From the Great Un-Fork Hillary Thread:
Can you point us to the GOP candidates that tick all of these boxes?
Younger & more transparent aren’t hard. But you want likeable, straight-talking, *and *with a record of competence?
Can we check those qualities against the 18 “major” contenders to see which one it’s going to be? I’m genuinely curious.
Jeb, Christie, Kasich, and Walker have all governed a state competently, well enough to get re-elected. Likable is a subjective quality, so you’ll have to make your own judgements there.
Walker might be too divisive to be put in that category.
Rubio can be added though. If legislative experience counts(and Democrats claim it does), then Rubio’s got an impressive resume. Speaker of the HOuse of a large state, a Senator with more experience than when Obama ran for President, and young, charismatic, and likeable. When he’s on anyway. He has consistency issues. But assuming he benefits from a long campaign, he’ll be ready by this time next year to take it home if he gets the nomination.
Carson also enjoys all the advantages except for government experience, which may actually be a plus in this election. If he gets more polished as a candidate then he’ll be dangerous.
Jindal enjoys all the advantages over Clinton except for competence. Same goes for Huck, actually.
So really, the only candidates I’d put at a major disadvantage against Clinton on the aspects I listed are Trump, Cruz, and possibly Walker. If Biden is the nominee then the contrast gets less advantageous for the GOP.
It’s always interesting watching people expand on their delusions…
Your side believes Clinton is honest. Not exactly an endorsement of your awareness of reality.
Benjamin Carson.
Carson can’t beat Clinton on competence because he has no government experience. We really have no idea how good he’d be as an executive. But he would beat her on likeability, plus his biography is really compelling. He’d be the first African-American President from a background a majority of African-Americans can relate to, whereas Obama’s origins were a little more unusual and exotic. Carson grew up on the streets of Detroit, got into trouble at a young age, got his shit together and made something of himself. Ben Carson’s election would prove that truly anyone can grow up to be President no matter how low on the economic and social scale they start out. Hard to beat a black kid from Detroit in the 1950s for being born with two strikes against him.
But have you ever listened to Carson give a speech? He has all the passion of a mayonnaise sandwich.
Yeah, but it seems to work. He got some of the most positive responses during the debate. Sometimes what is said is more important than how it’s said.
Like when he offered tithing as the solution to our budget woes? He’s a fucking loon.
He’s definitely got the wrong idea there, but voters really liked his comments about race.
Yes, what he says is more important than how he says it. So let’s look at what he is saying:
Ben Carson warns that if you force a Christian to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple, they just might put poison in it.
Ben Carson says homosexuality is a choice because many people “go into prison straight – and when they come out, they’re gay.”
Ben Carson is unsure if Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are in NATO.
Ben Carson says god gave him the answers to a college chemistry test in a dream.
Ben Carson says he would use military drone strikes against undocumented immigrants as they cross the boarder.
Maybe if he had a personality, people won’t notice he is a loon.
Actually, he called for possible drone strikes on drug gangs, not mere border crossers. And he also said that he would take the military’s advice on such an idea, which means it wouldn’t happen.
Carson’s weird comments are getting fewer as time goes on though. He’s learning how to be a candidate. Nothing he says before January counts if he gets his act together.
I’m sure you would extend that same exemption to Hillary. Right?
I’m with you on this. Smart guy. Decent guy. But painful to listen to. There’s no way he’ll inspire people to vote in the numbers necessary.
Hillary already has a staff of professionals that make sure she says nothing unscripted, plus a lot of practice at being uninteresting. Carson is new at this.
In the Carson thread, I said that I hoped Carson became an ultra polished, articulate speaker so that it would expose the business. He’s not there yet, but he’s a much better candidate now than when he started. He’ll continue to improve heading into the primaries. He could do no greater favor for the citizenry than to demonstrate that candidates are nothing more than products to be sold by professional marketers, and that very little that they say are their own unvarnished thoughts. If you made Hillary Clinton campaign without her professional staff, she’d sound pretty ridiculous too. Heck, she sounds bad enough with all her professional assistance that she’s afraid to go out in public lest she might have to answer an actual question.
Likeable: Maybe Kasich. He’s the grandfather who has a little too much scotch at Thanksgiving and sits in the easy chair telling dirty jokes. The others- no. Trump is very much unlikeable. Fiorina is the boss who fired your mom the day before she got vested in her retirement plan. Paul is the little dweeb who cheats on his chemistry test but tattles to the teacher when you sneak in after the bell. Huckabee is the preacher from the horror movie later revealed to be the serial killer. Cruz is the cop on the vice squad who seizes all the porn for his personal collection.
Honorable: Not a one. Bush got the legislature to grant him custody of a brain-dead woman so he could refuse her family’s request to let her die with dignity. Christie turned the Port Authority into his own political sleaze fund. Walker has an obsession with destroying public schools and crippling state universities.
Competent: Don’t see any. Jindal and Perry aren’t exactly models of great governors. Trump had many business failures. Fiorina was dumped by HP. Cruz thinks it’s fun to shut down the government over long-lost social issues. Rubio has yet to come up with the alternative to Obamacare.
What a sad pathetic lot this is.
Jayjay, adaher. Keep the personal comments down, please.
You skipped “honorable”.
Indicating that he is either ignorant of, (likely), or uncaring (equally possible) regarding the Posse Comitatus Acts of 1878, 1956, and 1981.
Aside from his ability to wield a scalpel, nothing this guy says indicates any level of knowledge of society, law, or science. He is a highly skilled technician, nothing more.