On the one hand, Mitt Romney is quite dreamy. That’s nice in a president, as the late Warren G. Harding demonstrated. I also suspect from Mitt’s track record, and the fact that he has the annoying but not-insane Greg Mankiw as his economic advisor, that he would do a passable-to-good job as president, at least on domestic matters. It seems like the responsible thing to do is to vote for the guy who I think will actually do the best job.
On the other hand, I want the GOP to lose the election, and I’d prefer a disastrous presidential candidate who drags down other GOP reps — preferably someone with a history of egregious narcissism, habitual philandering, and outrageous and provocative statements. This makes me think that I ought to cast my vote for Newt Gingrich. Whether he wins or loses, it is likely to be funny. The value of humor should not be discounted.
And then there’s Ron Paul, who’s a total crank on economic policy (and I really mean a total crank) and whose interpretation of the Constitution is silly and ahistorical, but who is better on civil liberties and foreign policy than any Democrat I know of. Whenever I watch the Republican debates, it is hard not to sympathize with him. And I would vastly, vastly prefer to be arguing with a libertarian Republican party whose skepticism toward government action extended to interventions overseas and the surveillance of private activities, instead of the xenophobic, pro-torture, pro-wiretapping GOP we have. But to hope for so much is to slip into fantasy.
So. Who gets my vote?
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I’m having conversations on the Jon Huntsman facebook page. Making the argument that Huntsman should aggressively make an issue of climate change – that if really pressed on this issue his opponents could be made to look like fools.
So far, I don’t think I’m having much effect…
I don’t know too much about Huntsman. The right-wing radio people just hate him, though. He had the temerity to accept a diplomatic post from the hated Marxist-Muslim usurper president, and thus has shown that he is not one of them. He will be forever branded with a proverbial scarlet letter, indicating his adultery toward the hard right. Anyhow, though, good luck trying to get him to challenge the other candidates’ denialism.