Republican Primary Megathread (poll now updated)

[Forsher]

(Image)

Just in time for summer!

Can't handle the jandal?
Santorum 2012!

[Tsenden]

Rom Mittney 2012: A Haircut we can believe in!

[Alien Space Bats]

I hereby dub Mitt Romney "Pander Bear".

Mitt "Pander Bear" Romney.

It has a nice ring to it. doesn't it?

[Farnhamia]

I hereby dub Mitt Romney "Pander Bear".

Mitt "Pander Bear" Romney.

It has a nice ring to it. doesn't it?

[Wikkiwallana]

I'm good with that as long as you figure out a way to make it a verb.

Dude, seriously, you didn't gingrich, did you?

Better yet "Dude, she got diagnosed with cancer!" "So?" "So I gingriched her, that's what!"

Good, but how often would it be used?

[Maineiacs]

gingrinch: a moral vaccum so dense the truth can never escape it.

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

Gingrich: a black hole of morality.

[Shrillland]

Better yet "Dude, she got diagnosed with cancer!" "So?" "So I gingriched her, that's what!"

Good, but how often would it be used?

I don't know. Edwardsing is the term I thought.

[Farnhamia]

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

Gingrich: a black hole of morality.

Better.

[Revolutopia]

gingrinch: a moral vaccum so dense the truth can never escape it.

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

But, empty is the perfect term to describe Gingrich's moral and political substances.

[New England and The Maritimes]

Good, but how often would it be used?

I don't know. Edwardsing is the term I thought.

The Gingrich is when you not only have sex outside the marriage, but you dump the terminally ill wife and marry the mistress immediately on diagnosis.

[Tmutarakhan]

...
So where does that leave Mitt? He has no choice but to double down and move to Santorum's right on reproductive issues. He has to come out and say that 90's Mitt was before he saw the light, and that now he's hard-core pro-life and anti-contraception. He has to endorse a complete elimination of Title X money (because he's been attacking Santorum for supporting Title X); he has to say he's going to throw poor women under the bus when it comes to mammograms, etc...

Today he was asked how he would balance the budget. He said he would do it by eliminating Planned Parenthood. This is stupid on multiple levels.

[Gauthier]

...
So where does that leave Mitt? He has no choice but to double down and move to Santorum's right on reproductive issues. He has to come out and say that 90's Mitt was before he saw the light, and that now he's hard-core pro-life and anti-contraception. He has to endorse a complete elimination of Title X money (because he's been attacking Santorum for supporting Title X); he has to say he's going to throw poor women under the bus when it comes to mammograms, etc...

Today he was asked how he would balance the budget. He said he would do it by eliminating Planned Parenthood. This is stupid on multiple levels.

And with that Planned Parenthood fundraiser he can't erase from public memory, it's political suicide.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

Today he was asked how he would balance the budget. He said he would do it by eliminating Planned Parenthood. This is stupid on multiple levels.

And with that Planned Parenthood fundraiser he can't erase from public memory, it's political suicide.

He'll just keep saying bullshit and people will stop correcting him.

[The Archregimancy]

I also think Mitt has committed a strategic blunder in saying publicly that he can't accept Santorum as his VP because Frothy isn't conservative enough on birth control and abortion. You have to wonder if there's some sort of gene in the Romney family tree that makes him say stupid things that can kill his campaign. But with that quote, not only has Mitt bought Rick Santorum's position on reproductive rights, he's actually committed himself to exceeding it.

With David Cameron passing through DC and sharing a mutual love-in with Obama, it's perhaps worth considering the extent to which the current Republican contest has finally and definitively severed the traditional ties between the Republican Party and the UK Conservative Party. Those links were traditionally strong - though deliberately underplayed on both sides - with political strategists from both parties often crossing the Atlantic to share tips.

Those ties have been under strain for some time - the Bush/Blair love-in and Bush's refusal to meet with Conservative leader Michael Howard because of the latter's criticism of the Iraq 'weapons of mass destruction' justification for Iraq weakened them considerably - but Rick Santorum's recent comments about Margaret Thatcher and the NHS and the Obama/Cameron love-in have clearly demonstrated that the UK Conservatives now consider their US counterparts to be toxic.

Or, as a recent article in the UK's Daily Telegraph (aka the 'Daily Torygraph') put it:

The Tory Party today is united by its fiscal conservatism whereas Republicanism today is principally concerned with social conservatism. The unwavering Tory commitment to eliminating the UK’s structural deficit contrasts sharply with the diverse views held within the party on social and moral issues, from fox-hunting to abortion. The present-day Republican Party, however, is very much the inverse of this. The leading Republican presidential nominees have proposed different but singularly bizarre economic schemes, which don’t amount to a credible response to President Obama’s American Jobs Act. Instead, more attention has been paid – collectively – to advocating a position of extreme social conservatism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... guage.html

Which leads us to a situation where a gay marriage-supporting climate change-accepting Conservative Prime Minister wouldn't be caught dead being photographed with the Republican candidates, and a Republican candidate - supporting his argument that the NHS destroyed the British Empire - claims that a former Conservative Prime Minister who was, in many ways, to the left of her current successor was a Tea Party Tory who felt her inability to abolish the NHS was her greatest political failure.

Which in turn leads to a columnist in a British right of centre Conservative-supporting newspaper (same link as above) arguing that:

Today’s British Conservatives don’t share this political logic, and as such they now lack a natural American partner. One has to go back a generation and switch parties – to Clinton’s Democrats – to find an American party with any kind of ideological likeness to today’s British Conservatives. Clinton’s record of sustained growth and careful cultivation of a large budget surplus is fiscal Conservatism in action and we shouldn’t be surprised therefore, that his party bears strong resemblance in its aims and political strategy to the current British Conservative party.

I don't doubt that the UK Conservative Party has become more fiscally conservative since the halcyon (tongue partially in cheek there) days of the Reagan-Thatcher relationship, embracing a program of governmental fiscal austerity that out-Thatchers Thatcher - but it's also become more socially liberal, or at least more socially diverse, embracing several gay MPs, and even indeed ministers. It maintains a socially conservative faith-based wing (including my MP, alas), but the latter is marginalised - and is in any case Anglican rather than Evangelical. After all, nobody (or nobody serious) seems to be objecting to Darwin's presence on the ten pound note.

Summed up, even the most natural political western democracy political allies* of the Republican party think the Republicans have driven off the cliff into a sea of toxic political poison that renders informal international alliances undesirable.


*The Australian Liberal Party probably excepted.

[Sedgistan]

I also think Mitt has committed a strategic blunder in saying publicly that he can't accept Santorum as his VP because Frothy isn't conservative enough on birth control and abortion. You have to wonder if there's some sort of gene in the Romney family tree that makes him say stupid things that can kill his campaign. But with that quote, not only has Mitt bought Rick Santorum's position on reproductive rights, he's actually committed himself to exceeding it.

With David Cameron passing through DC and sharing a mutual love-in with Obama, it's perhaps worth considering the extent to which the current Republican contest has finally and definitively severed the traditional ties between the Republican Party and the UK Conservative Party. Those links were traditionally strong - though deliberately underplayed on both sides - with political strategists from both parties often crossing the Atlantic to share tips.

Those ties have been under strain for some time - the Bush/Blair love-in and Bush's refusal to meet with Conservative leader Michael Howard because of the latter's criticism of the Iraq 'weapons of mass destruction' justification for Iraq weakened them considerably - but Rick Santorum's recent comments about Margaret Thatcher and the NHS and the Obama/Cameron love-in have clearly demonstrated that the UK Conservatives now consider their US counterparts to be toxic.

Or, as a recent article in the UK's Daily Telegraph (aka the 'Daily Torygraph') put it:

The Tory Party today is united by its fiscal conservatism whereas Republicanism today is principally concerned with social conservatism. The unwavering Tory commitment to eliminating the UK’s structural deficit contrasts sharply with the diverse views held within the party on social and moral issues, from fox-hunting to abortion. The present-day Republican Party, however, is very much the inverse of this. The leading Republican presidential nominees have proposed different but singularly bizarre economic schemes, which don’t amount to a credible response to President Obama’s American Jobs Act. Instead, more attention has been paid – collectively – to advocating a position of extreme social conservatism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... guage.html

Which leads us to a situation where a gay marriage-supporting climate change-accepting Conservative Prime Minister wouldn't be caught dead being photographed with the Republican candidates, and a Republican candidate - supporting his argument that the NHS destroyed the British Empire - claims that a former Conservative Prime Minister who was, in many ways, to the left of her current successor was a Tea Party Tory who felt her inability to abolish the NHS was her greatest political failure.

Which in turn leads to a columnist in a British right of centre Conservative-supporting newspaper (same link as above) arguing that:

Today’s British Conservatives don’t share this political logic, and as such they now lack a natural American partner. One has to go back a generation and switch parties – to Clinton’s Democrats – to find an American party with any kind of ideological likeness to today’s British Conservatives. Clinton’s record of sustained growth and careful cultivation of a large budget surplus is fiscal Conservatism in action and we shouldn’t be surprised therefore, that his party bears strong resemblance in its aims and political strategy to the current British Conservative party.

I don't doubt that the UK Conservative Party has become more fiscally conservative since the halcyon (tongue partially in cheek there) days of the Reagan-Thatcher relationship, embracing a program of governmental fiscal austerity that out-Thatchers Thatcher - but it's also become more socially liberal, or at least more socially diverse, embracing several gay MPs, and even indeed ministers. It maintains a socially conservative faith-based wing (including my MP, alas), but the latter is marginalised - and is in any case Anglican rather than Evangelical. After all, nobody (or nobody serious) seems to be objecting to Darwin's presence on the ten pound note.

Summed up, even the most natural political western democracy political allies* of the Republican party think the Republicans have driven off the cliff into a sea of toxic political poison that renders informal international alliances undesirable.


*The Australian Liberal Party probably excepted.

We should make that a sea of toxic political lava

[Alien Space Bats]

<Cogent discourse on why Britain's Tories and America's Republicans now come from different universes>

I've seen this coming for a while as well, but the rift made me chuckle when the riots hit Britain last year.

Sean Hannity had a Tory pundit - I can't recall his name - call in for an "interview" on his radio program. Sean wanted so very, very badly to hear his Tory counterpart say that Britain's problem was gun ownership, to the point where he kept leading the conversation back to that subject.

The Tory was stereotypically polite, but continued to insist that the real problem lay in the overly centralized command structure of the municipal police - a command structure that made rapid response to the situation on the streets difficult. Decentralization of the chain of command and greater accountability to local communities and constituencies was the answer, he said.

Sean couldn't let go: "But wouldn't it be better if people had the right to arm themselves and use those weapons to protect their homes and shops? Wouldn't that reduce the looting?"

The Tory was circumspect, but you could almost hear the patronizing smile in his voice: "It's a societal issue, really. In America, you're all armed - and that includes the police, because the people are armed. That cuts down on property crime, which we're having a lot of here with these riots, but it also means a much higher murder rate. We don't have as many guns, so we do have a higher rate of property crime - but we end up with a lot less gun violence. I'm not saying that America has made the wrong choice; it's just that we've made different choices here in Britain, and that just a matter of culture as much as anything else."

Sean continued on to wrap up the interview, trying and failing to fit it all into the American right-wing perspective; his guest didn't really criticize him, but obviously gave him no help at all in spinning the story to fit the FOX News line.

I have to say it totally made my day to hear Hannity so utterly frustrated.

[New England and The Maritimes]

<Cogent discourse on why Britain's Tories and America's Republicans now come from different universes>

I've seen this coming for a while as well, but the rift made me chuckle when the riots hit Britain last year.

Sean Hannity had a Tory pundit - I can't recall his name - call in for an "interview" on his radio program. Sean wanted so very, very badly to hear his Tory counterpart say that Britain's problem was gun ownership, to the point where he kept leading the conversation back to that subject.

The Tory was stereotypically polite, but continued to insist that the real problem lay in the overly centralized command structure of the municipal police - a command structure that made rapid response to the situation on the streets difficult. Decentralization of the chain of command and greater accountability to local communities and constituencies was the answer, he said.

Sean couldn't let go: "But wouldn't it be better if people had the right to arm themselves and use those weapons to protect their homes and shops? Wouldn't that reduce the looting?"

The Tory was circumspect, but you could almost hear the patronizing smile in his voice: "It's a societal issue, really. In America, you're all armed - and that includes the police, because the people are armed. That cuts down on property crime, which we're having a lot of here with these riots, but it also means a much higher murder rate. We don't have as many guns, so we do have a higher rate of property crime - but we end up with a lot less gun violence. I'm not saying that America has made the wrong choice; it's just that we've made different choices here in Britain, and that just a matter of culture as much as anything else."

Sean continued on to wrap up the interview, trying and failing to fit it all into the American right-wing perspective; his guest didn't really criticize him, but obviously gave him no help at all in spinning the story to fit the FOX News line.

I have to say it totally made my day to hear Hannity so utterly frustrated.

Hannity is a clown. I can't stand the guy. Like most Republican "personalities," not only is he stupid, he's so pompous and smug about that it almost makes me sick. The worse ones are those who have to know better, but continue to put up the facade, as if they think imposing a fundamentally broken world view onto a suggestible audience is somehow for a greater good.

[Kaeshar]

Whoa, the last two posts somehow broke the thread, just a heads up.

[The Jahistic Unified Republic]

Lol @ everyone voting Ron Paul. Wishful thinking is such a powerful thing.

Well he's at 22% to Romneys 24% and there's still the unfactored Democrat vote and the undecided, and considering Paul has the best ground team...

It'll be close, but I think he can pull it off - unless the PPP poll tonight tells us otherwise.

I am a libertarian, so I naturally support Paul. But I'm wondering if he is just doing it to hype up his son Rand for the 2016 election... Just a thought.

[Farnhamia]

Well he's at 22% to Romneys 24% and there's still the unfactored Democrat vote and the undecided, and considering Paul has the best ground team...

It'll be close, but I think he can pull it off - unless the PPP poll tonight tells us otherwise.

I am a libertarian, so I naturally support Paul. But I'm wondering if he is just doing it to hype up his son Rand for the 2016 election... Just a thought.

I doubt it. I do think Ron Paul wants to be President of the United States. Luckily most people aren't fooled by his ill-concealed longing for the 19th century.

[Ruridova]

gingrinch: a moral vaccum so dense the truth can never escape it.

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

So he's a moral black hole, maybe?

[Farnhamia]

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

So he's a moral black hole, maybe?

That would work. "Newt Gingrich, a moral singularity so dense that not even light can escape from it. And hide your women when he comes to town."

[Jocabia]

I like it but it doesn't quite ring true. Vacuums are empty, not dense.

So he's a moral black hole, maybe?

I love the idea that Gingrich is a black hole. Santorum is going to be all over that.

[Gauthier]

So he's a moral black hole, maybe?

That would work. "Newt Gingrich, a moral singularity so dense that not even light can escape from it. And hide your women when he comes to town."

"Hide yo wives, hide yo girls he gonna be adulteratin' everybody."

[Farnhamia]

That would work. "Newt Gingrich, a moral singularity so dense that not even light can escape from it. And hide your women when he comes to town."

"Hide yo wives, hide yo girls he gonna be adulteratin' everybody."

"Mistah Newt been workin' real hard tryin' to fix da country, he done worked hisself up somethin' AWFUL!"