So it is probably pretty apparent that I lean rightward in my political leanings. I am not a strict right-winger or left-winger, but I guess you'd call me center-right, or a classical liberal or a believer in human freedom (classical liberalism is not the same as the modern American definition of liberal which tends to refer to people who believe in a large amount of State intrusion into the economy and society but are socially liberal). One thing some commentators I have noticed have been saying as of late is that if President Obama is re-elected, that this is an endorsement for basically taking the country down the road (or continuing to take it down the road) of European-style social democracy. However, I do not agree with this, for two reasons:
1) As Ayn Rand once said, "There is no such thing as a collective brain."
2) The Republican candidates seem to be so bad that if Obama wins, it might not be so much an endorsement of social democracy as a rejection of what they saw as a worse alternative. Now some might say that a rejection of the Republican alternative is an endorsement of social democracy, but the thing is that the average voter may not even really understand these issues. For example, does the average voter even know what social democracy is? A Republican candidate with a strong message about the difference between the socially-democratic model (large social welfare state, large amounts of regulation, government seeking to steer and drive the economy, etc...) versus the "American model" (maybe more appropriately termed the "classically-liberal model"), consisting of limited-government, a strong private-sector unhampered by intrusive government, overall low taxes, fiscal conservatism, a fiscally-responsible government, etc...and the policies the Republican will implement to do this, could probably beat Obama.
Such a Republican could point out the dangers of the debt and deficit the country is running, how this president has done virtually nothing to address the issue of the debt and deficit, and also the failure of the European social-democratic model (the Europeans have virtually no defense budget and higher taxes yet still struggle to maintain their social welfare states, some of them having been pushed over a cliff economically due to this recession).
But as it stands, the current crop of GOP candidates is as follows:
1) Mitt Romney: There is no real platform he is running on. Nothing about social democracy and how America should not go down that route, nothing about how to repair the debt and deficit or the dangers of the debt and deficit, nothing about what he will do to really get the economy growing again, etc...instead, his entire platform seems to be, "I'm a successful businessman, so vote for me."
In addition, he seems to be completely incapable of defending his own record in the private-sector. He and his campaign were blindsided it seemed when Republicans such as Newt Gingrich began criticizing his time at Bain Capital. Did it not occur to him that this would occur? Maybe it occurring from Republicans was a shocker, but it would occur nonetheless. As a private-equity person, Mitt Romney, should be well aware that his political opponents would try to pervert his record, saying that he was a vulture capitalist who hunted for troubled companies, bought them up, fired everyone, and sold the company off for parts. They will do things like get some old woman and some old man and make commercials showing them talking about how they worked their whole lives at X company, until Romney came in and fired everyone and destroyed the company.
That should be common sense! If you are a private-equity person who saved struggled companies and now are running for political office, that you will be attacked like that should be something you're fully expecting and prepared for. Because if that's a career one has had, there will be companies that one tried to save and failed to do so, and also companies where one did have to fire people and put the company into bankruptcy, simply to save the entire company from going out of business.
This also leads to another point: bankruptcy. A lot of people think bankruptcy means the company ceased operations and went out of business. It doesn't. There are different forms of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a tool used to resructure a company. The airlines for example have been into and out of bankruptcy multiple times. So saying that under Mitt Romney, ten companies "went bankrupt" could technically be accurate, even though it's completely mis-leading (implying that all those companies went out of business). So one would think Romney would be prepared for such attacks. I am giving Mitt Romney the benefit of the doubt in that this is the type of private equity that he pursued, and that he was not literally a vulture capitalist. But let's say he was, then it gets even more confusing ,because one would think a guy who is an amoral politician, who made his money preying on and ruining companies, would again be smart enough to know he will be attacked on this and that he must be fully prepared to defend against it.
But Mitt Romney has instead shown incredible weakness defending his private-sector record. He did not respond strongly to the attacks from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry at all. What he should have done was give a very strong response, defend what he did while at Bain, say people were wrongly trying to demonize him, and completely distorting his record (and give some examples). For example, point out that with GM and Chrysler, Obama did the same thing: GM and Chrysler were put into bankruptcy, people were laid off, dealerships were closed, but it was done to save the company.
Romney does not seem to be fluent in conservatism or libertarianism at all (small-L libertarianism). He does not seem to understand the intellectual foundation behind the principles and policies the right support. It's like he is just trying to run as a right-leaning guy when he really has no idea of the framework for those policies. So he is unable to explain them or talk about them well. Up against the Obama campaign's onslaught, if his sole platform is "I'm a businessmen so vote for me" and then he is unable to defend his background against criticisms, he will lose.
2) Rick Santorum: Rick Santorum is likeable, except that his sole platform seems to be based on social conservatism, which is problematic for two reasons: one, it doesn't talk about the other issues (debt, deficit, etc...) and two, in the general election, Americans tend to be more moderate-leaning, not wanting a very socially-conservative person. Perhaps Santorum could pull an Obama and run more centrist in the general (as Obama ran to the far-left during the Democratic primary in 2008, then ran to the center during the general election), but the problem here is that Obama had the media on his side. The media hid all of his far-leftwing statements throughout the general election, whereas with Santorum, if he runs as a far-right social conservative during the Republican primary and then tries to run as a centrist during the general (provided he was the nominee), the mainstream media will make very sure that they inform the public about how socially-conservative he is (like when he said that homosexuality is akin to incest). This, without a solid platform contrasting the Republican vision for America with the Democratic party vision, means he will likely lose.
3) Newt Gingrich: Newt Gingrich is probably the most intellectual out of all of the candidates, but he has the problem of occassionally saying things that blow up in his face and get him into trouble. All it would take is one such incidence during the general election to wreak havoc with his campaign. There is also the problem that he has a lot of baggage. He was fired from being Speaker of the House over ethics violations. He was later found innocent of these violations, but this is not widely reported. He also has the reputation for having cheated on his wife (wives?) and having served his first wife divorce papers while she had cancer. Plus his current wife, Callista, looks like a stepford bride. While this is not unto itself a bad thing, it just doesn't look good to have the reputation regarding wives Newt Gingrich has and to currently have a wife who looks like a stepford bride. If she was his wife of fifty years or whatnot, that would be a real benefit. But she is instead a secretary he was having sex with for six years before revealing this to then wife Marianne, and Callista does not look like she can relate at all to the plight of the average person (even if she can, what counts is how people perceive her (and in addition, how will people perceive a woman who was sleeping with a married man for six years!?)). The Obama campaign would have a field day running against Newt Gingrich and he would probably inadverdently provide them with ammunition.
4) Ron Paul: I know my opinion here is going to enrage any Ron Paul fans, but personally I see the man as a nut. A Grade-A Looney-Toon. He has a history of being involved with conspiracy theories (the latest being his seeing the border fence as a way to keep Americans in!?), he has what seems very amateurish and ideological understandings and views pertaining to foreign policy and economics (he wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve and go back to the gold standard, or at the very least, audit the Federal Reserve, which would mean outright politicizing it), and he has referred to the United States, in one of his books, as an empire and one of the most aggressive and militaristic empires in history. He would be to the left of Obama on foreign policy issues and if the nominee, Obama would win in a landslide election.
Out of the four above, it seems the nominee will either be Romney or Santorum. With either one of these candidates, if they run in the general election the way they are running right now, the American people may well re-elect Obama not out of any endorsement of his socially-democratic agenda but simply because the alternative candidates do not seem any better, or even seem worse.
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