ContraSuggest Critiques the 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

I’m sure that my loyal readers have been waiting with baited breath to read my take on the candidates.  With President Oblabla extremely vulnerable due to the abject failure of his ham-handed leftist policies, and the country lying in near economic ruin as a result, one would think that the nomination of a viable Republican candidate to defeat him would be nothing more than a formality.  Unfortunately things don’t always go as planned.  This group of contenders leaves a lot to be desired.  After closely watching about eight hours worth of candidate debates, I’m now prepared to offer my thoughts, having dedicated a paragraph or so to each candidate.  Read on True Believers, and let me know your thoughts!          

Texas Governor Rick Perry

How could this guy be the front-runner for anything?  I just don’t get it.  His policies as Texas governor have come under legitimate fire as often as they’ve been praised.  At some point we have to look at the way this guy presents himself, and how that affects his electability.  Just look at the way he stands up at the podium, like someone poured quick dry cement into his suit jacket.  Devoid of charisma, he’s also a woefully inarticulate, monotone spokesman for the conservative cause, often tripping over his words, sounding unmeasured, unpracticed, and clumsy.  After being attacked by his opponents in one of the Fox News debates for saying that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme, he was given no less than three opportunities to defend that statement.  Each time he failed to do so.  In the course of a 60 second rebuttal, an articulate candidate could have easily demonstrated why the Social Security system is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, and what we may do in order to fix it.  At least that statement was theoretically defendable; his other policies that were criticized were not and, quite frankly, his attempted defense of them didn’t inspire confidence.  One of the keys to winning this election will be garnering the votes of independents.  If Perry wins the nomination he will get sliced to pieces by the demagogue-in-Chief and his slanderous attack dogs in and out of the lib media, thus losing the independent vote and the election.  As abysmal as Obama’s policies have been, as deleterious to the state of the nation, the Republican nominee can’t expect to win the election by default.  He or she will aggressively have to take the fight to Obama; Perry’s bumbling efforts will amount to nothing more than the slap of a velvet glove.  If this cardboard cutout seizes the nomination, it’ll be “four more years” for our comrade president.                    

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Romney, more articulate than Perry (which doesn’t really say much), is a spirited fighter who would most certainly go after President Pinko with great vigor.  The only problem is that he’s a liberal closet queen.  I believe him only to a point, when he says he understands the free market; his policies as governor of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts say otherwise.  Let’s not forget that he is a relatively recent convert to conservative positions on several core social issues.  Sorry, but I just don’t trust him.  Although he may have the best chance of beating Oblabla in the general election, he still has to get past the current front-runner Perry to do it, which, God knows why, may be difficult.  Even if he can win, it may be bitter-sweet, for I suspect that underneath those custom tailored dark suits lies a pair of frilled pink panties, sporting a label that reads “Kiss me, I’m a Moderate” (aka, a libtard).        

Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman

I have been an admirer of Representative Bachman for many years.  She’s conservative through and through, well-versed on the issues, has fought in the trenches for years against the statist Matrix, has performed consistently well in the debates, and is absolutely adorable (no one in the press will point that last one out, so I will).  The well-versed Mrs. Bachman filled the vacuum created when Sara Palin went of the deep end a few years back, when her weirdness and lack of detailed knowledge of the issues precluded her from becoming a viable conservative Republican presidential candidate.  Unfortunately for Mrs. Bachman, and for good reason, the American voting public has very rarely entrusted the presidency to U.S. House members.  Due to the lack of requisite executive experience, and because being a House member is overall considered too small-time an affair compared to leading the free world, Mrs. Bachman’s chances of seizing the nomination are nil.  However, she has positioned herself well for a potential vice presidential nomination.  Even if that doesn’t come to pass, Bachman will attain future high office in her home state of Minnesota (the offices of either senator or governor) which will set her up for an even stronger presidential candidacy in the future.  Keep your eye on her; one way or the other, she’s a force to be reckoned with.   

Texas Representative Ron Paul

Where does one begin with this peculiar little man?  Alternatively brilliant and off-the-wall whacky (sometimes in the course of the same sentence), Rep. Paul is somewhat of an ideological enigma.  When critiquing the out-of-control Federal Reserve, the enactment of the latest federal economic “stimulus,” or the bane of America’s welfare state, one cannot help but cheer loudly for the good doctor.  More a libertarian than a conservative, however, he in turn advocates such lunacy as the legalization of prostitution, and hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.  His extreme isolationist foreign policy views are incomprehensible and dangerous.  He would counter, as would his legions of supporters (which include notable academics), that I’m simply wrong and insufficiently versed in the Constitution.  They say that the Founders, being opponents of foreign entanglements, would support Paul’s position.  Well I’m here to tell you that the Paulbots do not hold a monopoly on Constitutional interpretation and what the Founders intended.  When the likes of Washington and Jefferson wrote on the subject of “entangling alliances with none,” they did not intend that the U.S. become an isolationist nation, or never engage in foreign military operations, nor even a complete refusal to engage in alliances.  Paul and his supporters mistakenly think that enemy aircraft need to be flying sorties over Montana in order to justify U.S. military action.  Not so.    

Every time Paul gets into trouble over making some crazy statement, like when he said that the U.S. should just let the totalitarian cutthroat mullocracy in Iran build nuclear weapons, he always uses the Constitution as a shield to defend himself.  This is sort of like a criminal using an innocent bystander as a shield in a shootout with police.  Mind you, not only does he not support the potential use of preemptive military force to prevent the Iranians’ nuclear aspirations (which, if done without the consent of congress, would be a constitutionally dubious action); he doesn’t even support the use of diplomatic pressures or embargoes to deter them (there’s nothing in the constitution that prevents that).  Finally, Mr. Paul claims that the reason for the 9/11 attacks was that “we bombed Iraq for 10 years.”  Oh, the pain!  In the end Ron Paul is nothing more than a fringe candidate that has no chance of capturing the Republican nomination.

PS I like really like his son, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)                            

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich

Newt suffers from occasional lapses in tactical political judgment.  This has cost him dearly in the polls, a setback that he will not recover from.  This is colossally tragic because he is the most brilliant conservative to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan.  At any debate attended by the former Speaker, it is abundantly clear that he’s the smartest guy in the room.  Personally, I agree with Newt on 99% of his policy positions.  When speaking, he seems to be channeling from an encyclopedic data bank in his head; extemporaneous responses to questions are delivered in a folksy, relaxed, articulate manner as if they were scripted by a team of professional, conservative speechwriters and researchers.  His strategy of pitting himself and his fellow candidates against the press, instead of against one another, is well founded.  Unlike his fellow candidates, he has resisted temptations to attack the front-runners, instead delivering scathing critiques of the president and declaring that every Republican should support the eventual nominee, no matter who it may be, to ensure Oblabla’s defeat.  The greatest theatrical casualty of Newt’s failed candidacy is that we will never get to see him crush Barry O., mano-a-mano, in a debate.  Sad indeed; that beat-down would have really been something to see!                   

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum

I love Rick Santorum.  I love his honesty; I love his unflagging defense of social conservatism; I love his courage in bluntly stating who America’s enemies are; I love his Senate voting record (enough of it, anyhow); and I love his ability to articulately defend it all.  Rick Santorum doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.    

  

Former Utah Governor John Huntsman (former U.S. Ambassador to China)

I hate John Huntsman.  I hate his shameless pandering to the “middle” (read, “left”); I hate his wishy-washy internationalist view of America’s enemies; I hate his phony, tofu conservatism; and I hate the way he uses weasel words to defend it all.  John Huntsman doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.

Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain

I wanted to be able to support Herman Cain; really I did.  But I just can’t.  On too many occasions he has been short on specifics when it comes to answering questions regarding pivotal issues.  This man was a successful CEO of large corporations, after which he hosted a popular radio show.  I figured that these resume bullets would have given him the range to speak articulately on a number of issues, but they did not.  For example, it was revealed in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Mr. Cain was unacquainted with the so called “Arab Right of Return” (the Palestinian belief that they have a right to return and lay claim to lands that they “temporarily” abandoned in 1947 when an army of Arabs/Muslims unsuccessfully attacked the fledgling state of Israel with the goal of slaughtering all the Jews therein).  Now look, I don’t expect that everybody should be a history bookworm like me, but if you’re going to run for freaking president you damn well better educate yourself on issues as fundamental as the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Sorry Herman, but the nomination will not be yours.

Sad Conclusion:

Beam me up Scotty, and execute General Order 24!