I’d say Santorum. The thing about Gingrich being more competent is that there are a lot of things he’d do right, simply because doing them the right way benefits him as much as it does the rest of the country. Santorum would fuck those things up because he’s an incompetent boob. In the long run, I suspect the necessary things Santorum would do wrong would be more damaging to the country than the bad things Newt would do right.
Does anyone who says (or reads) this actually believe it?
Santorum.
He’s a zealot as many have pointed out. I don’t like Gringrich at all–I never did.
He’s an asshole. But he is pragmatic. He’ll do a halfway job for four years and he’s smart enough (though to steal a line from Douglas Adams ‘he’s so full of himself, he’s shitting elbows’ ) to keep the country in the middle.
shrug I have a hard time believing either of the guys in the OP could actually win the presidency, but contemplating either in power makes me wish I hadn’t let my passport expire, at least.
And, to address the OP:
Santorum: likely to decimate the rights of women, particularly in health care but other aspects as well
Gingrich: likely to drag us into yet another expensive and unwinnable war
One’s bad for me in the immediate sense, the other’s bad for everyone in the long-term sense. Sucky either way.
And considering we already have a moderate as POTUS, choosing either one of these loons seems a bit silly.
The Santorums brought their prematurely-born dead baby son home from the hospital, introduced him to his siblings and slept with him overnight.
So yeah, Santorum. Mentally unfit to be president.
Eh. I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t think it makes someone “mentally unfit.” Grief is something everyone handles differently, and I have no doubt at all that they were grieving and trying to cope as best they could.
Was this a poor choice of phrasing? Being guided by religion (or set of ethics if you’re an atheist) is just fine in my book; being ruled by them is not.
Saying Santorum is a Reconstructionist is sort of like calling the Ayatollah of Iran a Wahabbist. And Christian Reconstructionism actually in practice is closer to Ron Paul than to quasi-statist neocons like Santorum or Gingrich-they support an isolationist foreign policy, are not supporters of Israel (as they are theological post-millenials or amillenials in the tradition of Calvin rather than premillenials), and are economically laissez-faire of the Austrian school.
Nowadays however dominionism is basically a label for the Christian Right but as Joe Carter said:
If everyone who said they’d move to Canada after [[Insert candidate name]] wins actually moved America would be depopulated by now.
So anybody who regards a fetus as a human being is mentally ill?
As for me I originally would have said Santorum was the worse candidate but having seen the media scrutinize him he has avoided saying stupid or idiotic remarks like his previous remarks comparing homosexuality to pedophilia. Meanwhile Gingrich has increasingly become a demagouge that represents to me all that is wrong with American politics today. I don’t think Santorum in practice will be altogether different from George W Bush but Gingrich will combine the worst elements of our “Imperial Presidents” with mob-rule style policies such as refusing to enforce Supreme Court directives.
No. But anyone who bring a corpse home and introduces it to his children has some serious problems.
I’m going to go against the tide and say it makes little difference. Whatever bad you think more likely of one you will still mostly get from the other.
That said, Santorum will probably follow the Gingrichized Conservative-Movement GOP, and follow the cavalcade of stupidity that arises from the party; whereas Gingrich is Gingrich, and will perhaps be a wellspring of new and exciting very bad ideas instead of letting others lead us into ruin.
Same wreck, maybe different process.
After every wake I’ve attended, we’ve dragged the corpse out of the coffin and taken it to bed for the night.
Given a choice between venal cowardly publicity whore with delusions of grandeur and a genuine dyed-in-the-wool crazy Christian fundamentalist… whooo boy. That is not a pleasant choice is it?
Well considering one of my enduring fears from the Cold War was the image of our President hovering over the Big Red Button, the idea that someone who could usher in his version of Apocalypse would have access to such a critical control is frightening.
So, I go with the bigheaded weird guy with the ethical handicaps.
Isn’t that a little inefficient? Why don’t you just take the corpse to bed for the night, then put it in the coffin in the morning?
OP, what’s your opinion of which one is worse?
It was at the tail end of a post so it may have not been noticed:
Thank you.
And also, thank you VERY much for not making your response be: I already posted my opinion. That kind of crap annoys me.
Agreed.
Also, I did miss that part of your post the first time, QSH, but I have to admit, it’s the most cogent analysis yet. You’re right that Santorum does seem to at least somewhat capable or recognizing and moderating his most extreme opinions for the purposes of getting elected, and would probably be similar to GWB in what he could accomplish. (Bush was less extreme [in the sense that Kim Jong Il was less extreme than Pol Pot], but he did everything he could to move the country in the direction he and Santorum both want. I don’t think Santorum could do more just because he’s even more extreme.) Gingrich, OTOH, would not only be more effective, he would almost certainly cause serious Constitutional crises that would permanently could cripple the rule of law in this country. I suspect Santorum would cause more immediate damage (especially to women, minorities, and the environment), but all of his policies could be reversed when he left office. Gingrich, however, would pursue a calculated strategy of remaking the constitutional structure of government to make his ideas permanent.
Which is worse, cholera or leprosy? A toothpick shoved through your testicles or into your eyeballs? Mitt Romney, or the other Mitt Romney…?