Republican Iowa Caucus 2012

[Brandon Rhea]

Ha! Well to be fair, I meant his views on this particular issue are somewhat naive and simplistic --you can't really blame Eisenhower for something as complex and multifaceted as the Iranian revolution-- Sovereign himself seems like a perfectly intelligent fellow and he makes for lovely and lively conversation but fair enough, I probably should have been more diplomatic. My apologies.

Also my apologies to everyone else. I'm not sure what the etiquette on this forum is for derailing a thread. An old forum I used to frequent about news and whatnot was pretty loose on this, but I also know some forums frown on getting off-topic so Sovereign and I could move this over PM if it's bothering anyone/against site etiquette or rules.

The different topic is fine. It was the natural evolution of the conversation.

 

[BLADE]

In an attempt to condense the topic somewhat (I foresee this getting into a huge wall of text which will exasperate everyone, including the participants), let me see if I can summarize the salient points of the debate:

1. Eisenhower's policies led to the establishment of Theocratic Iran. Agreed, with some reservations about the role of the British and historical counterfactuals.

2. The rise of Theocratic Iran has been unambiguously bad for its people. Agreed.

The sticking point seems to be this:

3. Iran's rise has fundamentally damaged US interests in the area (agreed to an extent) because Iran is now inherently anti-American. I would agree that Iran is naturally suspicious of the United States because of its history, but I reject the premise that Iran and the US are inherently and ideologically at odds because more odd couplings have been found throughout history, more difficult reconciliations completed, and because in a way, it buys into the neoconservative frame of inevitable conflict.

I'm a Realist, so in a way, I see conflict as inevitable too, but because of material factors which we can change and not because of ideology. Lost, I think in all this debate, has been my point that our best move vis-a-vis Iran is to probably reconcile with it and resign to its ascendancy as a major regional power.

There was also a point about the comparison of Eisenhower to other Presidents, but Sovereign did not seem to be making that point, so it's a moot conversation at that, though if anyone wants to argue it, I'll stand by my assertion that, barring FDR, he was the best foreign policy president of the 20th century.

 

[Shiuzu]

How I feel after leaving this conversation and going to work...

 

[BLADE]

Anyhow, turnout for the GOP caucus was about 123,000, up somewhat from 2008, but I think misleading considering that you had a great deal of activity spurred by Ron Paul, who, let's face it, is no Republican. This was about half the Dem turnout in 2008. Take from that what you will, but is this a sign that the seriously dissatisfied GOP base will not enjoy an enthusiasm advantage over similarly dispirited Dems?

My initial reaction is... no. Obama has stirred up a lot of opposition in the GOP, but we may need to see more turnout numbers, especially in the more populous primary states before we can determine anything.

 

[Shiuzu]

[youtube]NY6UTnS6Z-A[/youtube]
In Mitt's defense that question could of been asked a bit better, but Mitt just flaked on the whole thing. I don't care what policy it is, but when you just brush someone off like that, it makes you a shitty person.
[youtube]JHS_y94H1Dk&NR=1[/youtube]
There ya go, now that's someone answering a question.

 

[BLADE]

All obligatory stoner jokes aside, I wonder about people for whom this is a huge issue of paramount importance. For goodness' sakes, nearly fifteen million Americans are out of work, millions are in poverty, our government is torturing people and has the power of indefinite detention, and some people my age are worried about the particulars of whether they'll go to county or not for some reefer? Yeesh. And then we bitch about the Boomers being narcissists?

But yeah. Romney is great because if you're so inclined, you can get whatever answer out of him you feel most satisfied with. He's like a scratch card lotto. It could be your lucky day. Paul is wacky, but at least he's like your wacky uncle. You know, honest and whatnot.

 

[Venom]

Everyone should just write in Nader this year.

 

[BLADE]

I'm considering that option. Ultimately for me, I think it'll come down to either massively disappointing Obama or an almost certain disaster of a Republican presidency (barring, maybe, Huntsman.)

My only hope is that people vote their conscience and disaster doesn't befall us and we all muddle by somehow. There's been a lot of human suffering these last few years. I hope we don't have to see more.

 

[Random Hero]

Romney/Huntsman 2012: "Because we are probably the only ticket that can beat Obama."

But in reality, why bother with elections anymore? Elected officials are soooo second half 20th Century. The first half of the 21st Century should be reclaimed by political strongmen.

 

[Brand]

The Republic party needs a candidate with conservative values they can rally behind. Choosing the moderate McCain last election because we thought he was electable did not turn out well for us the first time, so pursuing Romney seems ridiculous to me since he's a Massachusetts moderate and flip flops at the drop of a hat. Besides, he's so plastic.

 

[Sovereign]

The Republic party needs a candidate with conservative values they can rally behind.

Republican values:

Homophobia, bigotry, ****ing up the economy and waging war with Iran

 

[BLADE]

I'm a liberal, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but McCain ran a very conservative campaign, and in fact if you look at the ideological scores of the GOP candidates, they've been consistently more conservative over the years. I don't think going more conservative is going to benefit you guys. Certainly there's diminishing returns in going consistently more conservative (see Tea Party approval ratings.)

I don't think it says anything very flattering about the GOP that it's about to nominate Romney though. His problem isn't that he's moderate or anything (though if I were conservative, I'd certainly want to go with someone more in line with me ideologically.) His problem is that plastic sleaze. He'll be as conservative as you want him to be, but he's soulless. As I've written before, Romney is pretty much everything that's wrong with politics nowadays: money over principle, shifting ideology based on whatever is most expedient, privilege as a rationale for pursuing public office.

So yeah. As far as actual "moderate" GOP candidates are concerned, Jon Huntsman is the only one worth a darn. He's no moderate (actually he's quite conservative) but unlike Romney he stands for something other than getting elected. And of course, from a technocratic point of view, he was a more competent governor than Romney.

 

[Sovereign]

Romney isn't moderate at all. I don't see how opposition to abortion and same sex marriage are "moderate" positions.

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

New drinking game, every time a news caster switches who's in the lead for the republic nomination, take a shot.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

The Republic party needs a candidate with conservative values they can rally behind. Choosing the moderate McCain last election because we thought he was electable did not turn out well for us the first time, so pursuing Romney seems ridiculous to me since he's a Massachusetts moderate and flip flops at the drop of a hat. Besides, he's so plastic.

It's a classic conservative fallacy that the more conservative a Republican Presidential candidate is, the more likely that person is to win the General Election. It's simply not true, because most people do not want someone as far to the right as the GOP base does.

People will go for center right or center left, but most people aren't going to go far right or far left.

McCain didn't lose to Obama because he was a moderate. He lost to Obama because Obama was a better candidate and appealed to people more. Not to mention McCain was one wrong step away from dropping dead yet picked one of the most unqualified people ever to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Jesus Bac, way to be racist.

 

[Crosby]

Jesus Bac, way to be racist.

I laughed, HARD.

 

[BLADE]

*Snip*

To be fair, there have been no major "far left" candidates since Debs or McGovern (if you want to make the totally reasonable argument that withdrawing from Viet Nam consisted a hippie pinko fantasy policy.) On the other hand, we've had plenty of far right candidates. Reagan was widely considered far right before he ran for the Presidency.

I personally don't subscribe to the notion that Americans are necessarily drawn to centrist candidates but rather that economic conditions are more important in deciding what sort of candidate people are willing to tolerate.

And plenty of political science research has cast doubt on the notion that extremist candidates necessarily do worse than more centrist candidates. Karl Rove ran the 2004 election on the premise that there were very few true "centrist" voters (he was right, true independents are a very small slice of the electorate) and focused on turning out Bush's base. The problem that conservatives have is that as large and active as their base is, it is shrinking relative to the population and in absolute terms, since (as there's no delicate way to put this) a lot of old people vote Republican and they won't be here a decade or so from now.

I'd also argue that Obama won mostly because of the Bush albatross hanging around McCain and the financial crisis. Considering the circumstances and the percentage of votes he got, one can argue that Obama isn't that great a candidate. I've personally never been moved by his supposedly soaring oratory, but charisma is subjective and often something of an ex pos facto phenomenon. Would JFK have been such a charismatic candidate if he hadn't beaten (very narrowly) Nixon? I'd consider Obama a strong candidate, and better than anything the GOP can field (barring Rubio once he's more seasoned) but I don't consider him a great politician.

Sovereign: He's not a moderate by any sensible definition. He's a moderate (arguably) compared to his fellow GOP candidates. Though honestly, those aren't even his most radical positions. Sure, anti-choice and anti-gay rights stances are abominable, but they're not really that unpopular (depressingly enough) in the US.

Anyhow Romney's not even a moderate by GOP standards. He's running to the right of where he ran in 2008 (as a conservative), is sprinting to get to the right (whenever possible) of his rivals, and generally swears fealty to the same deluded dogmas that got us into this crisis. The problem is that the Republican Party lost its collective mind around the 1970s.