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Potential (Sane) Candidate(s) for GOP in 2012

EvilSmurf

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Ignoring the lunatics (Trump, Bachmann, Huckabee etc.) from the GOP Presidential race, is there any candidate who could win the Independents and maybe even people who slightly favour the Democratic Party?

I can only see one, Gary E. Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico. Unfortunately, he may have major problems winning over the evangelical wing of the GOP in the primaries.
 
Oddly enough, Ron Paul. Though is is fairly loony on some issues, he is closer to the middle than most GOP-ers. Huckabee, apart from his religious pandering, is not completely crazy either. He slapped Trump around for making a big deal of the Birther thing. But then, most mainstream Republicans wish Trump would shut up about that.
 
Unabogie said:
He's also for abolishing Medicare. So I'm not sure how he wins over independents or Democrats?
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Not abolishing. It seems he wants to turn it into a block grant program administered by the states. As I said, he's the only candidate I've seen so far who has even the potential to win over moderates and Blue Dog Dems.
 
Favors school vouchers. Wants government to run more like a business. Opposes tax increases.

Just that the lunatics on both sides hate you does not mean that you are sane.
 
EvilSmurf said:
Not abolishing. It seems he wants to turn it into a block grant program administered by the states.
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Last I saw, those block grants would lead to a voucher-type program that basicly mean death to anyone the state decides is not worth more than the cost of the voucher.

It will lead to the destruction of the program.
 
EvilSmurf said:
Not abolishing. It seems he wants to turn it into a block grant program administered by the states. As I said, he's the only candidate I've seen so far who has even the potential to win over moderates and Blue Dog Dems.
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It really is the same thing. If you take away guaranteed health coverage, which every American can count on and afford, and replace it with non-guaranteed block-grants (which can be eliminated, misused, or subject to novel and overly strict screening at the whim of governors like Scott Walker), you've replaced Medicare with something NOT Medicare. Just because you still want to call it "Medicare" doesn't mean you didn't abolish it.
 
Please, please let there be some sane GOP candidates...


I'll toss up the name "Colin Powell" to start discussion.
 
Johnson is divisive in a weird way. The right descibe him as a rancher from northern New Mexico that wats to legalize pot. The left say he is a millionaire developer from Albuquerque that wanted to scrap child labor laws. The truth is somewhere in-between but I think there is a little something there to kill him on either side.
Which may be a pity.
 
Zep said:
I'll toss up the name "Colin Powell" to start discussion.
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I don't think he'll ever have a political career after his testimony to the UN Security Council making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I don't think he'll ever have a political career after his testimony to the UN Security Council making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
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Not his finest moment, true, but is it the end of his political career? Powell did object and then bail on the Bush bandwagon as soon as he realised what they were really about. So I suspect he was a reluctant but patriotic team-player in all that, until he realised he was being played. Generals like Powell don't like being played...

Churchill came back from the political grave a few times after some towering blunders, so it's not like Powell would need to set a precedent.

Personally I think he would be a good GOP candidate. Not perfect, but educated and erudite, used to command, has mixed in the top echelon, is well-liked, conservative but pragmatic, and I understand he is mildly religious (which seems to be a mandatory GOP prereq).
 
Zep said:
Not his finest moment, true, but is it the end of his political career? Powell did object and then bail on the Bush bandwagon as soon as he realised what they were really about.
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Not really. There's plenty of evidence that Powell was complicit and knowingly lied to the U.N. I think he's got enough a sense of shame that he would just as soon stay out of the public eye and not have his U.N. testimony scrutinized on the national stage.

ETA: And he remained in office as Secretary of State for nearly 2 more years after the UN speech.
 
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