This cycle's crop of Republican candidates

Is McDonald’s putting Psychosis-inducing drugs in its french fries?

(This thread may belong in IMHO – I state my opinion and ask for others’ – but I’m choosing BBQ Pit to allow Dopers free rein at venting any ire.)

First of all, i am no Pavlov’s Liberal Dog who salivates and barks on hearing the word “Republican.” Ford and Bush-41 were fine Presidents, and Eisenhower one of the most outstanding Presidents of my lifetime. Dole seemed to be a sensible sincere man; McCain was a likable guy with whom I found myself in agreement on many important issues (though by 2008 he was past his “use by” date). I even admire Nixon who could have been one of the best Presidents of our era. (Some other Presidents were also corrupt but did a better job of concealing their sins.) I am no fan of Reagan, but at least he was not an utter clown or crackpot.

Yet, look at the Republican field for the coming election! Perry, Gingrich, Cain, Bachmann, Paul, Palin and Trump can only be described as utter jokes. If one looks for crackpot candidates from the 20th century, names that spring to mind are Goldwater, McGovern, and Perot, yet I wouldn’t hesitate a second in preferring any of these three over any of the seven clowns I named above.

The clowns are quite different from each other, of course. Paul seems like an intelligent likable guy who brings to mind the quote “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” I’m curious about Perry: he reminds me so much of GWB, the fratboy prankster who owes his success to Daddy’s intimacy with the Saudi royals, but what’s Perry’s claim to fame? (His resume makes the comparison with GWB apt: “Perry was a prankster in college,” then “a door-to-door book salesman” and fell into bed with Karl Rove.) The other jokesters on the list are so obviously unsuitable for the Presidency that even Republicans know it, secretly, unless they’re utter morons. Gingrich may deserve special mention: he may have the highest IQ of the lot but is almost certainly the most evil and corrupt.

I’ve left Romney off the list of clowns. He’s the one serious contender who, if elected, could proudly take his place among Harding, Buchanan, and GWB as one of the worst U.S. Presidents ever, but at least one can contemplate his election without laughing or vomiting. I will admit that my estimate of Romney’s intellect dropped when, invited to say something bad about Gingrich, he stammered for a while and then came up with … a Lunar expedition fantasy. :smack:

(Some of the also-rans in the race seem less silly than the front-runners. Have we reached the point where, since news is entertainment and “any publicity is good publicity,” our system is geared to elect clowns?)

How about it, fellow Dopers? Is this year’s crop of Republican candidates just a somewhat worse batch than usual? Or is it a bizarre collection of clowns that makes one wonder if we’ve entered some parallel universe in which McDonald’s is putting LSD in its french fries?

Don’t blame the candidates; blame the constituents. The sensible Republicans aren’t running because they don’t want to waste money pandering to primary voters who are only interested in crazy candidates.

I voted for Ford and Bush 41.

Huntsman isn’t bad. He even seems reasonable. I disagree with him on more than one major issue, but I find myself respecting him.

Of course he has no chance to get the Pubbie nomination.

Over the last few decades, lots of Republican initiatives have been enacted but failed to deliver the results that were promised. Taxes were cut and we didn’t grow our way to budget surpluses. A tax-and-spend liberal president nearly balanced the budget. Business regulation was lax and we nearly had another Great Depression. The invasion of Iraq wasn’t a cakewalk and the weapons of mass destruction turned out not to even be there. A tough-talking Texan president couldn’t catch Osama bin Laden in two terms in office, a big-city, Ivy-League liberal did it in one. I’m sure there are more.

But cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Each time it happens, some people can admit that they were wrong, and lots more will look for some other explanation; something they can believe in that means they were right all along. “We didn’t cut taxes enough!” “We didn’t deregulate enough!” And each time that happens, you get a little more invested in sticking to your story.

That’s where we are now. The Republican candidates who have been able to drum up support are those who are telling people they’ve been right about everything for the last thirty years, but just didn’t fight hard enough.

If my state held a primary, I would vote for Huntsman. Instead, they go the caucus route, which is a little like a taping of the *Gong Show *near the end of its run.

And, Yes, McDonalds does spike the fries.

In a way those Republicans remind me of what Penn Jillette once wrote about the difference between quack doctors and real doctors. A real doctor, when faced with a patient that is not getting better, will reconsider his or her initial diagnosis or medical plan, perhaps consult with other specialists, and draw on collected medical literature to figure out what might be happening. A quack doctor will loudly proclaim that he or she can’t possibly be wrong, other doctors are wrong, and the only reason a patient isn’t getting better is that they need more of the treatment they prescribed earlier. (If the patient dies the quack can say “We got to him too late.”)

It seems to me that the post-Clinton GOP mindset resembles those quack doctors: what worked (or “worked”) in the past will always work, the counsel of those who are not in your circle is of no value, and the only solution to any setback is to do even more of what got you there in the first place. It’s a great mindset to have if you’re in the majority, not so great if you’re in the minority. And if, as we have today, we have a split government, well, everything in government pretty much stops.

I don’t think it’s a good mindset even if you’re in the majority. If a policy is not having the effect you expected or wanted, it’s best to take an honest look at it and figure out why.

Some moderate Republican pol somewhere in America is very, very patiently laying plans for 2016.

I hope.

[nitpick]Palin’s not a candidate. She is a crackpot, but so are plenty of non-Republican-nomination-seekers.[/nitpick]
[nitpick2]Cain has suspended his campaign.[/nitpick2]

I guess I can live with Ron Paul as a ‘crackpot,’ but for a different reason than the others. Ron Paul sets forth a set of positions that Americans aren’t ready for for. The others hold positions that reality isn’t ready for.

There are two issues at play. One is that the Republican Party is rapidly becoming a single-issue party, where the obsession with discriminating against homosexuals overrides all other concerns. Not only does this attract evil people, it filters out anyone with something useful to say about the economy, foreign policy, etc. Secondly, as George Will recently pointed out, the primary process has been hijacked by people who have no intention of being nominated for President. There was no serious Cain or Bachmann campaign, just an attempt to raise those people’s profile so they could get higher speaking fees and book sales. Until the GOP gets serious about restricting its ballot only to actual candidates, this will only get worse.

NM

Oh, I’m not saying it’s good in the sense that you can actually help people. It’s “good” in the sense that nobody’s going to stop you from doing it.

Oh my God…you mean Trump’s candidacy wasn’t real???

Reality isn’t ready for Paul’s positions either. It is a fine line between being a crackpot, like Paul, being stupid, like Perry, and being willfully ignorant, like Cain and Palin.

In the good old days, when I was a Republican, there was always one bozo in the field of reasonable candidates. Now there is one reasonable candidate (Huntsman) in a field of bozos.

Crop circles. That’s what I keep reading in the thread title.

Me too! I believe that a two-party system is the healthiest way of governing. But the “loyal opposition” has to be loyal. They have to have a real policy of what is best for the country, not one that is solely for the best of their party.

I would have said that their obsession is Obama. Whether or not it’s racially motivated (I think it is) it seems that “We hate Obama” is the only policy they have. It was charming (in a nauseating way) to watch Cain refuse to answer questions on foreign policy, out of his dread of accidentally agreeing with Obama. We saw the same thing a handful of times, before a major Obama policy speech, where Republicans refused to make their views public, out of terror that Obama might come out with the same view.

These guys would sell Oregon to Iran if it meant Obama’s defeat. (Okay, hyperbole. Hawaii, maybe.)

You think so? Because if my take on things is correct, I don’t really see an endgame. They seem to have decided that obstinacy is a virtue and anyone who disagrees with them is out to cause them harm. That just doesn’t seem like a recipe for ever moderating their views.

I only see three possibilities. Either they become more stubborn and more exclusionary until they’re a permanent minority (opening the way for a new major party), the issues facing the country change sufficiently that we’re able to debate things anew without so much baggage, or they die off through old age faster than their numbers can be replenished.

Well, Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s gov. is one of them. I the smart money is waiting till 2016 so that 1) they don’t run against a popular incumbent 2) After getting their ass handed to them in 2012, the crazy will have burned itself out in the GOP a little bit.

I think both Huntsman and Romney would probably make good Presidents. But it seems like the the more vocal part of the right do not want them.

Why do you think McGovern was a crackpot? He was a decorated veteran of WWII, earned a PhD, taught history, and had a distinguished career in politics. He opposed the Vietnam War, and even if you disagree with that position it is hardly a crackpot idea. Sure he lost the Presidential election in a landslide, but he was running against an opponent who engaged in “dirty tricks” that included bugging the offices of the Democratic party.