perry than by Romney. Can you imagine a Perry/Palin ticket? One that would have a good chance of defeating Obama? Scary. Snooky could defeat Obama right now. I say this as one who actually voted for Obama in ’08 (because of Palin, but I actually really liked McCain). Obama has been beyond disappointing. Even worse than being wrong, he has been ineffectual. So the Republicans need to be careful about who they put on the ticket. That ticket will most likely occupy the White House after 2012.