posted
Senator Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation yesterday:
quote: ...But I'm a military lawyer, 22 years as a member of the Air Force JAG Corps. When I put that uniform on, I took an obligation as a military officer. Now I have an obligation as a senator. I admire the president and I want to help him, but the biggest risk in the world is not Lindsey Graham loses an election. We can have a good country without Lindsey Graham being in the Senate. We cannot have a great nation when we start redefining who we are under the guise of redefining our law . My biggest fear is that, as we try to solve these complicated legal procedures and problems, that we're seen as taking shortcuts, and we don't redefine the law, we redefine America in a way so we can't win this war. That's what Colin Powell's saying; that's what General Batiste's saying. It's not about my political career. America can do well without me, but we cannot do well if we're seen to abandon our principles and the rule of law.
Yup. It is important to keep America safe; it is far more important to keep America, America.
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posted
Chaffee doesn't really represent the Republican party, though. I'm having a hard time understanding why he sticks with the GOP, since he doesn't align himself with many of their views. (Pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, anti-War-in-Iraq)
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IIRC, it's because he dislikes capitalism, and is pro-affirmative action.
Lincoln Chaffee doesn't really stand for anything the GOP is traditionally viewed as supporting. He's not even a redder shade of Libertarian.
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posted
I decline to pursue the discussion further as regards OSC.
Regarding Chaffee, all the stances you site are very consistent with the Libertarian party and, with the exeption of anti-Iraq War, are views consistent with the ideals of so-called 'South Park'/individualist Republicans. Though I totally agree with you that, given the way the Republican party actually is (imho), versus the ideals, it's weird that Chaffee or any social liberal belongs to the Republicans.
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posted
Actually, I just read a bit in Reason and, uh, another site that I can't remember that basically details how Bush lost the support of the South Park Republicans for the Iraq war. So, Chaffee is definitely not alone.
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posted
You know, people say that, and not to be a jerk or anything, but I can't think of a time when the Republican party has ever even been vaguely socially libral.
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posted
He's not a 'redder shade of Libertarian' because of some of his fiscal policy stances, Storm.
The GOP and the Dems of the early 1900's were completely different animals, kmb. Returning to the GOP's roots would effectively castrate it. But maybe that's what you had in mind...
Did political parties back in the early 1900's (LaFollette's era) mix much with social policy? It appears they were much more concerned about fiscal/international policy.
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posted
I liked that "different animal". I think that the marriage of the party with big business (in the first part of the last century) and with the religious right (in the last part of the last century) destroyed what was good about it. Growing up a "Wisconsin Republican", I was raised with an awareness of what the party used to be.
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posted
In today's political climate, though, you can't win on fiscal policy alone. I'd assert that you also can't win without corporate sponsorship of some type.
quote: Maybe we should define socially liberal? We could be talking about different things.
The rights of the individual over the rights of the community.
This isn't to say that Dems have been much better, but there is slightly more history recently with social liberalism with the Dems than with Republicans.
Dems-populist land
Repubs--populist business
It's amazing when you look at it in this regard how little the parties have changed over the centuries.
Well... I dunno. In the political climate of the 1900's, socialized medical care would never even be discussed. LaFollette was considered a progressive just for speaking out against eight-year-olds being forced to work 12-hour days.
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posted
Back at the top of the thread, kmbboots posted this:
quote:Senator Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation yesterday:
Followed by some really thoughtful, reasoned, moderate comments by Graham.
Maybe it started earlier, but I noticed Graham putting himself out as a "moderate" starting with the Abu Ghraib scandal. The cynical political animal part of me "smells" someone positioning himself for a run at a higher office. It's not exactly like the Republicans have any "star" candidates for the presidential shot right now, except for maybe McCain.
Which, of course, puts them in a slightly better position than the Dems, whose only "star" right now is Hilary Clinton. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I would think Jeb Bush and Condaleeza carry pretty heavy name recognition, along with McCain.
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posted
Are either of those presidential hopefuls? I can't imagine another Bush running for president with any hope of success...
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posted
The Atlantic Monthly thinks it will be Mitt Romney.
If people can get over him belonging to a church that had polygamy a hundred years ago.
Amusingly, of the major contenders for the nomination now, Romney is the only one has been married only once.
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quote:If people can get over him belonging to a church that had polygamy a hundred years ago.
Or the allegations of homophobia, ineptitude, meanness, and smarminess he's regularly accused of in Massachussets.
I really don't want a Mo' to run for president. Probably because I'm so bitter on politicians as a whole right now...
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posted
I don't get why people say that having the Bush name would be negative. I mean, things can change in a couple years, but Jeb Bush is Karl Rove's wet dream: He speaks better than Bush, he's married to a hispanic, he speaks Spanish, he has a weird kind of understated, puppy dog stage presence.
Mitt Romney. 'I don't know nothin' bout no Mitt Romney.' Despite efforts to the contrary, I just don't see him as having any real name recognition.
Of course, all this doesn't matter. I genuinely think that the Republicans have flushed their cache with the Hispanic community down the toilet with the likes of Tancredo. Mind you, I'm not saying the Dems don't have their own Tancredos, but I think they've pretty much kept their mouths shut.
I think the Repubs have killed their credibility with the ur-Reagans.
I think, I am extremely sad to say, that if the war is still going on like it is today in two years, and with the above two factors taken into account, they are going to suffer a huge defeat in the general electorate.
This will have the effect of revitalizing the Reaganite/Gingrich faction and you can kiss the Bush moderates good-bye for a while.
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quote:Did political parties back in the early 1900's (LaFollette's era) mix much with social policy?
Prohibition, the gold standard, sufferage, organized labor, and in general, what to do with the post-reconstruction South.
As to Romney, isn't he just a regular republican? Let's forget that he is LDS, he strikes me as an uninteresting and unengaging moderate. I heard him speak energetically about really banal matters, which makes me think that under his administration, everyone who is doing well is going to do a little bit better, and everyone who is doing poorly is going to do a little bit worse. He struck me as a company man with a better than average smile. Maybe people said the same thing about John Edwards. Maybe this is good news, but it doesn't exactly inspire me with hope for the future.
People are already crying foul about a Clinton dynasty with Hillary running, THREE Bushes inside four or five presidents is a scary prospect for many.
I've heard LAURA Bush's name bandied about as a possibility, and she has zero experience.
I think a lot of people would be given pause at electing a third Bush regardless of who he or she was, and Jeb is really the only candidate worth mentioning.
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posted
You know, of all the reasons NOT to vote for Mitt Romney, his affiliation with the Mormon Church should be way low on people's lists.
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Mitt certainly comes out looking squeaky clean here, except for where one Dem pollster maintains that he's not nearly so bi-partisan as Mitt's publicist would like you to think.
I have to say, it's a good piece of press.
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posted
I read it, I just don't think that Romney has much name recognition.
Oh! I just remembered someone who hasn't been mentioned! You know who has gone up in my estimation after reading a Slate article on him? Rudy Guilliani. Let me see if I can find it....
quote: Yes, but what about the Democratic appeasers? Disappointed that the mayor didn't rustle up a stirring anecdote about his experiences with 9/11, I hoped he wouldn't miss an opportunity to compete with Cheney and Rumsfeld by whacking the opposition party.
I asked him in the brief question session afterward if he thought there was a move toward appeasement anywhere in America. "Some of the history of the war on terror was that it wasn't taken seriously enough," he said before recounting the reactions to the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics and other weak responses to historical acts of terrorism. But even old mistakes were just mistakes: "I don't know if you would call it appeasement," he said.
At least one person in the audience seemed disappointed that Giuliani was being so stingy right in the middle of half-priced red-meat week. As the mayor answered the last of the three questions from reporters, he talked about the root causes of terrorism: "oppressive governments that demagogue and blame and project their problems other places and do nothing to solve the problems of their own people."
"Sounds like the Democrats," shouted a man.
The crowd roared.
It was the kind of stupid remark candidates usually ignore. They either agree but can't show that they do, or they don't want to cause a stir by contradicting one of the partisans they've come to court. Giuliani's aides were already preparing to move him to his waiting SUV. He could have just left.
"Time out," he said bringing his hands together to make a T. "Time out." The crowd quieted down. "The other thing we have to learn is that we can't get into this partisan bickering. The fact is that Republicans and Democrats have the same objectives. … Democrats are loyal Americans. Republicans are loyal Americans. I think we have better answers, but we have to respect each other."
posted
Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, loves data, hates waste, and reveres Dwight Eisenhower. [/QUOTE]*laughs* I think that explains a bit, I'm more apathetic to data and waste. And I'm thoroughly an Adlai Stevenson man.
Saxon,
Name recognition isn't that big of a deal. He has enough. He is known, he just isn't provocative. He is another silver-spoon dude. I give silver-spoon dudes like Mark Dayton a special pass because they have a healthy helping of white guilt. But if Romney wasn't a governor, he'd probably be an investment banker or a GE executive, or something like that. Dayton would be volunteering at a soup kitchen, and I think that's sweet.
Dig this:
quote:Romney took more than skills and knowledge away from Bain; he also acquired a way of thinking, a Weltanschauung—call it the Bain world view. He sees waste and inefficiency in almost moral terms; in fact, his crusade against inefficiency is practically a governing philosophy. "Government inefficiency wastes resources and places a burden on citizens and employers that's harmful to our future," he told me. "And anytime I see waste, or patronage, it bothers me."
"As a nation we are in a global economic race with huge populations in Asia," he continued, "where economies are growing at extraordinary rates with highly educated, highly motivated, and in many cases highly entrepreneurial individuals. Anytime government puts waste and excessive burdens of regulation and unnecessary taxation on its citizens, it's putting us behind in that race."
Romney loves the very vocabulary of business—the rhythm of charts and diagrams and boardroom presentations. One afternoon, standing in a newly built Silver Line bus station in South Boston, he introduced a transportation plan that he hoped would be a blueprint for the next twenty years. Speaking in terms that only a consultant could love, he said, "Let me now take a journey with you in … PowerPoint."
As reporters flipped through their handouts, I found myself agreeing with Phil Johnston, the influential Massachusetts Democrat, who had told me that Romney "thinks politics consists of making announcements and pronouncements" and never actually connects with his constituents, because his presentations never descend from a distant level of almost mathematical analysis.
Romney concedes his love of analysis, up to a point. "I like data," he says. He sees issues such as transportation and health care and education as analytical problems to be solved—things that can be tinkered with and fixed, like an unprofitable company.
As CEO-governor Romney makes at least theoretical sense at times, especially when he's talking about budget and fiscal issues. But when he moves beyond business principles to innovate in social policy, things can get kind of weird. Consider, for example, his proposal to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts. The Romney version of the death penalty, he has said, will be foolproof "to the extent that is humanly possible," because it will use, among other things, a panel of scientific experts and additional judicial safeguards to determine guilt beyond any shadow of a doubt. That's an expensive and cumbersome plan from a man who says he wants government to run with extreme efficiency. It also appears doomed to fail in the state legislature.
I asked Romney why he would spend political capital crusading for the death penalty when his plan would cost so much to put in place and in any event will most likely never be voted into law. "The first answer is—and I think it's really hard for people to believe and understand this—because I said I would during the campaign. More than once during gubernatorial debates I was asked, 'Do you support the death penalty?' Yes. And then people said, 'But how are you going to keep from executing the innocent?' And I said by having a higher standard of care—something beyond 'reasonable doubt.' It should be clear and convincing evidence. Scientific evidence."
The importance of using evidence and rigor and logic and data is something Romney gets in part from the Bain world view. But the importance of doing what you say and, significantly, of being careful what you say is something he learned from his father.
Maybe this is true, and heck, most people would consider this a compliment. But if I ever come to confuse science or economics for politics, Its time to put a bullet in my head.
Fugu, if you are reading this thread, this line of thinking shows clearly my worry about economics.
posted
I hope Giuliani does run, he'll be crushed by any decent opposition from the Democrats.
Irami,
What exactly is "white guilt?" I wasn't aware I had anything to be guilty about just for being white.
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quote:What exactly is "white guilt?" I wasn't aware I had anything to be guilty about just for being white.
Sure you do. Just like modern day Germans should still be a little bit guilty for the Holocaust, and just like we are still proud of a revolution that happened 200 years ago.
This American selective delusion of radical individualism is ludicrous. It's not even a charming lie. Simply put, a non-negligible part of who you are, and the shape of your responsibilities, is determined by things that happened before you werealive and things that will happen after you are dead.
posted
Perhaps a better way of saying it would be that it is a recognition that one has had opportunities that other people havn't had - and that, because of that inequity, good people often feel some obligation to society.
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quote:Don't forget Barrack Obama, rising star in the party, and the probable future of the party.
I think the key word there is "future." I think Obama himself thinks he's too new to the national scene to make a run for the presidency. Given the times, his lack of experience in national policy issues will scare off a lot of voters if he tried to make a real run now. He's better off spending time establishing a track record - and I think that is really what he plans on doing for the next few years. 2012 or 2016 maybe?
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quote:What exactly is "white guilt?" I wasn't aware I had anything to be guilty about just for being white.
Sure you do. Just like modern day Germans should still be a little bit guilty for the Holocaust, and just like we are still proud of a revolution that happened 200 years ago.
This American selective delusion of radical individualism is ludicrous. It's not even a charming lie. Simply put, a non-negligible part of who you are, and the shape of your responsibilities, is determined by things that happened before you werealive and things that will happen after you are dead.
I don't personally take credit for the American Revolution, and I don't feel personally bad about slavery or racism. At least half my family wasn't even here when most of it was going on anyway. I believe that in the same vein that I don't think all blacks are murderers and thieves, or pimps, despite their stereotypes and for that matter, the self created black culture that permeates the air in the United States.
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quote:I don't personally take credit for the American Revolution, and I don't feel personally bad about slavery or racism. At least half my family wasn't even here when most of it was going on anyway. I believe that in the same vein that I don't think all blacks are murderers and thieves, or pimps, despite their stereotypes and for that matter, the self created black culture that permeates the air in the United States.
It's not a matter of genetics, it's matter of cultural circumstance. Both your parents could have moved here in the late seventies, the day before your birthdate, but as much as you are a white American, there is a legacy, and attending vices and virtues, that have shaped your life and responsibilities. Even the your idea of radical individualism is a hold-over from English empiricism.
posted
Irami- I think most of what you quoted about Romney was actually favorable in my eyes (except for the whole death penalty bit). However, it seems like his style may be more suited to a vice-presidential position rather than in the public eye like the President needs to be. It's sad that the guy gets criticized for trying to solve problems with an analytical method. The tone of the piece seemed like it was trying to cater to someone with exactly your views though-that business is morally corrupt and any attempt to solve a problem with a similar methodology is somehow morally reprehensible..
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posted
Irami- I think guilt is the sticking word. I'm aware that I have been incredibly privileged in ways that are completely beyond my control. I try to pay society back for those privileges. I don't feel guilty about them, though. Because you're right, they are completely beyond my control, it wasn't my fault that I was born white, to an upper middle class family. There is nothing there I should feel guilty about. If I failed to acknowledge those privileges, if I failed to do what I could to help those who didn't have those privileges, then I should feel guilty. That is under my control.
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quote:Business is morally corrupt and any attempt to solve a problem with a similar methodology is somehow morally reprehensible.
I think that business leans towards moral corruption and most attempts to solve political problems with a business methodology are morally reprehensible.
I read an article about how companies and schools can raise productivity and test scores, respectively, by highering a bunch of ex-military. The problem, of course, is that a school isn't a basic training camp, and raising test scores is not tantamount to providing an education.
In a similar way, the ship of state is not a for-profit enterprise, and ought not to blithely adopt the priorites of one.
quote:It's not a matter of genetics, it's matter of cultural circumstance. Both your parents could have moved here in the late seventies, the day before your birthdate, but as much as you are a white American, there is a legacy, and attending vices and virtues, that have shaped your life and responsibilities. Even the your idea of radical indiviudualism is a hold-over from English empiricism.
I'm white, but not American. How long would I have to spend in America to be part of that legacy and start feeling guilty about slavery. Does it happen upon gaining citizenship, or should I slowly just start feeling more and more guilty about it?
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