I am one of those semi-isolationist (in terms of military action) Republicans. Once upon a time my party believed in being strong, but not sticking our nose everywhere. We justified our military based on the threat of the commies.
I was against the first Gulf War, the Serbian fiasco, and the invasion of Iraq. The only military action in recent years that I supported from a philosophical perspective was taking down the Taliban. They were the accomplices of folks that attacked us, so I had no problem removing them from office.
If I thought that the Democrats REALLY wanted to tone down our military actions, I would support them. Unfortunately, I hear too much “Iraq is bad, we should REALLY be in Darfur!” Again - there appears to be no good choice on that subject.
Although I would be one of those people (though not Democrat,) I agree with the bolded quote, especially from your perspective, unless you also want to get rid of the Fed
What’s with the Kerry hate? He isn’t a good campaigner, but he seemed like a pretty decent Senator. I admit to (still) being confused about the logic behind his two votes on authorizing force against Iraq (no to #1 under GHWB, yes to #2 under GWB), but other than that, he’s a pretty mainstream Democrat.
Well, there’s probably no point in getting into a debate about that in this thread, butI think that Bush has shown himself to stand for little, if anything, as well.
I don’t know what Kerry’s logic was, but ISTM that there’s a natural path to that pair of votes. The January 1991 vote was quite clearly a vote on whether to go to war, right then: we’d already done all the preliminaries.
But Bush obfuscated the purpose of the 2002 vote, saying he needed to have the authority to go to war, in order to achieve our goals without war, which he was going to try his damnedest to do. If one believed him (staying out of the argument of whether it was reasonable to believe Bush at the time, which certainly looks different from January 2008 than it did in September and October of 2002), it was reasonable to vote for the 2002 authorization, even though one had voted against the 1991 authorization - if one was for a peaceful resolution to both conflicts.
GROSS OVER SIMPLIFICATION AND GUT REACTION FOLLOWS:
McCain - too into Iraq, some questions regarding him and guns, and his finance reform bill was nothing other than an incumbent protection plan.
Rudy - Not really a Republican. Tough on crime, et al, but another gun control guy. I don’t think he understands much outside of the big city.
Huck - Socialist Bible Thumper. ugh. He is right wing on social issues, and left wing on others - in many ways an opposite of my beliefs.
Romney - a little too Ken doll, but of the pack is the one I have the best chance of tolerating. The fact that he has been in business and politics is good. His Massachusetts HC plan was a good compromise method to provide more healthcare to more people.
It is too late for me. I will leave the party I always belonged to on February 6th. I will vote McCain in the primary and become unaffiliated the next day.
This President and the way most of the candidates are running, has finally driven me from my party.
In NJ it takes 50 days to switch parties, so I got fed up, too late for this primary.
Fucking stupid state with stupid election rules!
I will vote Obama in November is possible. I will settle for HRC.
Possibly. But a simpler explanation is that the Democratic leadership recommended a no vote for GHWB and a yes vote for GWB, and he was just toeing the party line.
It’s funny how some people still think that. Others on your side disagree:
The denunciation of Huckabee on the right confuses me. I’m confused as to why someone whose sole defining issue is the replacement of income tax with a consumption tax is considered a “populist.”
