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CT GAMER wrote:Seeing this headline was my favorite Santorum related moment:

I love this with all my heart and will miss it

CT GAMER wrote:

AustonT wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:So who will now pick up the mantle of "zaniest religious conservative"?

Brack Obama? I mean the door is wide open for the Obama Southern Strategy. No one will expect that kind of Change.

Doubtful since most southerners think he is Muslim.

I was being serious though.

With Santorum out someone will surely want to woo his supporters and will try to appeal to the Jesus votes to some degree.

Besides the preacher he listened to for years is crazy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2870154/posts

Frazzled wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

LordofHats wrote:I agree at this point. Romney is the best candidate to run against Obama. I think the Republican base will hate Obama more than they dislike Romney, and Romney is close enough to the center and likable enough to steal moderate votes. He's the best shot there is.

Frankly I don't think he's much differently politically. He's just a better manager. We need that. We've had a few decades of amateurs running things.

No he's not. Romney is a TERRIBLE manager. He's basically just Paul Sorvino from Goodfellas: he'll take over a company, sell its assets off in a fire sale, pocket the cash and leave the company hanging in the wind, often costing everyone their jobs in the process for his own personal gain. In fact, he even built and entire company to do just that on a large-scale basis.

That is the LAST person that you want running your country.


Also: Can you guys answer a question for me? Why is so much of the country opposed to universal health care? I honestly just don't understand that sentiment. I can't imagine it's all just propaganda and misinformation, nor can I internally understand why people would not want it.

Because our government is utterly incompetent. Have you not been paying attention?

Also because unfortunately the thought of helping so many people with darker skin is infuriating to a certain segment of our population for some reason...


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Frazzled wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:

AustonT wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:So who will now pick up the mantle of "zaniest religious conservative"?

Brack Obama? I mean the door is wide open for the Obama Southern Strategy. No one will expect that kind of Change.

Doubtful since most southerners think he is Muslim.

I was being serious though.

With Santorum out someone will surely want to woo his supporters and will try to appeal to the Jesus votes to some degree.

Besides the preacher he listened to for years is crazy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2870154/posts

the fact that the same people want to insist he is a muslim out one side of their mouth and also the follower of that guy out the other really points out all you need to know about many of his detractors.

They are so desperate to proclaim him some form of evil that thy can't even keep their own ranting straight.

Maybe an Obama-hate flow chart is in order...

Frazzled wrote:
Bush II couldn't manage his ass. He was a lightweight.

That's the point. Managerial experience doesn't make someone a good President because, ultimately, governments aren't companies. However, on the flip side, political experience doesn't make someone a good President either, because its a highly unique office.

Basically, everyone is winging it, and we largely select candidates based on ephemeral popularity. Hell, there's an argument to be made that direct, popular elections on the scale of the US Presidential election aren't in anyone's interest because we're effectively letting the people that generally know the least about policy have a direct say on who gets to make it.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Bush II couldn't manage his ass. He was a lightweight.

That's the point. Managerial experience doesn't make someone a good President because, ultimately, governments aren't companies. However, on the flip side, political experience doesn't make someone a good President either, because its a highly unique office.

Basically, everyone is winging it, and we largely select candidates based on ephemeral popularity. Hell, there's an argument to be made that direct, popular elections on the scale of the US Presidential election aren't in anyone's interest because we're effectively letting the people that generally know the least about policy have a direct say on who gets to make it.

Actually it supports my argument. To be a managerial president, you actually have to be able to manage.

Frazzled wrote:
Actually it supports my argument. To be a managerial president, you actually have to be able to manage.

That's wrong. When people discuss a President as being managerial they aren't talking about whether or not he's good at being managerial, they're talking about whether or not he is using a managerial approach to the office. Reagan was managerial and quite effective, in large part because he had a more sympathetic political climate than most modern Presidents have, and was a talented politician. Bush II was managerial and less effective, in large part because the climate was more hostile due the mistakes made by the people who he delegated tasks to, and because he was a mediocre politician.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Actually it supports my argument. To be a managerial president, you actually have to be able to manage.

That's wrong. When people discuss a President as being managerial they aren't talking about whether or not he's good at being managerial, they're talking about whether or not he is using a managerial approach to the office. Reagan was managerial and quite effective, in large part because he had a more sympathetic political climate than most modern Presidents have, and was a talented politician. Bush II was managerial and less effective, in large part because the climate was more hostile due the mistakes made by the people who he delegated tasks to, and because he was a mediocre politician.

Thats your definition. Mine is the ability to manage the institutions and organs of government effectively and efficiently. Hah! I deny your reality and substitute my own!

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Bush II couldn't manage his ass. He was a lightweight.

That's the point. Managerial experience doesn't make someone a good President because, ultimately, governments aren't companies. However, on the flip side, political experience doesn't make someone a good President either, because its a highly unique office.

Basically, everyone is winging it, and we largely select candidates based on ephemeral popularity. Hell, there's an argument to be made that direct, popular elections on the scale of the US Presidential election aren't in anyone's interest because we're effectively letting the people that generally know the least about policy have a direct say on who gets to make it.

Aye, that's the paradox of Democracy: everyone gets their say, but unfortunately everyone gets their say.

The only alternative is to put your faith in Caesar, and hope he's always in a good mood.

Or move to Canada. We've got lots of space available.

The only alternative is to put your faith in Caesar, and hope he's always in a good mood.

Klondike bars. They put everyone in a good mood

That or gladiator games. Those tend to work to.

azazel the cat wrote:
The only alternative is to put your faith in Caesar, and hope he's always in a good mood.

Well, we could always let the electors actually cast their votes.

Santorum timed his drop out rather well, just long enough to get all the exposure he can get, but not so long he starts to be seen as gumming up the works (like Huckabee in 2008). It's given him a nice boost in approval ratings.

Problem is there's probably nowhere for him to go from here, nowhere to use that boost. He's unlikely to pick up the VP nomination, as his problem - considerable dislike among the general population - is the same problem Romney is facing. You don't pick a veep that compounds your own issues. And in Pennsylvania the current mayor is Republican, and eligible for another term in 2014, so unless something weird happens it'll be a long time before Santorum gets a crack at that. In the senate he could have another crack, and hope his national exposure is enough to overcome the thumping Democrat Bob Casey gave him in 2006 - but that's really unlikely.

So that leaves building money, raising his profile, and having another crack at the presidency in 4 years. But the Republican field is going to be much stronger, when Rubio, Ryan, Jindal, Bush will all be more likely than not to run, as well as some others who have risen up from the 2010 crop of Republicans. And it's unlikely the electorate will be in as much of a mood for an extreme candidate as Santorum, as there will likely have been economic recovery, and it will be an open election - which tends to more moderate candidates.

So as surprisingly well as Santorum has down out of this primary, it looks like he's pretty boxed in for where he might go from here. Which is, of course, a good thing.

Seaward wrote:Hmm.

If Obama wins reelection, the Republican candidate in 2016 is going to make Santorum look moderate. There's been a lot of screaming among the GOP base for the past four years about how a "true conservative" would easily sweep all 50 states, and the reason that they keep losing the general is that they keep nominating these gosh-darn centrist RINOs.

The Democrats have people making the same noises. They never really amount to anything. Both parties drift about the place. The current Republican drift rightwards has been about their most extreme, but likely only reflects the combined impact of the Bush II presidency and the fringe beating out the moderates in the 2008 'we just got thrashed what do we do now' freakout - and they only won that because the Tea Party was exceptionally well organised by FOX/the Koch brothers.

As well as the losing party typically running a more extreme candidate against the incumbent, and a more moderate candidate in an open election.


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Frazzled wrote:Thats your definition. Mine is the ability to manage the institutions and organs of government effectively and efficiently. Hah! I deny your reality and substitute my own!

And the point is that no-one has managed anything like the US federal government before becoming president. There is nothing on that scale (people who actually manage multi-nationals that are still at least an order of magnitude smaller but as close as you're going to get do not run for office), nothing on that level of diversity (BP may be massive, but ultimately it explores & extracts - compared to federal government which has hundreds of services to deliver), and nothing on Earth quite like the US federal government (corporations are not much of a comparison, because you simply don't create strategy in a company at all like you create policy in a government).


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azazel the cat wrote:Aye, that's the paradox of Democracy: everyone gets their say, but unfortunately everyone gets their say.

True, but there are very different ways to give people a say. You can, for instance, let people choose their own local representative, and then let those people choose who will be running their government.

sebster wrote:
So as surprisingly well as Santorum has down out of this primary, it looks like he's pretty boxed in for where he might go from here. Which is, of course, a good thing.

He might have a shot at a House seat in 2014, but I'd have to look at a district map.

sebster wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:Aye, that's the paradox of Democracy: everyone gets their say, but unfortunately everyone gets their say.

True, but there are very different ways to give people a say. You can, for instance, let people choose their own local representative, and then let those people choose who will be running their government.

Yeah, that's how we do it up here. It makes things very, very easy, and is IMO the best system in the world.

Here is our voting process:

We stand in voting booths one at a time and are given a ballot with the names of our local representatives on it. These ballots will typically have between 2 and 5 names on it. Beside each name is a large circle. We then use a pen or pencil to put an X into the circle beside the name of the person we are voting for. Then we but our ballot into a sealed box. At the end of the night, the ballots are all counted by hand, and a winner is declared.

We find it hilarious that anyone could possibly screw this up.

dogma wrote:He might have a shot at a House seat in 2014, but I'd have to look at a district map.

Second in a Presidential primary to then step down to a House of Reps seat is a strange career trajectory.

sebster wrote:
Second in a Presidential primary to then step down to a House of Reps seat is a strange career trajectory.

Its Santorum, more than nearly any other politician I feel he's motivated by the belief that he's actually right.

azazel the cat wrote:Yeah, that's how we do it up here. It makes things very, very easy, and is IMO the best system in the world.

And here as well, having also been a British colony at one time Only difference is we rank our candidates, so if you want to vote for a minor candidate you still get to signal your preference between the most popular candidates.

sebster wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:Yeah, that's how we do it up here. It makes things very, very easy, and is IMO the best system in the world.

And here as well, having also been a British colony at one time Only difference is we rank our candidates, so if you want to vote for a minor candidate you still get to signal your preference between the most popular candidates.

Do y'all do that in the same style as New Zealand? Because I personally loathe that system. It's bulky and overly complicated, and almost never will put forward a reasonable option. It changes the dynamic entirely, all for the sake of every precious little snowflake getting to think their vote counts, even after their first choice is mathematically eliminated.

One brain, one vote, one selection.

Now he can hate people having rights away from TV cameras.

And so begins his lucrative speaking and lobbying tour, and at least some fundraising for the time being. Suspending rather than shutting down your campaign truly is the new black.

I'm surprised Gingrich has hung in so long; with him being so deep in debt. It must be pretty tough going out every night and claiming your the best person to run the country because you're such a kickass manager when you ran your own campaign nearly 5 million dollars in debt; but a sense of shame (or self-awareness) has never been a virtue Newt possessed.


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My coworker found this gem:

azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

LordofHats wrote:I agree at this point. Romney is the best candidate to run against Obama. I think the Republican base will hate Obama more than they dislike Romney, and Romney is close enough to the center and likable enough to steal moderate votes. He's the best shot there is.

Frankly I don't think he's much differently politically. He's just a better manager. We need that. We've had a few decades of amateurs running things.

No he's not. Romney is a TERRIBLE manager. He's basically just Paul Sorvino from Goodfellas: he'll take over a company, sell its assets off in a fire sale, pocket the cash and leave the company hanging in the wind, often costing everyone their jobs in the process for his own personal gain. In fact, he even built and entire company to do just that on a large-scale basis.

That is the LAST person that you want running your country.

That may be the last person you want running your country. But, you just described a GREAT manager, not a terrible one.

Capitalism works best when everyone is out for themselves to make the most money they can. The companies that Romney took over and pieced out were companies with bad business strategies that left them in a position where they were more valuable being sold for scrap than to keep doing what they were doing. They were better off being liquidated.

It sucks for the workers, but creating jobs isn't what capitalism is about. It's about creating wealth.

I think folks are mis-measuring Santorum. The question is not, or rather is not only, what will the man himself do now regarding an office. However wacky you or I might think his ideology is, it's quite likely that he's is entirely sincere. As such, Santorum's game was not necessarily "become vice president" or "launch back into Congress." No one expected he'd be the last man standing; more significantly, no one believed Santorum would leave Romney with such a deep red hand print stinging on his cheek.

Every time the Republican Party betrays a Bush, they lose the White House for eight years -- mark my words. The betrayal of GWB was particularly disastrous because it amounted to a repudiation of neo-conservatism. Political identity, no matter what the papers say, is not grown up over night. It took maybe thirty, maybe fifty years for the party to achieve its configuration in 2000 but only eight years to trash it: goodbye John McCain, hello Sarah Palin. Even worse, the sweep in 2010 seems to have been all sound and fury. Turns out that radicalized liberterian rhetoric is difficult to translate into governance, go figure. And conservative voters are not so on board as the rallies might suggest.

These developments are all extremely worrisome for a man like Rick Santorum. The party of patriotism devoting itself to tearing down the federal government? The party of propriety dismissing homosexual marriage as meaningless (if icky) as long as it generates no taxes? To Santorum, this sounds more like the death than the evolution of American conservatism. A huge number of Americans apparently agreed with him. If Santorum set out to prove that Tea Party "conservatism" does not speak for the Republican party then he was tremendously successful.

Im not sure about this, I heard it from me mum, But i hear the reason he "SAID" he dropped out was because of his handicapped little girl. Again. Second hand so i cant substantiate this.

That's what I read in the newspaper. She's got a rare genetic disorder and had been rushed to hospital. So he quit the next day, apparently. Which is fair enough. I don't like the guy at all but having to deal with a sick toddler is rough for anyone.

Ouze wrote:
My coworker found this gem:

Spoiler:

With all the crazy gak the Santorum has said they couldn't have used a direct quote?

I'm always sticking up for the Yanks over here, Europeans seem to slag you guys off far more than you deserve. My brother said "No way will Americans vote for a black bloke!" when I easily predicted months in advance (not rocket science if you live in America obviously) an Obama win, and the same goes for this guy.

Basically, 15-20% of your country make the rest look bad.

There is no way that that a homophobic Religious zealot of his stripe would ever get enough of the vote to seriously run against the Democratic nominee. He makes Bush look like an infidel!

The 1/5 of the US populous that think knowing the bible inside out is actually a better quality than being a good fething president don't get to pick who is in charge, that's called democracy, and that's why it works.

mattyrm wrote: I'm always sticking up for the Yanks over here, Europeans seem to slag you guys off far more than you deserve. My brother said "No way will Americans vote for a black bloke!" when I easily predicted months in advance (not rocket science if you live in America obviously) an Obama win, and the same goes for this guy.

Basically, 15-20% of your country make the rest look bad.

There is no way that that a homophobic Religious zealot of his stripe would ever get enough of the vote to seriously run against the Democratic nominee. He makes Bush look like an infidel!

The 1/5 of the US populous that think knowing the bible inside out is actually a better quality than being a good fething president don't get to pick who is in charge, that's called democracy, and that's why it works.

Jeez I agree with the haggis eater. Mamma mia!

LordofHats wrote:I agree at this point. Romney is the best candidate to run against Obama. I think the Republican base will hate Obama more than they dislike Romney, and Romney is close enough to the center and likable enough to steal moderate votes. He's the best shot there is.

I don't know about that. Romney can't woo the rightiest rights without alienating moderates. And vice versa. Remember that plenty of people hated Bush with a passion in 2004, but he still won the race because his opponent didn't give enough reason for people to vote for *him.* Hate isn't enough. Romney also has to reverse some negative trends among moderates and women. Do the Etch-A-Sketch thing and you probably play right into the hands of Obama's team, who I estimate have 7,258 ads calling Romney a flipflopper already produced.

I kinda look at Romney as a GOP version of John Kerry -- a New Englander who is somehow a lesser candidate than he really should be on paper, and someone who has the "flipflopper" albatross affixed permanently around his neck. Anything can certainly happen between now and November, although I'd suggest that a) it would probably take a catastrophe of some type to unseat Obama, and that b) Romney has a tough row to hoe.


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sebster wrote:Problem is there's probably nowhere for him to go from here, nowhere to use that boost. He's unlikely to pick up the VP nomination, as his problem - considerable dislike among the general population - is the same problem Romney is facing. You don't pick a veep that compounds your own issues. And in Pennsylvania the current mayor is Republican, and eligible for another term in 2014, so unless something weird happens it'll be a long time before Santorum gets a crack at that. In the senate he could have another crack, and hope his national exposure is enough to overcome the thumping Democrat Bob Casey gave him in 2006 - but that's really unlikely.

A couple points about Pennsylvania politics -- while basically every PA governor ever has been re-elected, Tom Corbett has people on both sides of the aisle throwing stones at him right now. He's *extremely* vulnerable. But obviously the identity of the Dem candidate is a major factor. Also, Santorum won't do much in PA ever again, IMO. He grew far too conservative for a "purple" state like PA, at least publicly.

I think you're selling Santorum a bit short, though. The guy can rally the traditional conservative base, and he's always going to have a role and a place because of that. That might mean more of kingmaker role within the party than holding public office again, but he's certainly in a much better spot now than he was a few years ago. Said it before here and I'll say it again...you can hate the guy for his politics, but you have to respect him as a campaigner. What he did during the primary season was pretty remarkable, and wasn't just due to a perfect storm of conditions like some suggest.

I don't see the main tension is between capturing hardliners versus moderates. The common denominator among Republican "moderates" is dislike of Barak Obama. The tension is therefore between the far-rightists who emphasize government control of social values (no homosexual marriage, no pornography, no abortion, etc) and the far-rightists who emphasize dismantling the government (no taxes, no health care, etc). The assumption, which Romney will be pushing very hard very soon, is that they neatly overlap. The primaries tend to undermine that account, however.

I don't know about that. Romney can't woo the rightiest rights without alienating moderates.

I thought this as well, but frankly while the rightest of the right will not like Romney, I think they don't like Obama more. They'll do what the rest of us do. Pick the lesser of two evils and to them, Romney I think is going to come out as the lesser evil.

Grakmar wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

LordofHats wrote:I agree at this point. Romney is the best candidate to run against Obama. I think the Republican base will hate Obama more than they dislike Romney, and Romney is close enough to the center and likable enough to steal moderate votes. He's the best shot there is.

Frankly I don't think he's much differently politically. He's just a better manager. We need that. We've had a few decades of amateurs running things.

No he's not. Romney is a TERRIBLE manager. He's basically just Paul Sorvino from Goodfellas: he'll take over a company, sell its assets off in a fire sale, pocket the cash and leave the company hanging in the wind, often costing everyone their jobs in the process for his own personal gain. In fact, he even built and entire company to do just that on a large-scale basis.

That is the LAST person that you want running your country.

That may be the last person you want running your country. But, you just described a GREAT manager, not a terrible one.

Capitalism works best when everyone is out for themselves to make the most money they can. The companies that Romney took over and pieced out were companies with bad business strategies that left them in a position where they were more valuable being sold for scrap than to keep doing what they were doing. They were better off being liquidated.

It sucks for the workers, but creating jobs isn't what capitalism is about. It's about creating wealth.

No wealth is created in doing so; it was simply reallocated. To himself. That's not a great manager.

A great manager will turn a malfunctioning business model into a working one, thus keeping the company afloat.
A terribly, self-interested manager will turn a malfunctioning business model into a failed business model and personally pocket its few remaining assets while the ship goes down.

Romney is the latter.

Also, this weird notion of "creating" wealth is a falsehood. Economic wealth is not created, because economics is a zero-sum game. It can only be re-allocated. But it has to come from somewhere.