Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

Your candidate is unelectable and stupid

Jerry Stratton, March 12, 2012

Mitt Romney doesn’t even know conservative positions enough to lie like a politician and has only won one election in his life. Rick Santorum thinks the most important issues of our time includes contraception and went down in flames in his home state in his last election.1 Newt Gingrich talks a good game—but attacks from the left when he starts to lose his temper. Ron Paul will be even worse than President Obama when it comes to foreign relations.2

Your candidate sucks. And they’re a racist, lynching, sexual harasser who wants to deny health care to women and minorities—or they will be, once the Democrats and the media are through with them.

The thing is, these are also good people, all of them. Newt Gingrich revolutionized an out-of-control government in 1994 and he understands the media and its bias—and how to fight it—more than any of the other candidates—probably enough to make him the most electable candidate3 and the one most able to turn our financial collapse around. Rick Santorum saw the dangers of the bailouts before most other politicians, and he understands working class issues more than any of the other candidates. His last year in office netted him high ratings from FreedomWorks, the American Conservative Union, and the NRA. Ron Paul has been a lone voice for fiscal conservatism for as long as I can remember. He has been warning about the dangers of printing money without restraint since long before it was cool. Mitt Romney is personally a good man who makes hard choices quickly and saves lives. Any of these candidates would be worth voting for in the general election.

All of these candidates are stronger than John McCain was in 2008. McCain suspended his campaign following the housing disaster of 2008—but even though he had been warning about the need for oversight in that market for years he did nothing except maintain the status quo. Were there a monetary crisis in 2012 analogous to the housing crisis of 2008, a candidate Ron Paul would not come back without real reforms.

There is no perfect candidate. This process should provide us with a decent one. If you want someone better, work locally to support great candidates who will rise to national prominence; and fight to defend great candidates when they’re attacked by a lying media. But consider fighting to defend the decent ones, too.

March 14, 2012: Nothing to fear but a brokered convention
Sarah Palin and Allen West at Rolling Thunder: Sarah Palin and Allen West meet during Rolling Thunder.; Sarah Palin; Allen West

“Colonel Allen West, who’s been to the school of hard knocks, he should be the one considered seriously for VP.”

Ann Coulter seems to think there’s something to fear about a brokered convention. I don’t get it—that, or the notion that Sarah Palin is pushing for a brokered convention so that she’ll be nominated. Palin is not going to be in the running at a brokered convention, she knows it, and she’s said she knows it.

Palin said clearly that she understood “I’m not going to be asked”. The only thing she’s said that’s remotely close was when she said “I would do whatever I could to help” if there were a brokered convention. That takes a lot of work to read as “I want the nomination”. It’s a lot easier to read as that she’d do what she did during the 2010 elections to help conservatives get elected.

But given that in the immediately previous sentence she said that lots of others would “offer themselves up in the name of service to their country” and that she’s gone out of her way to praise all four of the candidates and even suggest people other than her for the slots (such as Allan West for the VP slot), it takes a pretty twisted reading to read that as her asking to be nominated.

But one of the other things Palin said about a brokered convention—in the same sentence as “I’m not going to be asked”—was that “if it results in a brokered convention, that is nothing to fear”.

And it isn’t something to fear, unless you’re President Obama or a member of the biased media. A brokered convention would be a godsend to a smart Republican party. Conservatives have two chances of getting their voices heard during the presidential election without it being chopped into pieces first by a biased media: the debates and the convention. The only one where they can frame the discussion is the convention, because the debates always seem to involve crazy questions like George Stephanopoulos’s out-of-the-blue contraception question. The convention is fully under the control of the Republican Party.

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March 13, 2012: President Obama pokes the bear
Alaskan brown bear with fish: An Alaskan brown bear with his yummy catch.; Alaska; animals

Someone’s having lunch. (Dawna Raven sky Zimbalist, CC-BY 2.0)

Who is my dream candidate for national office? I want a true moderate. Not a political hack whose “moderation” is just accepting the overspending, corruption, and big government programs of both sides of the aisle. But someone who recognizes the flaws—and benefits—of each side in the debate, and who fights corruption wherever it occurs and not just when it occurs on the other side of the aisle.

Too many politicians—for all practical purposes, 100%—are against corruption and all the powers of incumbency when they’re the underdog, but willing to look the other way when they’re the ones benefiting. My dream candidate will take on corruption in both parties.

The obvious example is cronyism. Cronyism ensures a constantly expanding government. Conservatives can rail against encroaching government power all they want, but until they take on the reason that government keeps getting bigger, they won’t be effective at stopping it. Crony capitalism is that reason. It is the reason programs rarely get smaller, that budgets baseline at the previous year’s level, and that new programs are created in the backrooms.

To the extent that I’m a single-issue voter, that issue is effective self-defense, because it impinges on all of our other rights. When self-defense goes, so does free speech, free assembly, and privacy. So my dream candidate needs to support effective self-defense.

A candidate who recognizes that contraception and abortion legislation are distractions from the real issues facing America today would be awesome.

These are the things that have to be dealt with if we’re going to make any progress.

Unfortunately, that candidate chose not to run, and I think for good reasons, at least at the time.1 So, imagine my surprise finding out yesterday that Obama thinks that candidate is in the race!

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  1. Although, in his defense, until they run for president a politician can’t lose anywhere but their home state.

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  2. Or, as Andy at Ace of Spades HQ wrote, “Mitt likes firing people and making them poor so he has more people to not be concerned about. Santorum’s going to issue an executive order banning the pill and non-procreative sex. Newt is going to form a swingers’ club on the moon. We get it. The MFM is going to run these guys down to get their boyfriend reelected, no matter what.”

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  3. One of the things Gingrich understood and none of the other candidates seem to is that the only time a conservative receives relatively unfiltered access to the media is during the debates. The debates are initially broadcast live, without misleading cuts and without different questions tacked on to the answers. The closest they’re going to get to that once the debates are over will be the acceptance speech at the convention. Once the convention is over the nominee is going to have to fight to get their message out unedited.

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  1. <- Future adults
  2. 2012 in photos ->