# The 2016 Republican candidates **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 9, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444 "2015-01-09T22:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 102
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2022 "2015-11-06T13:59:55Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Right. They’re basically toddlers. And the fact that the GOP faithful have elected not just one of these people but several, and RE-elected some of them, is insane. As is declaring that the right answer is to put in place a better nursery school teacher. Well, Congress was envisioned as a place where ordinary citizens represented their districts and then went home and back to their jobs. I realize government is more complex now but that’s not an excuse to favor career politicians. It just means that ordinary citizens have to do a better job and voters need to do a better job. Right now the choices are corrupt vs. ignorant and it’s not insane for many voters to choose ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2023 "2015-11-06T14:04:47Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, it’s simply “they don’t know what they are doing, and they don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions.” Hopefully things are going to get better under Ryan’s leadership. Ah yes, the man with the magic asterisk. Yeah, he’s the _sane_ one. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2024 "2015-11-06T14:06:44Z")
Gingrich was someone who I think you could actually call a little loopy, but he ran the House effectively. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2025 "2015-11-06T14:10:47Z")
Gingrich was not at all loopy. He had a cold-blooded, intelligent view of how to gain power, and that was by demonizing the other party instead of working with them. The infection has continued to spread ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2026 "2015-11-06T14:11:36Z")
Wait, whose magic ass is he risking? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2027 "2015-11-06T14:14:30Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Gingrich was not at all loopy. He had a cold-blooded, intelligent view of how to gain power, and that was by demonizing the other party instead of working with them. The infection has continued to spread ever since. He was also, and remains, a pretty weird dude. Ryan is about as bookish and boring as it gets. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2028 "2015-11-06T15:25:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, Congress was envisioned as a place where ordinary citizens represented their districts and then went home and back to their jobs. I realize government is more complex now but that’s not an excuse to favor career politicians. It just means that ordinary citizens have to do a better job and voters need to do a better job. Right now the choices are corrupt vs. ignorant and it’s not insane for many voters to choose ignorant. I remain unconvinced that “vote for people dumber than you because people smarter than you will take advantage of you” is a sound basis for a system of government. This is particularly true because smart corrupt people know that they have to keep the country running in order to keep taking advantage of it, whereas idiots can do (and have done) massive damage blithely unaware that they are doing so. I’d rather have a mugger pointing a gun at me than a toddler, in that at least the former understands the consequences of pulling the trigger. Please stop trying to make “Idiocracy” a documentary. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2029 "2015-11-06T15:47:21Z")
I’m not yet convinced that what we have now is worse than what we had before. Obvoiusly, if we’d gone over the debt limit it would be, but Congress getting little done and controlling spending while they are at it isn’t a terrible outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2030 "2015-11-06T15:56:17Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’m not yet convinced that what we have now is worse than what we had before. Obvoiusly, if we’d gone over the debt limit it would be, but Congress getting little done and controlling spending while they are at it isn’t a terrible outcome. Except that what they _are_ doing is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on obstructionism and partisan games which provide exactly zero benefit to the taxpayer. Their little government shutdown cost us **billions**. That’s a terrible outcome. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2031 "2015-11-06T16:00:30Z")
The overall numbers look good though. Spending is nearly flat since the Republicans took the House. The President lauds the shrinking deficit as a good thing, so that means it’s good. Oh, and unemployment dropped to 5%. So that’s good too. And meanwhile I’d like to hope that some of these newcomers are learning. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2032 "2015-11-06T16:03:05Z")
Remember kids: spending is Obama’s fault unless it’s shrinking in which case it’s down to the Republicans! ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2033 "2015-11-06T16:21:57Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Gingrich was someone who I think you could actually call a little loopy, but he ran the House effectively. > [@adaher](#): > > I’m not yet convinced that what we have now is worse than what we had before. Obvoiusly, if we’d gone over the debt limit it would be, but Congress getting little done and controlling spending while they are at it isn’t a terrible outcome. About what Gingrich started: > **[The Much-Needed and Sane Congressional Office That Gingrich Killed Off and We...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-much-needed-and-sane-congressional-office-that-gingrich-killed-off-and-we-need-back/264160/)** > > Our technological choices are becoming ever more complex. Don't you think our Senators and Representatives need some nonpartisan help? > [@](#): > > On October 13, 1972, in an act of bipartisanship and scientific literacy that we would be shocked to see come out of Congress today, the Technology Assessment Act was put into law. This act created the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an organization responsible for providing Congress with authoritative and unbiased reports on a wide range of present and emerging issues in science and technology. > > When the OTA was established we were rocketing into – well, space, but also into – an age of ubiquitous, pervasive, fast-growing, and complex technologies that simultaneously promised us great benefits and great risks. > > The Cold War brought on a persistent panic over national security. Information technologies were reshaping the way that people connected and interacted. And 10 years earlier Silent Spring, the book that kickstarted the environmental movement, helped sensitize the public to hazards surrounding pollution, pesticides, and general technological control over nature. No, that was not the Gingritch congress, that was from the time Republicans were not drinking the ideocracy Brawndo punch. Of course the science became more inconvenient for the Republicans under Gingritch. His congress got rid of the office because the Republicans were becoming less in tune with science. And the solutions they propose to deal with important issues look more like snake oil. > [@](#): > > In OTA’s absence, however, the new Republican majority could freely call upon its own favorable scientific “experts” and rely upon more questionable and self-interested analyses prepared by lobbyists, think tanks, and interest groups. A 2001 comment by Gingrich, explaining the reason OTA was killed, pretty much said it all: “We constantly found scientists who thought what they were saying was not correct.” :rolleyes: And so we have less of a counter to prevent the ignorant Republicans in congress from getting even chairmanships (voted in by all other Republican members of congress BTW) to do more harm by getting little done and to accuse scientists of fraud with no good reason whatsoever. Our own **Bad Astronomer** can tell us what is the result of the continuous ignorant moves by the Republicans: > **[Rep. Lamar Smith Accused Scientists of “Altering” Data. Did They?](https://slate.com/technology/2015/11/climate-data-lamar-smith-and-adjusting-scientific-data.html)** > > Rep. Lamar Smith accuses NOAA of altering data. He doesn't understand how science works. > [@](#): > > A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an atrocious abuse of power being flailed about by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He is a global warming denier—it appears he thinks it’s a hoax, part of a conspiracy involving the White House and various science agencies. He’s so twisted up about it that he’s issued a subpoena to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association demanding it turn over data, emails, and more to Congress for inspection (never mind that the data and methodology are public already). > > Days later he doubled down on his nonsense, issuing a statement literally accusing NOAA of “altering the data,” in an effort “to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda”. > > This is, quite simply, a strong-arm intimidation tactic. And it’s not just me who’s upset about it; Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, sent a severely reprimanding letter to Smith, and the American Meteorological Society also sent a letter to Smith about this.\* NOAA, unsurprisingly, was none too happy about it either. > > This kind of conspiracy ideation by Smith is generally seen on poorly edited YouTube videos about lizard people and the Illuminati. Thought processes like this hang in a far less flattering manner on a member of Congress. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2034 "2015-11-06T17:57:58Z")
Remember when \*\*adaher \*\*wouldn’t shut up about how honest and refreshing Ben Carson was as a candidate? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2035 "2015-11-06T18:09:57Z")
> [@GrandWino](#): > > Remember when \*\*adaher \*\*wouldn’t shut up about how honest and refreshing Ben Carson was as a candidate? Yeah, that was like, [Wednesday](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18831271&postcount=298). 😃 How about that West Point scholarship? :D:D:D ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2036 "2015-11-06T18:27:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, it’s simply “they don’t know what they are doing, and they don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions.” Hopefully things are going to get better under Ryan’s leadership. Not if he has to lead a bunch of pols whose performance in office can fairly be characterized by words identical to those of an insanity defense to a criminal charge, they won’t. ---
**Author:** ![bethewave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@bethewave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bethewave)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2037 "2015-11-06T18:31:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, honesty combined with having a clue would be Kasich, followed by Rubio. How do you feel about the credit card stories popping up? Do you expect them to impact the view of him as a “honest candidate”? [http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/04/marco-rubio-defends-use-of-florida-gop-credit-card/](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/04/marco-rubio-defends-use-of-florida-gop-credit-card/) [Rubio under scrutiny over finances | Fox Business Video](http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4598657677001/rubio-under-scrutiny-over-finances/?#sp=show-clips) (please note this is a video link, I wanted to include a right-wing link as well but they aren’t writing many stories on this). This isn’t a “gotcha” question or an attempt to point and laugh, I’m just wondering what you think. Is it something that spin gets rid of? Is it something that needs spin? I’m wondering because if all the Republican candidates start pointing out each other’s false stories, doesn’t that just damage everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2038 "2015-11-06T21:25:15Z")
A campaign we can all get behind: [http://www.northernsun.com/Vote-Hindsight-20/20-T-Shirt-(8495).html?id=LLydo3ok](http://www.northernsun.com/Vote-Hindsight-20/20-T-Shirt-%288495%29.html?id=LLydo3ok) ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2039 "2015-11-06T21:57:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > According to “The Party Decides” theory though, Christie is still top tier. Can you clearly state what you believe ‘“The Part Decides” theory’ is and whether or not you believe it has predictive value? Thanks in advance for your time and attention. ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2040 "2015-11-07T07:50:19Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Remember kids: spending is Obama’s fault unless it’s shrinking in which case it’s down to the Republicans! Just like gas prices. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444/2041 "2015-11-07T08:29:47Z")
> [@bethewave](#): > > How do you feel about the credit card stories popping up? Do you expect them to impact the view of him as a “honest candidate”? > > [http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/04/marco-rubio-defends-use-of-florida-gop-credit-card/](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/04/marco-rubio-defends-use-of-florida-gop-credit-card/) > > [Rubio under scrutiny over finances | Fox Business Video](http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4598657677001/rubio-under-scrutiny-over-finances/?#sp=show-clips) (please note this is a video link, I wanted to include a right-wing link as well but they aren’t writing many stories on this). > > This isn’t a “gotcha” question or an attempt to point and laugh, I’m just wondering what you think. Is it something that spin gets rid of? Is it something that needs spin? I’m wondering because if all the Republican candidates start pointing out each other’s false stories, doesn’t that just damage everyone? It can’t really be spun, but it’s not deadly. Rubio just used poor judgment. It seems to me that they are explaining it exactly as it happened. Rubio’s bad with his personal finances. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444.md?page=101) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2016-republican-candidates/709444.md?page=103)