Palin vs. Pawlenty

[elfs]

It occurs to me that, in the question of which Republican candidate should we back, we should back Pawlenty, and not Palin. Here's the problem: right now, the Republican party is a drunk. It's close to bottoming out. After thirty years of drinking down the business community's money such that most Republicans have forgotten that one of their responisbilities is to promote the general welfare, a task that applies for every American and not just the predatory class.

Here's the thing: if Pawlenty wins, well, things won't be so bad. If Palin wins, life will become a hellish landscape of Christianist predators.

On the other hand, if Palin loses, the Republican party will not have finally bottomed out. They might learn the lesson that backing the batshit nutters does not endear you to the majority of Americans, most of whom are not batshit nutters.

But if Pawlenty loses, the Republican party activists will go all in for sheer madness. They picked a reasonable candidate, and they lost. Since most of the activists live in a black-and-white world, the only lesson they'll learn is this: Palin could have won.

Yes, we'll have to live with that 29% of America that does not actually belong to the Reality-Based Community screaming and yelling and giving their money to FOX, and they'll be on the Internet forever, but untill that madness burns itself out, if that's at all possible, they'll never have power again.

My only concern is that we'll have to live with madness for a long time to come.

Comments

[l33tminion]

untill that madness burns itself out, if that's at all possible, they'll never have power again

Either that or someone totally batshit will win in 2016.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I am most unhappy with Obama's results. Closed Gitmo? Stopped the unconstitutional spying on citizens? Ended secret laws? Regulated those that came a hair's breadth from destroying western civilization? Nope on all counts. Not even going into his destruction of Nasa, a personal issue.

So the only way the republicans can lose is by their nominating some idiot partisan with a my-way-or-highway attitude and the belief that cutting taxes to zero will somehow magically make revenues fall from heaven. But the doofuses appear to be on course to doing just that. So it's nobody's fault but the nutcases themselves that they are going to lose it all.

[(Anonymous)]

If Palin wins, life will become a hellish landscape of Christianist predators.

==============

Just like Alaska while she was governor. Taxed the oil companies, sent the money to the citizens, got an 80+ approval rating. Really hellish.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

If you believe she did that out of principles, by all means, vote for her.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Palin declared the top priorities of her administration would be resource development, education and workforce development, public health and safety, and transportation and infrastructure development.

During those years of her governorship she:

1. signed into law a record $6.6 billion operating budget while at the same time making $237 million in cuts to the state's construction budget...the second largest in Alaska' history. So much for infrastructure, transportation, and workforce development (and where'd all that money go to??)

2. A year later she cut another $286 million of the capital budget from projects (either cutting them back or removing them entirely).

3. She first supported the "bridge to nowhere" as part of her transportation projects platform, then rejected it after becoming governor and had the money sent to the general transportation fund.

4. There's the pressure she put on the Public Safety Commissioner to fire her ex brother-in-law because of the bitter divorce that her sister was going through. The commissioner refused, and got fired.

5. Her environmental record shows no care for the environment, but great care for the companies who would put more money into the state's coffers (and her pocket), including drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge.

6. Her approval rating went from 93% to 54% in only two years.

I'm not sure how making the second biggest cuts to the capital budget was "sending money to the citizens". But, yeah, trying to get her ex brother-in-law fired using her strings as governor was pretty hellish for everyone in Alaska.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how making the second biggest cuts to the capital budget was "sending money to the citizens".

Alaska is a socialist state. Palin exploited her power as head of the Politburo Governor by raising the fee imposed on oil companies and redistributing yet more wealth to the citizens through the Alaska Permanent Fund. When a politician puts a check directly into your hands, that makes her very popular. When the check is bigger than last years', all the more.

To be fair to Palin, she succeeded in convincing the legislature to go along with her on this. The state had taken in an unexpected windfall in 2007 tax revenues, and Palin ran on a campaign of sending the windfall back to the voters rather than put it into a disaster relief fund. Each Alaskan received an extra $1200 in the mail. Palin also pushed the legislature to drop a state gas tax (Alaska has no refineries, so the oil it produces must be shipped elsewhere, then the gasoline must shipped back and distributed over over very rough and dangerous terrain; this makes it the second most expensive state in the nation for gas. The first is Hawaii.)

Palin is a cagey politician who, at the peak of her governing experience, ran a state with a population one-quarter the size of what Rahm Emmanuel now governs. (The population of Alaska is about 690,000. The population of Chicago is about 2,890,000). Alaska's enormous natural resources gave her an opening for sudden popularity.

[tagryn]

I think Romney is the most likely choice. He can be boringly robotic when he tries to play the politician, but when he switches over to the businessman role he's more comfortable with, he's actually listenable and even passionate. Even boring can get nominated: think Dole in '96.

Fortunately Gingrich self-imploded on liftoff. He might pull a comeback yet, stranger things have happened, but he appears to have a knack for letting his mouth run at the least opportune time, which is a very hard thing to overcome for a politico.

Its probably just as well for the GOP that the candidates who might actually do a better job than Obama, such as Daniels or Jeb Bush, aren't running. Unseating an incumbent is a difficult chore under any circumstances, and 2012 will be a uphill struggle even if the economy is still in the doldrums.

And, I wish we had a party whose real goal was to "promote the general welfare." Neither of the Big Two seems like much of an option, by that measure.

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem with the Republican Party is their rabid social conservatism. So long as they maintain that part of their platform, I can't in good conscience vote for a Republican candidate... because no socially moderate candidate will ever get party support.

[tagryn]

The conclusion I've reached is that its just a symptom of the system: if someone cares enough about politics to make it a big part of their life (i.e. a party partisan), odds are they aren't a moderate, since the latter have other priorities than volunteering long hours to help a political candidate or cause.

The candidates also know they have to hew to certain positions or the party partisans will get someone to replace them: when was the last time a major Democratic candidate was able to state anything but 100% dedication to the right to choose, for example? Fortunately the moderate middle gets their opportunity to be heard in the general elections, which prevents things from tipping too far either way, but the parties are run by the "true believers" and that's not going to change.

[pakraticus.livejournal.com]

Meh, you assume it's a teeter totter. The lipertarians try to tell us it's a balance board. As far as I can tell it's a game where the winning move is to send in the most lobbyists with pre-written legislation suiting your perceived best interests. The "moderates" just give the illusion that voting made a damn bit of difference in the behavior of those elected. In the end, those with the money and the connections can get away with murder, and those that don't will be charged with murder and sent the bill as well.