[United States] The 2012 Elections

[Serious Paul]

So it's been a while since we've had a serious political discussion, and I'm hoping to lure some of the lurkers from the back of the room: What are your thoughts on the 2012 Republican Candidates? It seems pretty safe for me to assume Mr. Obama will have a lock on the Democratic nomination-so really the only speculation is on whom the opposition party will field against him.

So thoughts? Impressions? Opinions? Dislikes?

[Serious Paul]

My own thoughts:

Overall I think the Republican Party is fractured and divided pretty seriously. A part of me hopes to see the party seriously falter, and perhaps that will pave the way for a third party to have a serious chance. I think our system has become seriously flawed-while still marginally better at times than say local strongman with gun, I'd love to see some real change.

On the Candidates:

I think Romney reminds me a lot of what they discuss in Shadowrun as a soulless corporate sponsored candidate. He seems, to me, willing to do whatever it takes to get the brass ring-even if that means changing his opinion at a moments notice to fit the crowd. What's funny is while he's the "Front Runner" the party seems to hate his guts. I don't think he stands a chance in hell against Obama.

Cain, who seems to have surprised a lot of people to come in either a close second or tie the heir apparent, doesn't impress me much. While he is a business savvy man I'm not sure how that'll translate in the national political arena. His harassment crisis should be an interesting measure of this.

Rick Perry is the candidate who's provided everyone with the most laughs, and a Christian reformed type. I hope he chokes, and blows it big time. I suspect he'll do better as we get closer to the polls if nothing else because nobody wants to back Romney.

Newt Gingrich has never impressed me, and I am sure he'll play this for all the capital he can. But he won't, in my opinion, make a serious candidate.

Michelle Bachmann is a lunatic. I think the media's already decided she doesn't have a role in this election. I expect her to parlay that into a book deal, and a speaking position on Fox News. (A news agency that has provided to be an embarrassing media outlet. I feel bad for ever giving them the benefit of the doubt.)

Did I miss anyone?

[Ancient History]

You missed Ron Paul (crazy as Bachmann and Perry combined), neither of whom is a serious contender, though RP still gets an embarrassing amount of television time.

[/edit]Gingrich might actually pull off at least a veep nomination. Unlike the more popular and vocal candidates, he's probably the only major Republican candidate that the Republicans themselves don't hate or feel embarrassed to drag out in public.

The default Democrat candidate is, of course, Obama - and having spent four years in the office, released his long-form birth certificate, and held office during the death of Osama bin Laden, has pretty much overcome many of the early criticisms levied against him in the last campaign about lack of experience and whatnot. He has to be loving the Republican candidate pool because the party is eating itself alive trying to oust him, and none of the candidates so far appear to be able to unify the different party factions. It's more rabid than when the Democrats split over Dean and Kerry against Bush.

The indies might use the turmoil to field a dark horse candidate, but given the current state of the indies I kinda doubt it.

[WillyGilligan]

Cain had me interested slightly with his whole 9-9-9 thing. Not sold completely, but I like the willingness to be bold. And I kind of generally don't mind a President without strong foreign policy credentials/military experience. BUT...he doesn't talk like someone with little experience. He talks like he's never heard of these countries. The pause over Libya is a killer for me. It's a recent development and his current opponents in the primary have been taking positions on this, so to not be able to say ANYthing off the cuff tells me that he's playing catch up like Palin was doing.

I still like Ron Paul for the simple fact that he's a compass and not a weathervane. I feel like I know where he stands and I know he's not going to change that just because he wants to chase poll numbers. I don't want all of his plans to succeed, but I appreciate the sincerity. Speaking of hypocrites...

Gingrich is poison to me. I remember him talking about Starve the Beast back in the day, and I blame that policy of unbalanced tax cuts for a lot of our current mess. Not to mention the sheer gall of attacking Clinton for adultery while he had his own mistress.

Romney I'm either way on. Sounds reasonable when I see him on the teevee, and he has that kind of generic gravitas I'd like to see some more of in the Presidency. But he feels polished enough that I can't hang many associations on him. He'd be a perfect fit in a movie montage where you see the President in the background to serve as a setting piece. Here and gone, doesn't matter what is said as long as the audience gets that it's the President talking. That kind of thing.

Perry - Not to be racist, but I don't think we need another Texan By God in the White House just yet.

Bachman - nuff said.

[DV8]

I can't help but think that all of the Republican candidates are so weak. So incredibly weak. They had the same problem the last time around. I'm sure they can find better candidates than this, right? I like Ron Paul, even though he's fairly radical, but his plan for actual change is never going to get him elected because there's too much money in keeping things the way they are.

[Ancient History]

Well, that and Ron Paul's economics are batshit crazy and will ruin the economy for everyone.

I hate to typecast, but Republicans have a fundamental break in their constituents, and it makes their candidates schizo.

[3278]

None of these people are serious candidates. No one's going to unseat President Obama in this election, so the only people bothering to waste the time and money to run are those who just want some spotlight for a while, for political, personal, or financial reasons. None of these people are fit to be the President of the United States of America.

While I often disagree with President Obama's politics, there's no doubt he's Serious People. None of the people in the Republican field are Serious People. There are a couple who come close, but several who aren't even in shouting distance. Michelle Bachmann? This is in your top 10?

[Jeff Hauze]

I'm downright frightened how damn popular Bachman is in my locale. And Perry. Even after their horrific flubs of the last few weeks.

Southeast PA, the new Mississippi.

[3278]

Rednecks are the same everywhere: Palin was so popular here and I just couldn't figure out what these people were thinking, or how many of them there were. I was a little scared someone might actually make her President. Her and Bachmann, Perry and George W: do these people all drink the same water or something?

I'm all for principled opposition. There are genuine disagreements between people about how the country should be run, about what kind of world we want. But these people aren't even my opposition. I agree with a lot of their politics, fiscally if not socially, and I wouldn't ever vote for any of them. Herman Cain? How did this guy even get this far into the vetting process? Why did it take so long for people to realize he wasn't really presidential material?

Romney [and, I guess, Gingrich] is the only real contender, but that's just because he's watered down enough to be palatable. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Everyone else is crazy, stupid, embarrassing, or some combination of those.

[Ancient History]

You actually endorse the economic austerity policies that the Republicans are pushing? Why? Granted, we've had our little discussions on taxation before, but you can't cut your way out of a depression. Cutting social services and "right-sizing" government jobs just leads to a higher jobless rate, the supposed savings never materialize into a balanced budget much less a surplus.

[3278]

You actually endorse the economic austerity policies that the Republicans are pushing?

I don't know enough about any specific plans any of these specific candidates are pushing to answer that question; I just meant I'm a fiscal conservative, and they're fiscal conservatives.

...you can't cut your way out of a depression.

I don't think you can spend your way out of one, either. Anything the government does to "fix" the depression is going to be a band-aid. What we need is to fix the root problems facing the economy, and then the depression will end organically.

Cutting social services and "right-sizing" government jobs just leads to a higher jobless rate, the supposed savings never materialize into a balanced budget much less a surplus.

I can't speak to that, but I will say that clearly we need to balance the budget, and that's going to mean a mixture of raising taxes and cutting spending. Maybe it's not best to do that right now, with the economy in the tank, but it's got to be done.

[Ancient History]

The major issues with Republican economic policies at this point are:
* Cutting taxes
* Renew tax cuts, see above
* Cut spending to social services, and generally shrink the government
* Deregulating industry
* Possibly privatizing government services

While cutting costs is a laudable goal in a normal economy, downsizing government services in a depression is a horrible thing that makes a bad situation worse. In the particular economic situation the US is in right now (a liquidity trap), tax cuts don't actually spur economic development, because the issue isn't that people don't have money to spend, it's that they're not spending and investing the money they do have. Deregulating the industry is generally a bad thing in general, and part of the reason for the subprime mortgage crisis is deregulation of the finance industry.

(A major issue with a lot of "fiscal conservative" economists is that they don't believe in Keynesian economic theory, preferring supply-side economic theory - the problem is, that means they tend to ignore data-driven models of economic activity, which I think is insane.)

And, I think it should be important to state at this point, the majority of Republican politicians aren't willing to compromise on any of their positions (no new taxes, renew tax cuts, kill social security, etc.) at all, which is making economic recovery difficult. Granted, I'm partial to Paul Krugman's take on things. Obama for his part has at least gone on record saying there needs to be a combination of raising taxes and government cuts.

I also do think it is possible (and sometimes necessary) to spend your way out a depression. Government spending creates need to drive industry and creates jobs to answer to unemployment. By itself it won't do the trick, but I think it's a big part of it.

[3278]

I also do think it is possible (and sometimes necessary) to spend your way out a depression. Government spending creates need to drive industry and creates jobs to answer to unemployment.

Assuming it actually does those things, it still creates the same problem I have with feeding starving African villages: it creates a dependency. Now, if the only thing holding the starving villagers back from self-sufficiency is a year's worth of food, then maybe it's not a bad idea, but when the problem is that the soil where they live can't support all the people who live there, then it's a terrible idea, because you're just going to have to come back next year with more food.*

And in this metaphor, there's no outside agency bringing food: we're borrowing money we don't have a reasonable hope of being able to pay back, just to keep ourselves all alive another year. The only way this math works is if there's some positive feedback, as if the United States would be in fine economic conditions if we could just get out of this depression, but the truth is that we wouldn't be.

I think we need to fail, rather than be propped up, until our income and expenses normalize, until our population and resources normalize. And I don't think the government needs to do a lot in that normalization process, beyond being a impartial mediator: like, I support government playing a strong role in consumer protection, but I don't think it should be manipulating the stock market, for example.

*And you'll need proportionately more: if the ground could just barely feed 100 people, and you brought enough to feed 100 people well, what they'll do is have enough babies so that 120 people can just barely eat. You could blame their ignorance, but the whole human race has been doing this since day one, like every other species.

[Ancient History]

While I would agree with you in principle, in practice I don't think it is feasible for the US to do that and maintain its quality of life, if it's possible at all. The state governments already depend on federal subsidy to sustain themselves; our massive defense industry is a major driver of the economy. But I don't think this is a "teach a man to fish" situation, which is what "starve the beast" is nominally supposed to be; you need some level of government interaction in the economy to help drive and direct the economy toward specific purposes - because you absolutely cannot trust private organizations to do that. As cumbersome, expensive, and inefficient as the government is, they're less likely to form an oligarchy and fuck over the US taxpaxer than any private organization you can name, and more able to provide actual benefits than any church or mutual aid network.

The US national debt isn't a big worrier to me, most of it is debt that the US owes to itself - and we can pay that down, but not by Republican economics. Clinton ran a surplus, so it is possible with the right combination of efforts to balance the budget and pay down the debt. In a large part our ballooning national debt is because of the Bush era tax cuts and unfinanced wars.

[3278]

While I would agree with you in principle, in practice I don't think it is feasible for the US to do that and maintain its quality of life...

I wouldn't anticipate that the US would maintain its quality of life. In fact, I'm virtually certain we wouldn't.

...our massive defense industry is a major driver of the economy.

I definitely agree. But if we employed 180,000 people to dig holes and then fill them in, we wouldn't be well-served to continue doing that simply because it provides jobs. We should only be spending money on things that inherently produce utility on their own; that's the only efficient way to base an economy.

...you need some level of government interaction in the economy to help drive and direct the economy toward specific purposes - because you absolutely cannot trust private organizations to do that.

Rather than let either monolith drive the economy, I would prefer the government only invest when doing so produces utility, and that commerce only be able to interact with the economy in ways that aren't inherently harmful to it. I believe strongly in consumer protection, in limitations on corporations, and on governments as well. I would place power in the hands of the masses, while still ensuring that the masses are protected from short-term thinking.

Clinton ran a surplus, so it is possible with the right combination of efforts to balance the budget and pay down the debt. In a large part our ballooning national debt is because of the Bush era tax cuts and unfinanced wars.

Certainly a large part of our national debt is due to the Bush administration's policies and wars, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's some combination of factors that could lead us back to Clinton-era economic surplus: now is not then.

[Ancient History]

...our massive defense industry is a major driver of the economy.

I definitely agree. But if we employed 180,000 people to dig holes and then fill them in, we wouldn't be well-served to continue doing that simply because it provides jobs. We should only be spending money on things that inherently produce utility on their own; that's the only efficient way to base an economy.

Ideally, I'd like to see the investment going into repairing and improving the USA's url=http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/]infrastructure[/url], which is in dire need of it. However, I have to disagree on the utility part, and I'll explain why after this next quote.

[quote="3278]

...you need some level of government interaction in the economy to help drive and direct the economy toward specific purposes - because you absolutely cannot trust private organizations to do that.

Rather than let either monolith drive the economy, I would prefer the government only invest when doing so produces utility, and that commerce only be able to interact with the economy in ways that aren't inherently harmful to it. I believe strongly in consumer protection, in limitations on corporations, and on governments as well. I would place power in the hands of the masses, while still ensuring that the masses are protected from short-term thinking.[/quote]
First off, the limitations you're talking about aren't fiscally conservative, at least not in the modern political environment.

Second, on utility: I disagree only because I think the government more than the private sector needs to be a driver in innovation of radical and (one day, maybe) utopian technologies. On the sliding scale of creativity, corporate research tends to be incremental and not innovative--they work on ways to improve existing products rather than develop new ones, and if you take away government research then a majority of corporate and academic research in the US will focus on incremental improvements to existing technologies. Government research has led to GPS, velcro, the Internet, and low-light goggles; these are the type of radical innovations I would like to continue and see.

Even if the non-utilitarian projects don't come to fruition, the money spent on them does produce tangible benefit to the economy - your 180,000 people were employed, have job experience, developed hole-digging skills, were able to spend their money. I'm not saying we necessarily want a return to the Great Depression-era busywork, but from a purely economic viewpoint the money spent on such a project might not have been wasted.

Clinton ran a surplus, so it is possible with the right combination of efforts to balance the budget and pay down the debt. In a large part our ballooning national debt is because of the Bush era tax cuts and unfinanced wars.

Certainly a large part of our national debt is due to the Bush administration's policies and wars, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's some combination of factors that could lead us back to Clinton-era economic surplus: now is not then.

Of course. The Clinton-into-Bush transition is just a natural example because many of the same economic policies we're dealing with today are the same ones that were put into play in those situations. While not direct parallels to the current situation, they illustrate some of the effects that the policies in those two radically different administrations can have - and if you don't pay attention to the past, you're doomed to repeat it. Part of the argument among economists right now is that they had ignored the parallels between the financial crisis in 2007 and that of the Great Depression, and as a consequence policies have been pursued which history tells us are not likely to improve the situation.

[3278]

Ideally, I'd like to see the investment going into repairing and improving the USA's infrastructure, which is in dire need of it.

When investment in infrastructure produces utility, I favor it. When it does not - and it often does not have utility proportionate to its expense - I do not. [I was going to link to the expanded version of this, on Animalball, but it's gone.

First off, the limitations you're talking about aren't fiscally conservative, at least not in the modern political environment.

The modern political environment is an aberration, I think. I guess I'd be using the term in the classical sense.

Second, on utility: I disagree only because I think the government more than the private sector needs to be a driver in innovation of radical and (one day, maybe) utopian technologies.

There is utility in doing so; therefore, that development is included when I say, " I would prefer the government only invest when doing so produces utility." While some of this utility is speculative - DARPA can't know where the next breakthrough will be - the fact of it is not.

Even if the non-utilitarian projects don't come to fruition, the money spent on them does produce tangible benefit to the economy - your 180,000 people were employed, have job experience, developed hole-digging skills, were able to spend their money.

Right, but that make-work is less productive than having those same people do something the produces utility in itself. And if the work does not produce utility on its own, we'd be better off just paying those same people to sit at home and not work at all [because hole-digging isn't actually a useful skill]. But paying them to sit at home is stupid, too: your economy is always going to suffer badly if you subsidize large numbers of idle laborers, because you're wasting money. The fact is, your economy would be better off without those 180,000 people than it would be making up work for those 180,000, just so they'll buy stuff from your economy. Keeping people just so they'll buy stuff is only economically fruitful in the short term, in the same way that disposable lighters are only economically fruitful in the short term.

I'm not saying we necessarily want a return to the Great Depression-era busywork, but from a purely economic viewpoint the money spent on such a project might not have been wasted.

Not entirely wasted, but there are better ways to spend the same amount of money. I'm not saying there are no benefits to subsidizing the poor, I'm just saying that in the long term it's not beneficial to the economy overall.

[Serious Paul]

I don't think any of the candidates, Republican or Democrat, are capable of positing a solution that comes any where near as reasoned as this discourse. I have little faith remaining in our system, as it currently exists,

[Ancient History]

Re: 32

I think we're basically in agreement on most major points. The issue is, of course, getting the cooperation necessary to get stuff done in the current environment. Case in point: the ARC tunnel was going to be a tremendous utilitarian and infrastructure project, and New Jersey's governor shitcanned it because of budget concerns - despite the fact that the majority of the monies were being provided by the federal government and the $$$ spent would have been mainly in New Jersey, benefiting the economy of New Jersey.

Re: SP

Which is, sadly, the nature of our current beasts. I don't even know what the actual issues of the upcoming presidential campaign are going to be - the Republicans are so entrenched in their efforts to not raise taxes at all costs, I don't know how they're going to promote instead aside from deep cuts to social security, education, the arts, and basically anything else that isn't the Department of Defense or Homeland Security. The ongoing economic crisis is such that a lot of the traditional social issues - abortion, marriage/adoption rights, poll taxes/registration - may not even be addressed.

One area I am curious if the candidates are going to address is foreign military excursions and assistance - NATO did rather well in Libya, and we're withdrawing troops, so if the Republicans do make an issue of it they're stuck with criticizing past performance (good luck with bin Laden dead), arguing for a sustained presence/longer pullout (doubt they have the good will for that one), or even take advantage/hype of minor incidents to argue for a fresh surge to deal with the new/ongoing crisis (which I wouldn't put past them). Either that or try to start some hoo-ha about North Korea or something.

[3278]

I think we're basically in agreement on most major points. The issue is, of course, getting the cooperation necessary to get stuff done in the current environment.

We need to abolish the filibuster. Slightly fewer than half the people will be pissed about what gets done, but shit'll get done.

Case in point: the ARC tunnel was going to be a tremendous utilitarian and infrastructure project, and New Jersey's governor shitcanned it because of budget concerns - despite the fact that the majority of the monies were being provided by the federal government and the $$$ spent would have been mainly in New Jersey, benefiting the economy of New Jersey.

I haven't seen an analysis that shows New Jersey would have received a net return on their investment in the project; that, in other words, the economic benefits would not have been worth the projected costs. Costs which, by the way, would have left the state of New Jersey holding a much larger bag than the federal government, whose contributions were capped at US$3 billion.

I don't know if Christie killed the ARC for political reasons or because he genuinely felt that the state shouldn't spend that amount of money at this time, in exchange for the expected benefits. I'm not familiar enough with the situation to know what his decision-making was based on. All I can say is that it needs to be based on a cost/benefit analysis, and not just be justified on the basis of putting people to work.

[Bonefish]

Why is putting to people to work not part of the cost/benefit thing? IT's not like that's money that just evaporates into nothing. The people working are going to buy goods and services. Now, where is that money coming from? That's the question.

This country is far from broke, and we're far from destitute. We're not fucking GREECE, gor gods sake. We have natural resources, we have a semi-skilled labor force(we should improve that, really...) and we have real money! Sure, free-market is awesome and all, but seriously, over the last 20 years, the "free market" has been playing fast and loose and losing plenty.

I mean, ok, too much government regulation is stiffling, but the "market" hasn't necessarily shown a willingness to be upright, transparent and trustworthy. Profit is good, but there have been a lot of very nefarious schemes used to make this profit, and in many cases these schemes foist off the penalties to others.

I don't know, are the actually talking sense this time around, or is it another game of stupidity? We need responsible legislation, we need responsible people.

[Jeff Hauze]

We need responsible legislation, we need responsible people.

Those two things are mutually exclusive.

[3278]

Why is putting to people to work not part of the cost/benefit thing?

Sorry: they absolutely should be. What I'm saying is, you can't just say, "It puts people to work, therefore it must be worth it," which is something which happens fairly often. They do need to be part of the cost/benefit analysis: we need to make sure that the benefits gained from putting people to work are worth the cost associated with the project. If we spend a trillion dollars and the only benefit is that 4 people get part-time seasonal jobs, our return-on-investement sucks.

This country is far from broke, and we're far from destitute. We're not fucking GREECE, gor gods sake. We have natural resources, we have a semi-skilled labor force(we should improve that, really...) and we have real money!

My own view is perhaps less optimistic, but I think the important point is that the American economy could be healthy: there's nothing explicitly making it impossible for us to succeed. But the current economic conditions are a real problem: too much money tied up in speculation, in credit, in money with no inherent current value. And, of course, to sing the refrain, too few resources in comparison to the people consuming them.

I mean, ok, too much government regulation is stiffling, but the "market" hasn't necessarily shown a willingness to be upright, transparent and trustworthy.

Definitely not. My own view of government is that it shouldn't manipulate the economy, but that it should do what it takes to make businesses as transparent as possible [keeping trade secrecy and things in mind, never a simple task] and requiring businesses to be honest, and even sometimes possibly having legislation that prevents businesses from being short-sighted in a way that imbalances the entire economy. I favor citizen protection, I just don't favor direct government manipulation of the market, or artificial stimulation of demand by inventing projects, or by justifying projects on the basis of economic stimulus.

[Serious Paul]

How can an endorsement from Dan Quayle be a good thing?

[Bonefish]

Why is putting to people to work not part of the cost/benefit thing?

Sorry: they absolutely should be. What I'm saying is, you can't just say, "It puts people to work, therefore it must be worth it," which is something which happens fairly often. They do need to be part of the cost/benefit analysis: we need to make sure that the benefits gained from putting people to work are worth the cost associated with the project. If we spend a trillion dollars and the only benefit is that 4 people get part-time seasonal jobs, our return-on-investement sucks.

Sounds all perfectly reasonable.

This country is far from broke, and we're far from destitute. We're not fucking GREECE, gor gods sake. We have natural resources, we have a semi-skilled labor force(we should improve that, really...) and we have real money!

My own view is perhaps less optimistic, but I think the important point is that the American economy could be healthy: there's nothing explicitly making it impossible for us to succeed. But the current economic conditions are a real problem: too much money tied up in speculation, in credit, in money with no inherent current value. And, of course, to sing the refrain, too few resources in comparison to the people consuming them.

This is what we need to address. Fuck the philosophical debates over the merits of the free market, blah blah, we need to fix out system so people can't swindle massive sums of money and then fob off the bill to taxpayers. The schemes have varied, but the results have been absolutely terrible.

But if we got that under control, and got better fiscal policy(and this does mean a cold hard look at what we can and can't afford, as well as proper legislation to regulate our markets), I liked to think that there's no reason why this country can't get it's shit together. But... well.... we know that's not terribly likely to happen.

I mean, ok, too much government regulation is stiffling, but the "market" hasn't necessarily shown a willingness to be upright, transparent and trustworthy.

Definitely not. My own view of government is that it shouldn't manipulate the economy, but that it should do what it takes to make businesses as transparent as possible [keeping trade secrecy and things in mind, never a simple task] and requiring businesses to be honest, and even sometimes possibly having legislation that prevents businesses from being short-sighted in a way that imbalances the entire economy. I favor citizen protection, I just don't favor direct government manipulation of the market, or artificial stimulation of demand by inventing projects, or by justifying projects on the basis of economic stimulus.

[/quote]

So.. any Candidates that actually might put us down that road?

[3278]

So.. any Candidates that actually might put us down that road?

None of them, because they're running for "President," and not "the entire legislature." The only thing that can put us down that road is the collective voting will of the populace, and to that end, it's possible that a single inspirational figure like a President could have a great deal of influence, but so will media, satire, lobbying, trade groups, advertisers, and everyone else with a dollar to rub together, so, we'll see what happens.

[Salvation122]

I favor citizen protection, I just don't favor direct government manipulation of the market, or artificial stimulation of demand by inventing projects, or by justifying projects on the basis of economic stimulus.

That's not really what's supposed to happen for economic stimulus, and by and large it doesn't. At some point, you're going to have to spend money to fix things or build things; it is more efficient, economically, to do that work during a recession. For one thing, labor costs are lower, and it also serves to stimulate demand and help pull you back to the presumed steady-state.

While mathematically you get the same aggregate demand increase by paying people to dig holes and fill them back in, you get a lot more bang for your buck by fixing fifty-year-old dams or bringing roads back up to code or whatever, and that's typically the sort of stuff we do as stimulus. Some pork inevitably works its way in, as it does in every appropriations bill, but most of it's legitimate.

[Salvation122]

I wrote a small novel about the US national debt.

You can read it here if you'd like.

It involves Tang.

[Serious Paul]

I've been following bits and pieces here and there-but overall I have no faith that any politician currently elected to office; currently seeking office or those who have held office in the last 40 years give a tinkers damn about me, or anything other than lining their own nests.

I've been wrong before, but I'm pretty willing to believe in people's greed, selfishness and willingness to generally fuck other people over.

[Ancient History]

Still in on the election - Newt Gingrich may be a horrible person, and Bachmann and Perry might be insane, but what the fuck is Mitt Romney on?

[Ancient History]

So, Bachmann is out. Santorum and Romney are neck-and-neck after Iowa. Gingrich and Paul sadly still in the running.

[paladin2019]

So, Bachmann is out.

Hey, she said we would see miracles Tuesday night

[AtemHutlrt]

It's really kind of shocking how much of an idiot Rick Santorum is. The fact that some people are somehow not embarrassed to be represented by him is pretty sad.

[Nicephorus]

It's really kind of shocking how much of an idiot Rick Santorum is. The fact that some people are somehow not embarrassed to be represented by him is pretty sad.

It's funny that he lost his senate seat by 18 points, one of the largest losses ever for an incumbent senator. If he can't pull off his home state, his national prospects look bleak.

I hope he's maintains his momentum but I suspect that he's the non-Romney who was popular at the right time for the caucus, Perry and Gingrich having peaked too early.

[Jeff Hauze]

It's really kind of shocking how much of an idiot Rick Santorum is. The fact that some people are somehow not embarrassed to be represented by him is pretty sad.

My state's ears are burning.

[AtemHutlrt]

It's really kind of shocking how much of an idiot Rick Santorum is. The fact that some people are somehow not embarrassed to be represented by him is pretty sad.

My state's ears are burning.

It's not even that I disagree with his various retarded ideas, it's just that he's one of the stupidest people I've ever seen involved in national politics. He doesn't seem bright enough to manage a pet store. When he talks, you can almost see the mealy, diseased lump of brain matter that lives beneath that awful haircut.


Rick Santorum - A Dumb Motherfucker

[Jeff Hauze]

But still one of the funniest Google search results.

[Salvation122]

In The Greatest Thing That's Ever Happened In Politics news, McCain's entire 2008 opposition research file on Romney just got leaked on Scribd.

This is the political equivalent of Romney opening the fucking Necronomicon. He's going to have about two hundred pages worth of fires to put out before Super Tuesday or he's dead. I will bet not one but two testicles that Newt Gingrich is literally pissing himself with glee while rubbing his hands together like Boss Hog.

[Serious Paul]

I think I said this in reply to this posting on Nerd pride radio, but I'll say it here too:

Romney will still get the nomination, and still lose to Obama.