Cruz. Beside finding him personally unappealing, he sends off the aura of a man willing to do most anything in the pursuit of his own power base. His ability to piss off his own party testifies to that. Him having the power of the President…disturbs me.
There will be differences in how the candidates set the agenda/priorities if elected president, even if as you say almost anything the GOP Congress passes will be signed by the GOP president. There’s no guarantee we’d be sitting here with the ACA as law of the land if Clinton had been the nominee in 2008, for example.
There are also foreign policy differences, even if only by shades of omnidirectional hawkishness. Jeb saying he’s willing to consider not trashing the Iran deal on Day 1 of his presidency is a rather different position than Marco Rubio’s. My read is that Bush is blasting the deal as an obligatory pander but he has no real interest in undoing the deal. Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and other clown-car passengers…different story.
While he was Governor of Arkansas he was always willing, even anxious, to mention Jays-us, his vetoing an insurance bill because it used the phrase, “Act of God” is one of the reasons I dislike him, but I don’t believe he wishes to make Christianity the government.
The nice thing about governors is that they’ve, er, governed. Arkansas is pretty friendly ground for Bible thumpers. It’s unlikely that Huck would be more radical in that respect than he was in Arkansas.
Cruz scares me the most as he represents this “never compromise” mentality that is completely at odds with a system of government based on compromise.
I think if he had his way, he would want a dictatorship.
I’m typically a Republican voter, and Cruz scares me for this very reason. It’s the “never compromise” attitude combined with wackadoodle ideology that causes problems- this clown was willing to shut the entire government down to prove his ideological point.
What’s he going to do if he’s set loose on the international stage? Nuke someone because they won’t bow down to the US on some trivial point?
Cruz scares me because he is an establishment figure masquerading as a grass roots favorite. He also has a shit-ton of money.
Sanders scares me because his policies show that he is stridently opposed to gaining knowledge about how the world works, a quality he shares with a majority of the public which makes him dangerous. Common people favor a minimum wage because they don’t have time to read up on it. He favors a minimum wage out of self-righteousness, willful ignorance, and plain liberal snobbery, making him a sociopath.
You’re probably right, but something about him bothers me. I feel like he’s not interested in just money and power like the rest of them.
Did I mention that if we were in High School I wouldn’t trust him to carry my lunch? 
Walker is the scariest. I don’t think he takes a shit without consulting the Kochs first. If you want to return to the unregulated days of the robber barons, Walker’s your guy.
Y’all are raising my opinion of Walker.
Hillary is the only one who actually inspires fear, because she might get elected. Even if Sanders or Warren get the nom, they have no chance in the general election, and wouldn’t be able to get anything passed if they did have a chance. Hillary reminds me of Nixon, and might get caught covering up something serious because of that paranoid sense of entitled secrecy that seems to drive her.
God willing, there will be a GOP Congress to keep her from doing anything stupid and lasting.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Scott Walker scares me the most because the man managed to successfully paint teachers (!!) as the bad guys in Wisconsin. To me, that’s the equivalent of winning elections by kicking puppies.
If education sucks and teachers are standing in the way of reforms, then it’s not hard to paint them as the bad guys.
None of the Democrats are scary, that is the Republican party. Mike Huckabee scares me most.
I have a LOT of friends and relatives who are teachers, in several states. Not a single one is anything less than 100% dedicated to doing the best job they can, despite ever-dwindling resources. The “reforms” of which you speak are designed to cut education budgets to the bone in an effort to get them privatized so Walker’s cronies can rake in even more money.
The Republicans paint every union with the same broad brush of corruption and power that hasn’t been true since the UAW in the 1970s. I’m a member of a government union myself, and they way they portray unions like mine are utter and complete crap.
In terms of candidates who I think actually have a chance, I’m also going with Scott Walker. A short time ago I made the mistake of comparing Walker to Nixon but I now see I was partially wrong. Nixon was smarter and knew when to compromise (albeit for often cynical reasons). Walker, on the other hand, is an intellectual lightweight who only thinks he’s smart. He also believes that by rubber-stamping everything the Koch brothers and their ilk want, he’s doing God’s work and, as his bellicose statements on Iran have shown, can’t wait until the end of his inauguration speech to begin bombing the shit out of Iran or some other country that looks at us funny. Finally, there’s a vindictive quality about him–like he can’t wait to use his office to get back at those he thinks ridiculed or wronged him in the past.
I must respectfully offer a correction. The first sentence should read:
Walker is the scariest. I don’t think he takes a shit without [del]consulting[/del] getting permission from the Kochs first.
I’m with the consensus here. Most of the lunatics and narcissists running for the GOP nomination don’t have a chance and mainly provide entertainment value. Walker does, in large part because of support from the Kochs and the like-minded oligarchy. I think he’s too extreme even for the Republicans, but he has enough support to make him dangerously viable.
Most of the Republicans are polticians who will say anything to be elected, even things they don’t really believe. But Huckabee and Santorum are True Believers who have absolute certainty that their religion is right, and our government should codify their religious beliefs. That should scare anyone.
Jefferson was an ideologue, Hamilton and Adams were ideologues, Clay the Compromiser was an ideologue, Lincoln was an ideologue, TR and FDR and LBJ and Nixon and Reagan were ideologues – one could fairly apply the label to anyone who has any consistent political principles. What, you like unprincipled careerists better?