It's actually rather inspiring, IMP, to see the GOP nom come down to Romney, Paul or Gingrich

Inspired by this recent Pit thread. I say, all true, but look at the bright side. That is, taking the original field into account, it is inspiring that the flaming idiots like Bachmann and Cain are spoken little of now. Romney, Paul, Gingrich, all are men of evident intelligence – and Paul and Gingrich are men of ideas – with extensive experience in government. None of them clearly represents the GOP’s braindead social-religious-conservative wing. Nor does any of them represent the starve-the-beast Tea Party wing – Gingrich comes closest, simply on his movement-conservative-veteran credentials, but he is also a declared believer in “activist government.” (And Paul, as an ex-Libertarian, comes willy-nilly with cultural baggage the TPer’s don’t like to smell.) Maybe this portends a saner direction for the GOP – not compared to how it was sane in the 1950s, but compared to far worse directions it could take from here and has given frequent signs of taking.

Interesting notions of “sanity” presented here, considering we are talking about:

[ol]
[li]A former governor who made his money buying companies, gutting them and turfing workers out on the street, who’s lost every election but one that he’s ever run in;[/li][li]A psuedo-libertarian who, while wanting to turn away from the Amerika Uber Alles foreign policy that was GOP brand for decades, wants to gut the Civil Rights Act and turn America’s economy back to the 1830’s;[/li][li]And finally, a serial adulterer with a jacket full of ethics violations, who conflated a sitting President’s former land-deal-gone-bad into a $70 million dollar witch hunt, who managed to get turfed out off Congress by his own party (whilst said President left office with a 70% approval rating) and shilled for Fannie and Freddie Mac just prior to the bursting of the housing bubble.[/li][/ol]

Admittedly, we are grading on a curve here, given the unmitigated looniness of Bachmann, Cain and Santorum, but c’mon… The sanest candidate they have is Jon Huntsman and his dance card is gathering dust.

If Romney wins, it’ll signal that ultimately, the adults still have the power in the GOP, even if they don’t mind trotting out the crazies to do their bidding. Mind you, this a small percentage, but they have disproportionate power

If Paul wins, it means the GOP is desperate to try anything that looks good but are too stupid to understand what that is. They’ll have buyer’s remorse if Paul gets one foot in the White House

If Gingrich wins, it proves to all that the GOP is all about hate and being anti-Obama. Not that they aren’t right now, or wouldn’t be if the other two won, but it would be a smaller percentage. A Gingrich nomination means the Tea Baggers have dug their own graves

Can you be a little more specific on which ‘win’ you’re referring to? Iowa or the presidential nomination?

My position is the nomination will go to Romney because it was always going to go to Romney, because money men are who really run the Republican party, and their interests will be satisfied over all others.

The social conservative sideshow is just a tool to distract Republican voters and give them enough red meat to crank up their fears and indignation to get them to vote against their best interests. It works, and the money men know it works. In the end, the nominee will be the one considered ‘most business friendly’, and that man, in this election cycle, is Romney.

Missed the edit window.

On reread, I see you meant the presidency. I think there’s less chance than many may believe that any of those three will win the presidency. The one with the best shot, however, is Romney who, as I stated above, will be the R nominee.

BrainGlutton, was the thread title supposed to read “IMO,” or did you mean to write that this development is inspiring “in my pants?”

Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!

I mean, it works both ways. Sort of.

I actually meant the GOP nomination.

While I don’t dispute that the party is pro-business to a fault, how was Romney less business friendly than McCain in the last election? Or are you talking specifically about this election cycle? Going back further, Forbes was probably more business friendly than Bush in 2000 and he didn’t get much traction at all.

It could be said that he has a real hard-on for the Republicans.

Rather than compare the 2012 nominee to the also-rans, compare him (most likely) to John McCain. We’re not necessarily seeing their choices get better, they’re just not getting worse as quickly as they might. I don’t see that as a positive sign.

Yeah, the tests were handed in, and there wasn’t a single correct answer, but were’re discussing whether spelling one’s name correctly ought to be worth more points than simply doodles.

In the cited BBQ Pit thread, I used “clown” or “joke” as a catch-all for any candidacy too insane to be contemplated.

Does not Paul advocate the abolishment of the Fed Reserve, with private banks then backing American dollar bills instead of government? Can you point me to a webpage that would help me understand why this is a good path for today’s America? (Please, no screeds on hyperinflation or the Illuminati’s plans for world domination.) Nevermind that Congress wouldn’t approve Paul’s zaniest ideas – I’d not want such a zany thinker in power.

There are bad things to be said about Gingrich as well, but I’ll content myself with one question: Has there ever been a serious Presidential candidate as blatantly and obviously corrupt as the Newt? Recall that this man was reprimanded and penalized by a Congress controlled by his own Party.

If, as you suggest, Paul and Gingrich are really the most “legitimate” candidates among the seven “jokes” I named, I’d say you’ve proved my point.

All too true.

In 2008, McCain was the most presentable of a weak field. (Remember when Rudy 9-11 led in the GOP nomination polls for practically all of 2007?) It was as if the GOP was fielding its B team - but the problem was, it had no A team: McCain, the Huckster, the 2008 version of Romney, Rudy 9-11, and the runnerup in the Peter Angelos lookalike contest were as good as it got. They made one long for the uninspiring but competent Bob Dole of 1996.

This year’s field makes the 2008 field look like giants. They’re a C team without an A or B team. Neither Paul Ryan nor Bobby Jindal would look any better.

Who knows what 2016 will bring? I’ve given up expecting the GOP to reach peak wingnut anytime soon.

I think that on a scale of 1 to 10, all of the candidates are hovering between 1.0 and 2.0. I agree that they’re all incredibly flawed and it’s extremely sad to me that not a single republican candidate supports same-sex rights (including marriage and adoption, which the president doesn’t have much control over but it would be nice for them to support it anyway). But neither does Obama, so can’t blame them too much. So in that way, they are all social loons. They ALL have said that they wouldn’t support a 10 to 1 cuts to revenue increase ratio to balance the budget, so they are all budgetary loons. They are all xenophobic when it comes to immigration rights (I especially love Newt’s requirement that they go to church to become legal residents, and the others who honestly think we should round them all up and kick them out). Huntsman respects a bit of science, but his social and fiscal policies are as laughably conservative as the others. It’s just, depressing. There probably won’t be a great GOP candidate for years and years to come.

If he wins this year. If anyone to the left of Santorum or Bachmann gets nominated this year and loses, expect the Tea Partei to say he lost because he was just another RINO. :frowning: Even Newt is suspect because of his stance on global warming.

If I’m reading this correctly, we now have the ardent Mr. Qin agreeing the present Republicans have gone wacky beyond words. That’s saying something.

James Blaine?

And now Santorum is leading in Iowa . . . :rolleyes:

Well they’re about to at the least… :frowning: