Making Common Sense out of the Republican Candidates

Posted by: on Jan 25, 2012 | One Comment

My mother has been bugging me to write another blog for weeks (she didn’t like the potty humor of my last post), which makes me realize I haven’t written anything in weeks, which makes me realize I have broken one of my 2011 resolutions which was to write more, which makes me realize I shouldn’t make resolutions, so I didn’t make any this year. Never make resolutions you can’t keep, unless you are a politician and have never kept any to begin with, which brings me to today’s blog post.

As much as I have been trying to avoid the whole “it’s a presidential election year” thing, I find myself in utter shock over what’s left to choose from in the republican party. Actually, I was in utter shock months ago when I first surveyed the entire field that was running.

But first, the official IraSez political disclaimer. I’m not a republican. Also, I’m not a democrat. I’m an independent free to pick and choose who I want to vote for and what issues are most important to me at any given time. I have voted for democrats, republicans, 3rd party candidate and I have been known to not vote for anyone, even when I’ve gone into the voting booth to vote. If the candidates all suck, why settle.

Most folks I know who claim to be republicans are actually social liberals voting strictly with their bank accounts in mind and claim to be “fiscal conservatives.” I don’t know why but I never got that.  The last republican who was president (and claimed to be a fiscal conservative) was also the first war time president to cut taxes. Pardon me but if you are going to spend billions of dollars starting 2 wars and fighting 2 wars don’t you need some way to pay for those 2 wars? Isn’t that the fiscally conservative thing to do? Common sense says you don’t have to cut taxes to be a fiscal conservative. How about being fiscally responsible? Why don’t republicans talk about that?

And most democrats I know have a tendency to take their liberal attitudes way too far left without realizing the fiscal consequences associated with all of the stuff they want to take care of. You want to save the world, you better have some way to pay for it without sinking our country deeper into debt than we already are. You need to pick and choose your battles because reality and common sense says we Americans don’t want to pay for every cause that’s out there.

When it come to politics, I like being in the middle, taking the common sense approach.  In my opinion, there is no common sense in politics today…zip…nada….none. Which is why nothing seems to get done.

Now back to the candidates.  Let’s start with my idiot candidate du jour, Rick Santorum. When asked (and I’m paraphrasing a bit here) if his daughter were raped and was impregnated, how would he feel? His response was that this little bundle of criminal rage was a gift from god. I really don’t know how to respond to that as I’m trying to figure out where the fuck (sorry mom) this guy came from? I’m going to do my best to completely ignore Rick Santorum and if you are republican and want to win back the White House this year, I suggest you do the same.

Than there’s Newt Gingrich. Statesman, lover, hypocrite. I have nothing against the occasional flip-flop on issues. You live, you learn, you change your mind but I really think it’s time for Newt to come clean and apologize to the American public for wasting our time and money when he was the leader of congress. You can’t prosecute one guy for sexual misconduct when you are cheating on wife #2 with soon to be wife #3. You want to cheat, whatever, just don’t take the holier than thou attitude and expect to be the leader of the free world. It doesn’t work that way…or so I hope.

That bring us to Mitt Romney who is running on his business experience. Hasn’t built anything, run a business that’s built anything, paid taxes on business that’s built anything. He has invested in some of those businesses, fired many people from some of those businesses, shipped jobs overseas from some of those businesses, and closed some of those businesses….and yes he has even saved some of those businesses. Remember those guys who nearly ruined the economy a few years back. They were investment bankers just like Mitt and the government bailed them out with some help from some high priced lobbyists. But my favorite part about Mitt is his company probably pays their lobbyists more than they pay in federal taxes (if they pay any at all) and he doesn’t make any “income” because he makes his money off “investments” which is taxed as capital gains, not income.  Why pay 35% when you can 15? Perfectly legal and now you know why Mitt and his buddies pay all that money for lobbyists (connect the dots and you’ll understand).

Which brings me to my favorite republican candidate, Ron Paul. Now I think Ron is as crazy as loon but he’s not a hypocrite, he’s never wavered from his message and I think he’s the most principled candidate out there, even if I don’t agree with his principles. He’s completely against the 2 wars we’ve been fighting for 10+ years but I have no doubt he’d serve in those wars if he were called to duty. I’m a big believer that the 2 party system is broken and we need a viable 3rd party in this country, maybe even a 4th and 5th viable party. A little chaos would be better than the stagnation we have now and a hell of lot more fun. Maybe Ron Paul and his merry band of libertarians is just what our country needs. I certainly don’t agree with all of personal liberties they think should be allowed and the lack of a government oversight they support, but their message is consistent.  I just don’t think you can run America with their stand on the issues and their disavowal of our government.

So there you have it. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s politics as usual. Just think, if Obama wins and serves another full term, in 4 years both parties will be going through this turmoil and I can write 2 columns – one about the democrats and one about the republicans. I just hope it doesn’t take me that long to write another blog post.