Wednesday, November 9, 2011

What Has Happened To The Republican Party

First of all, let me state that I am loyal to neither party, or person. I respect good leadership. And both we the electorate, as well as the Republican and Democratic (I use proper english) parties are culpable for our current problems. That having been said, today I have to speak on the incredible lack of skilled, qualified, and competent people running  for President on the republican side. Lets look past the so-called straight talking, joke telling, family values surface and see if any of their simple solutions for complex problems work, not just in theory, but in practice. Lets take a better look at the top 4 candidates.

First we must dismiss and never speak of the ones who don't have any chance, I call them the UN-Electables. So good-by Rick S., Michele, Jon (he is reasonably qualified, but he's unelectable as a republican) Gary, Fred, Andy, Buddy, Ron (he's consistent, consistently crazy, and his supporters are like bizarro world liberals) Tom, Matt, Vern, and Jimmy (although I agree "the rent is just too damn high") There much better. So we'll start at the bottom and work are way up, based on my ranking.

4. Rick Perry: I call him Bush lite. What has he really done. Unemployment in Texas in Jan. 2001 was 4.3% Sept. 2011 it was at 8.5% and most of the new jobs involved the military, in large part due to the war. Now that the wars are coming to an end, and cuts are coming to the pentagon that number is almost sure to go up. Where Texas ranks today.
ON EDUCATION
43rd in High School Graduation Rate
31st in Percent of Adults with at Least a Bachelor’s Degree
33rd in Average Salary of Public School Teachers
HEALTH and WELL-BEING
1st in  Percent of Uninsured Children
1st in Percent of Population Uninsured
4th in Percent of Children Living in Poverty
4th in Percent Living Below Federal Poverty Level
ENVIRONMENT
1st in Amount of Toxic Chemicals Released into Water
1st in Amount of Recognized Cancer-Causing Carcinogens Released into Air
1st in Amount of Hazardous Waste Generated
5th Amount of Toxic Chemicals Released into Air
WORKFORCE
38th in Average Hourly Earnings of Production Workers on Manufacturing Payrolls
41st in Percent of Workforce that are Members of a Union
50th in Workers' Compensation Coverage
Plus he has trouble thinking and speaking at the same time. I see no benefit in him becoming President, just more of the same, and we’ve had 10 plus years of that.

3. Newt Gingrich: Former Speaker of the House, Thought of as a (fundamentally) intelligent person. Kinda fails the family values test. If you don’t already know he’s been married 3 times. He divorced his 1st  wife to marry the woman he was having an affair with, while his wife was in the hospital. Funny thing he divorced his 2nd wife to marry, wait for it... a woman he was having an affair with notice a pattern. So you would think he would be a non-starter for social conservatives.
But he did help engineer the “Contract with America” in 1994. It brought the republicans to power, in the house, for the first time in 40 years. He was speaker when during the good old days of balanced budgets, but he really can’t take too much credit, because of a little thing called PAYGO which was part of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990. Paygo was a budget rule requiring that, relative to current law, any tax cuts or entitlement and other mandatory spending increases must be paid for by a tax increase or a cut in mandatory spending. The legislation must be paid for over two time periods: 1) the period of the current year, the budget year and the ensuing four fiscal years, and 2) the period of the current year, the budget year and the ensuing nine fiscal years. So they really had no choice. He is also blamed for shutting down the government in 1995-1996 when President Clinton called his bluff by vetoing a spending bill that cut funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health. He later helped to impeach the President, while having an affair at the same time (multi-tasker). Mr. Gingrich’s national approval rating was 45% (look familiar) in April 1998. He resigned in 1999. Remember the “simple solutions for complex problems” I mentioned earlier, His ideas look good at first glance but when you really flesh them out... Here’s an easy example. His 527 organization ‘American Solutions for Winning the Future’ came up with “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less". Sounds good until you realize it takes years for a well-site to begin producing, if it ever does, and  that oil is sold on the world market, not in a U.S. only market. Drill here, doesn’t mean, stays here. And as long as there is OPEC, and speculators, we will never control of the price of oil. He’s also been writing semi-historical works of fiction. Which also sounds like his plans to govern our nation.

2. Herman Cain: 5 women can’t all be lying. But Mr. Cain sure is.(see my post from Fact Check.org) I know politicians can be prone to stretching the truth, but Mr. Cain reminds us over and over again that he is not a politician. He did however serve as deputy chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, worked for the Bob Dole campaign in 1996, and ran for president in 2000. As well as senator in 2004. He also has experience in Washington, working for the National Restaurant Association. Here are some of the things he lobbied for during his tenure, indoor smoking, lower minimum wages, less safe workplaces, and higher blood alcohol levels for drunk driving., His 9-9-9 plan sounds good at first (again, “simple solutions for complex problems”) But ask yourself what is your effective tax rate now, if it’s less than 9% your taxes are going up. If it’s more than 9% you get a tax cut, except you now have to add a 9% sales tax on top of your current state sales tax i.e. Michigan’s sales tax is 6%. 6% + 9% = 15% nice. Economists who have reviewed his plan say it won’t bring in enough revenue either. Also I think he might be a sociopath, just my opinion. Moving on.
                       
That leaves us with 1. Mitt Romney Really?!

Are these guys the best the party has? What is wrong with the party of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan. Those men had strong beliefs and ideals long before becoming president. It wasn’t something they changed or hid to play the game to get elected. The “base” of the day wasn’t something they had to acquiesce to or else. Lincoln helped to free the slaves. What % of republicans are black today. Roosevelt set aside 1000's of acres of American land, to be preserved for all future generations. How many republicans support keeping it that way. They seem to think they are the only generation that deserve to use it (drill here, drill now, that means national parks as well). Eisenhower ended an unpopular war and served when the top tax rate was 90%. Reagan raised taxes (11 times) fixed Social Security, and gave amnesty to illegal immigrants. If any of these men were running as an incumbent today, with those same achievements on their resume, they would be called RINO’s Republican In Name Only. Today a republican candidate can’t even whisper about raising revenue (nee’ tax increase). They have signed a pledge (only Jon Huntsman refused to sign any pledge) with Grover Nordquist (a close friend and associate of Jack Abramoff) saying they wouldn’t increase taxes no matter what. Is he the only American who matters to them?! How about pledging to do what’s right to fix our economy no matter who’s idea it is. If it solves the problem then do it. Start by listening to Mr. Simpson, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Domenici, and Dr. Rivlin. Pick the person who really has a vision. Stop picking the person with the dumbest idea, just because it makes a good sound bite. One that only runs on a few select hot button issues. i.e. Gays, abortion, immigration. Or the one you could have a drink with (think about it, the next time you look around a bar). Pick better leaders. A leader is one who influences or leads others. Right now republicans are letting the wrong people lead. Their letting the narrowest thinkers run the party. These guys aren’t leading. Their following consultants, polls, and  money. I always hear republicans say that like the democrats they are all about a big tent. If that’s true, then right now, there is a velvet rope around it and you have to be one of the chosen to be allowed in.  

1 comment:

  1. Well, first visit to the site, and im already hooked so I figured that another comment was in line.
    Gingrich: The oil drilling part is very important, and I have alot of trouble understanding why its not clarified more frequently.

    Cain: This is a candidate I simply can't understand why anyone could support. I could understand why a very social conservative person would support a candidate like Santorrum or Bachmann. Or why libetarians would support Ron Paul(even through I think that very few people actually knows what paul stands for exempt no wars and free pot). But Cain has very few qualities and he seems to have no principles at all. Bachmann or Perry has been accused of lack of intelligence but Cain is an entirely different league. I watched the unedited version of his interview about Libya and I was shocked that anybody could be this uninformed.
    Im not an American(I live in scandinavia), and I mostly follow american politics out of interest. So If I was put into a GOP debate tomorrow, I would do very badly, but there is no way that I would be this clueless.
    Cain is on a book tour, which his entire campaign schedule confirms.

    Romney: I find it worrying when a person wants to be president THIS much.


    "How about pledging to do what’s right to fix our economy no matter who’s idea it is"

    I think that this is THE most important thing you touched on. The GOP seems incapable of seeing good ideas if they come from "the other side". Im confident that the opposition to climate change among conservatives was at least intensified by the fact that Al Gore became a champion of that cause.

    Will look forward to future posts and discussions.

    Casper Larsen

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