The question is academic as any Republican I would even think about voting for would never get nominated by them.
Seriously? The dude’s so crooked when he dies they’ll have to screw him into the ground. He’s for one thing only- getting good publicity for himself to move up the political ladder. If he got to the top, what would he be for then? I don’t know and don’t care to find out.
I would have considered Huntsman vs Obama in days gone by. I think that ship has sailed given the batshit Republicans of the past 6 years. I used to go back and forth between Dems and Pubs. Now I don’t even think of voting for a Rethuglican.
You like thugs? Would you vote for “Shoot to maim” Daley in Chicago?
At this point, the Dems and GOP believe fundamentally different things. Anyone who could get the Dem Presidential nomination is going to be too far left for even a rational Republican, even though there’s no way a genuine liberal could win the nomination. And on the GOP side, anyone winning the nomination would either be a true conservative, or promise up the wazoo to act like one, and thereby be out of reach for even a conservative Dem to vote for.
Just one for-instance: the Dems almost all favor increasing the minimum wage; Republicans increasingly don’t believe that there should be such a thing as a minimum wage, and those that do are, almost to a man, adamantly opposed to increasing it.
Remember the days when there were genuinely liberal Republicans and segregationist Democrats? So do I, but those days are a looooooong way back in the rearview mirror.
Being a member of the Republican party indicates a severe lack of judgment and therefore disqualifies one from holding public office.
None. Voting for a Republican gives the Republicans more power as a party, and they are so destructive that doing so is unacceptable regardless of what that individual is like. He or she could be the best leader ever born and it wouldn’t make up for the damage done by giving the Republicans more power. And by the same token the Democrat could be the worst leader in history and they wouldn’t do as much damage as electing a Republican.
Voting for Republicans is voting for the clowns in a clown car. Really, sanity has left the party, you’re a damned fool if you vote for them. Their tendency to move in lockstep means that even the most rational of them is going to vote to make us all wear our underwear on the outside of their clothing to ensure that we are wearing clean underwear, if that’s what the REST of the party is demanding. If you like crazy shit, vote for a Republican, they WILL deliver, regardless of their personal qualities.
That said, on economic issues, the Democrats are no different than the Republicans because they both have the same owner: Wall Street. As economic issues are paramount in the long term, the responsible voter will vote for neither party in 2016: Go Green in 2016!
They’re all on the other side of a wide chasm for me. At this point I’ll have to hold my breath to vote for any of them.
I think the only way I could answer this question would be to change it to, “which person on your own side is so bad you could consider voting for the other side”.
If Marion Barry of Cynthia McKinney was running against McCain or Jeb, I might switch parties, but short of that, the importance of keeping the republican legislative agenda in check and the court no more tilted than it already is, is too important.
Fair question. For me, it would be my Congresscritter, John Tierney, an achievementless mediocrity on his best days, and with a taint of corruption that isn’t strong enough to be proven (it’s his wife who went to prison, not him). I would gladly vote for Richard Tisei, a decent, reasonable, responsible type at hear, over Tierney - if only it were in a Democratic primary. As long as Tisei flies the flag of a party that even hates him for his sexuality, though, and as long as he’s letting “outside” PAC’s advertise that he’s for a bullet-point alternative to Obamacare, then too damn bad. He can talk all he wants about bringing a fresh voice to a gridlocked DC yadayada, but if he went there, his first vote would be to re-elect John Boehner as Speaker and his second would be a ritual loyalty-oath vote to repeal Obamacare. So I gotta stick with the corrupt mediocre guy who at least votes reliably to move us forward, not back.
To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson: That’s wonderful, but I need a majority.
Can’t go Green until one of the two biggies has stopped existing. And that one really needs to be the GOP.
Who’s holding the GOP Ring of Power these days? Maybe we can line up a short guy who’s always wanted to visit a volcano on his vacation…
Why is it unreasonable to think that the right leader might be able to pull the party back from the brink? I’m thinking of Eisenhower keeping in check the McCarthyist / John Birch Society strands of the Republican party for example. Maybe electing a Republican is just what it will take to break the Tea Party fever.
William Weld ® Gov of Mass in the mid 90s is worth note. I would vote for him.
Of course he has no future in the GOP even if he were younger.
“In 1994, Weld won reelection with an impressive 71% of the vote in the most one-sided gubernatorial contest in Massachusetts electoral history. Weld carried all but five towns in the whole state, even carrying Boston.” (Wikipedia)
I’d vote for Huntsman, or for a blue-state Republican like George Pataki or Weld, or possibly for Condoleeza Rice, over some of the more objectionable Democrats for President, or some other office where they have some control over the agenda. Not for one where they merely support it – even if a Republican in my Congressional district were one of the “good ones,” merely by being in office they’d be helping increase the power of the likes of John Boenher and Eric Cantor.
The problem with crossing the aisle is that even RINOs and DINOs still count for purposes of which party gets to control each house of Congress.
Eisenhower did no such thing. He was notorious even at the time for his fecklessness.
Pretend that what you say is true for a second. Who is there in the Republican Party that fits this description? I’m not aware of anyone being put forward even by party pundits that they claim could manage this.
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
They did have Chris Christie anointed for the role until, you know. Now Jeb Bush is the Great White Hope, except for those thinking Mitt Romney could pull it off now that he has some practice.