This is topic My GOP endorsements in forum The Flameboard at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Quite possibly the most influence any of us will have over this election is to vote in the Republican primary. If your state has open primaries, I encourage you to vote in them, regardless of your actual party affiliation. These states have open primaries:
http://www.fairvote.org/congressional-primaries-open-closed-semi-closed-and-top-two

The primary calendar is here:
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-republican-primary-schedule/

My standard for endorsement is that, if a given candidate wins the primary, there is some chance I would vote for them against Pres. Obama in the general election. My list (subject to change as these candidates shoot themselves in the foot) is as follows:

1) John Huntsman. He has original ideas, including recently my own idea of using the tax system to make monopoly/too-big-to-fail status unprofitable. Unlike many candidates, he is not defined by hatred of the Obama administration, and he appears to be mostly sane!

2) Ron Paul. He's the single most consistent politician I've ever seen in my life. Some of his ideas are totally nuts from a functional perspective, but he is clearly unlikely to be swayed by political opposition.

3) Buddy Roemer. Also has some good ideas that go beyond the usual political talking points. And marginally less likely to be bought out, since he takes no donations over $100.

I encourage you to vote for one of these candidates, assuming any remain in the race by the time your state primary occurs.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Consistency is great, but "being consistently ludicrous" is still a bad quality to have in a leader.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Absolutely not. But they're all ludicrous about one thing or another. Preferable to be honest and consistent about it.
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I'm sorry, I just have to show you this fresh one, for analysis.

Challenge: spot the microscopic, itsy-bitsy non sequitur hidden somewhere in the dialogue of this announcement.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
That reminds me of the clip Jon Stewart showed the other day of Laura Ingraham saying that, because Rhode Island is having a "tree lighting ceremony" rather than a "Christmas tree lighting ceremony", the country no longer has freedom of religion.

It's not that often that it want to just kick somebody in the teeth, but...
 

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Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
^Doubly ironic considering "Christmas" trees have about as much to do with the birth of a certain Jewish carpenter (and part-time public speaker) as chocolate eggs and bunnies have to do with his death. Hurray for thinly disguised paganism! ;-)
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
They've disabled comments for the Perry-clip, which led me to discover the sophisticated flagging system available in youtube.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Go with Bcahman- I'd pay real money to see her try an debate Obama.
 

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Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
OK, this time I actually watched the whole video (last time I couldn't make it more that 10 secs in) and I have to ask, is this sort of thing typical of American political broadcasts?

I mean over here our party broadcasts are boring and they warn you they're about to start so you have time to change channels. If any party (except the BNP) came out with something like that blatant there'd be a *massive* backlash and Ofcom would be buried under a mountain of complaints.
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
We have ZERO political TV/radio adverts in Sweden, none at all. Our parties aren't face-based personality cults, they're the nerdy student council types that grow up and get shit done, even though we're still reeling from the right-wing wave that swooped in after 9/11.

When our parties do campaigns, they travel together and meet at the same spot in each town, with 6-10 cabins which you can enter and ask them questions about policy, gift bags contain a small flag, a pin or a cap, that's about it.

We have small PSA:s on public service channels for like a week each election year, with a female voice that may say "this year you will have a form which you tear at the right side, so remember not to tear at the left side. Enjoy voting! ^^."

If you think I'm bragging that's not the case, I'm thoroughly disillusioned with swedish politics since 2006, due to both sides of the spectra being very unpalatable to me for now, but I'm glad they don't drive around and collect campaign donations just to line their own frigging pockets and then strategically forfeit, they'd get dragged through the streets for that.
 

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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
 
I wish our campaigning was like the Swedes.

But from what I've seen in the past of US broadcasts, this Rick Perry fellow is just doing more of the same song and dance. All the candidates make two kinds of adverts: attack ads, and these ones where they are slowly strolling through a park and promising the world to the voters. They're usually something along the lines of "I promise to ___, unlike ___" so they're attack ads too.

However, this would be the first time I've seen something so blatantly religious.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
I try to ignore this crap. But I'd say that commercial isn't radically different from the usual fare. It's blatantly religious (and absurd) enough to be worthy of comment, especially since it's a last-ditch shot from a failing candidate. But it's not fundamentally new.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
C'mon guys- Rick's fun to watch!
This week he said we were at war in Iran (not Iraq) and said there are eight Supreme Court justices (there's nine) and got one of the nine's name wrong.
In the last debate, he said as soon as he was President, he'd eliminate three major departments- then forgot what the third one was...after making the Department of Education his first pick.


Add to than his prior threats to have Texas leave the United States and you get one damn entertaining nutball!

You cant write a sitcom as bizarre and unqualified as Rick Perry.
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
The Rick Perry show, with Bruce Boxleitner playing Rick Perry, to be aired on SyFy between wrestling and wrestling every Friday, 7:00 to 7:02 PM Eastern

Not sure if Bruce won or lost the fisting with Matt Frewer for the position....
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
Ron Paul is batcrap insane. Like a stopped clock, he's right twice a day, but it's more luck than skill.

Indeed, I'm still not sure this is a joke, since it sounds more logical and reasoned than he usually does:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/ron-paul-bad-lip-reading-video_n_1102995.html
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Yet...he's got more integrity than the other GOP runners combined.

But yeah. The liked video is a gag, but he's still nuts.
 

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Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
 
The Almighty Responds to Rick Perry...
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
I still don't understand how that Perry ad is being twisted into an anti-gay thing. He may himself be anti-gay, but he didn't say so . . . he did not explicitly make any anti-gay comment, he simply noted that in modern society it seems like being openly Christian is worse than (e.g. more disallowed and censured and censurable than) being openly gay.

Now, I'm neither Christian nor gay, nor am I a Perry supporter, but it seems to me that this is a valid observation in the modern culture war.

In the NFL, for instance, Tim Tebow gets media hatred for his faith, but if instead of praying on the field he stopped and french-kissed another player I rather doubt the media would be so against him. If anything, the media story would be about evil other people and wicked conservative sports fans being against him, whether there was a lot of backlash or not.

It would be best if neither faith nor preference were attacked. Even better still would be if honest and valid observations weren't attacked.
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
1. Christian doctrine has long been against homosexuality. The Bible refers to it as "an abomination." I'm sure there are many who consider themselves Christian and are not anti-gay, but there's probably a lot of doublethink involved there.

2. Notice the way the statement was deliberately phrased and delivered: "...you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military..." and then a pause, and then a "but" and further qualification. You don't think that was specifically intended to be inflammatory? You may argue that the "but" part is the real meat of his statement, but it's already colored by what he said first. The gays in the military thing is clearly designed as the "hook" of the ad, which is why that's the part to which everyone is paying most attention.
 

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Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
 
Put it this way, if Perry had said, "you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when blacks can run for public office, but whites can't blah blah blah..." You wouldn't consider Perry to be making an inflammatory, bigoted statement? He is clearly using gays in the military as an example of America's supposed moral decay, contrasting it with Christians supposed inability to express their faith in public. The use of contrasts is always a clever way of emphasizing the "otherness" of a particular group of people in society, exclaiming that if they are given equal status to the majority, they threaten the majority's dominance.
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim:
1. Christian doctrine has long been against homosexuality. The Bible refers to it as "an abomination." I'm sure there are many who consider themselves Christian and are not anti-gay, but there's probably a lot of doublethink involved there.

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quote:

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2. Notice the way the statement was deliberately phrased and delivered: "...you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military..." and then a pause, and then a "but" and further qualification. You don't think that was specifically intended to be inflammatory? You may argue that the "but" part is the real meat of his statement, but it's already colored by what he said first. The gays in the military thing is clearly designed as the "hook" of the ad, which is why that's the part to which everyone is paying most attention. [/QB]

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Originally posted by Mars Needs Women:
Put it this way, if Perry had said, "you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when blacks can run for public office, but whites can't blah blah blah..." You wouldn't consider Perry to be making an inflammatory, bigoted statement?

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"Governor Huntsman did not want to stand in the way of the candidate best prepared to beat Barack Obama and turn our economy around. That's Mitt Romney," the official said.

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With the Texas Primaries coming up in May, some of the Redditors that were involved in the boycott on GoDaddy.com and 'Operation Pull Ryan' (where Reddit raised money for Rep. Paul Ryan's opponent), have started TestPAC, a non-connected, registered PAC, with the goal of defeating Lamar Smith in the Republican Primaries.

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