2012 Presidential Race

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Originally Posted by Alexamateo

Danicafan, I consider myself a conservative, but like Ronald Reagan said he never left the democratic party,the democratic party left him, I feel the same way about the republican party lately. Reagan is actually a good example. He would be considered a RINO today, what with granting amnesty to illegal aliens, cutting marginal tax rates,yes, but raising many others, no, and compromising and working with democrats to get deals done.

For me it started with the hard-line stance on immigration. I would listen to talk show hosts go on about immigration, and say to myself, "That's not right, that's not how it is." My wife is Mexican, and I know many immigrants, legal and illegal, and the characterization that conservative pundits make about illegal immigration is just flat out wrong. I also don't believe them anymore when they talk against deficits and fiscal conservancy. At one point, republicans controlled both houses and the presidency and deficits continued to get worse, so I take that rhetoric for what it is, "We want you to stop spending on your pet programs, so we can spend on ours." As an aside, I have actually come to the conclusion that deficits really don't matter (on the macro level), but I don't expect anyone to take my word for it. It's taken me two years of independent reading and thinking on economics to come to this point.

Like I stated earlier, the republican party seems tone-deaf right now, insulting people about not paying income taxes, when fully 1/2 or more are the very people most likely to vote republican (i.e. the elderly and white working class w/kids(remember included in the 47% were people who paid payroll taxes but got back 100% of their withholding.)) The problem with ideological purity is that your tent keeps getting smaller and smaller, and right now I am on the outside.

Oh, I'm not voting for Obama, but I am not voting for Romney either, of course where I live it doesn't matter. Obama will win my district(Memphis), and Romney will win Tennessee regardless of what I do. I hate to sound so cavalier about it, but I don't think it matters who wins. Forces outside of politics will eventually let us emerge from this lost decade, and things will be rosy for most once again. For me they already are. I'm a salesman and I had my best year ever last year, and this year is on pace to match or even exceed it. Hopefully everyone else can join in the boom times once again very soon.

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Excellent and very reasonable post! :up:

I've never been a Republican. And I've never been a Democrat either. The only party I've ever become involved with was Perot's United We Stand party in the early-mid 90's. The first Presidential candidate that I ever cast a vote for was Ronald Reagan. But that didn't convince me to become a Republican, although I used to be much farther to the right many years ago. I wasn't anything like one of these kooky, slobbering, paranoid wingnuts of 2012, but still a pretty hardcore fiscal conservative. I also doubt that Reagan could be called anything other than a RINO these days - the real Reagan, not the mythical, god-like creation, spun into a legend by the neocons and Evangelicals. Sadly, like you, I feel that even if I wanted to become a Republican now, I could not... I would not. My parents taught me to be careful of the company I kept. For me, there is simply too much hate, ignorance, arrogance, xenophobia and (pure!) paranoid schizophrenia in what has become the modern day GOP. It is no longer Reagan's "Big Tent Party". Now it's all about excluding people. Too much... "Is you with us or is you agin us? Cause if you ain't with us, then you is agin us! What is you, some kinda pinko commie Nazi socialist God hater???!!!" :ninja:


This fellow (Allen West), and many others like him, is someone who I not only disagree with (which is no crime), but he is the sort of wingnut type person who I just wouldn't care to associate with. Now, there are hateful people on the left who I wouldn't associate with either. But the right certainly seems to be so much prouder of showing off their rogues' gallery these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li1r5wrlBMY

It's funny how your perspective changes as you go through different stages of life. A bunch of little socialists have moved in with me in the past 8 years, I call them kids. :p

I find myself adopting positions that at one time I might have considered heretical. Take universal healthcare for example. I made the plunge to self-employment 3 years ago,and I have really prospered. I might have done it two or three years before that, but my concern was having to buy my own health insurance. I had to be sure I was going to make it. Now I wonder how many more people could prosper if they could leave jobs they are stuck in for something either on their own or elsewhere, but don't leave for fear of losing their benefits. I now think it would be better for the economy and society in general to grant it, to pull it completely out of the equation.

That said, I don't think Obamacare is the answer. Steve Cohen is representative of my district and I wrote to him asking how he could be in favor of a bill which it seems to me the insurance lobby wrote. It's like something a republican would come up with, which of course, it is, being modeled after Romney's Massachusetts plan. Isn't it ironic that something Romney could really point to and hang his hat on, he can't? He's painted himself into a ideological corner trying to appease the republican party Puritans. I could actually support Romney if he would only stand up and say what he really believes or at least what I think he believes, but he can't stray from whatever Republican party line the powers that be have decreed so who knows who he actually is.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Obama HAS TO GO. This guy is a Socialist/Communist, however you want to call it, pretty much the same thing... Government controls everything.

First off, the Government is for the people, here to protect its people, not run the people's everyday life.

Im not a big Romney fan either but he is definitely the better choice and my opinion, the only choice we have. We CANNOT afford 4 more years of Obama. My favorite candidate we had was Herman Cain, for those of you wondering.

But these recent attacks on US Embassies, lack of Israel support and Iran situation has really got me upset.

Mr. President....Attacking US Embassies is an act of war and you are doing nothing to defend them or America. He wont meet with the Israel Prime Minister but invites the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood leader over here ? Why, I have no understanding of that. He apologizes to Islamic countries about our beliefs in Islam but doesnt defend us when they attack our country's beliefs and way of life. Disgusting.


And in America, we all know his failures here..

Record National Debt over 16 trillion dollars. He has increased the National Debt more than all other presidents combined!
Unemployment higher than ever
Oil Prices high
Ruining the healthcare system
Lack of Military Support
Not defending our borders
Not enforcing illegal immigration but insteads caters to them, lets them stay here, work, get driver's licenses, etc...
Our Nation's credit rating has dropped to AA-

I could go on and on but I wont. America will fall if he stays in office another 4 years. I am a veteran and to see this country being destroyed by him is very upsetting and depressing.

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:rolleyes: :rotflmao:

Excellent post. :up:

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Are there only a bunch of liberals here ???? Where are the conservatives and Republicans at ?

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We are all hanging back and alternating between laughing at the shear ignorance and stupidity of the left and being scared that there are people who actually believe their crap.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

We are all hanging back and alternating between laughing [...] and being scared [...].

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you're not going soft on us now, are you tony? :laugh:

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

We are all hanging back and alternating between laughing at the shear (actually, it would seem that you meant to use "sheer" -- assuming you know the difference between "shear" and "sheer" to begin with, but then again if you had had a liberal education you would be given credit for making a "cutting" remark; but, I digress...) ignorance and stupidity of the left and being scared that there are people who actually believe their crap.

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Actually I find it hard not to laugh out loud at such statements. That is the best you can do?

Allen West is a great Congressman. He has very valid points. He is right when he said Obama surpassed Carter as the weakest President.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Allen West is a great Congressman. He has very valid points. He is right when he said Obama surpassed Carter as the weakest President.

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Allen West is, to be blunt, an idiot. The only valid point about Allen West is the point on top of the tin hat he wears when he makes up lies such as the one in the clip.

West was very lucky to be allowed to retire after the boneheaded stunt he pulled in Iraq. He was very fortunate that he only got an Article 15, which are not handed out lightly to field grade officers.

As far as weak presidents go, it will be a challenge to beat George W. Bush, who certainly is in a hard competition with Buchanan for the worst president. Gawd, even Nixon and Reagan -- the paranoid maniac and the delusional airhead -- were better than G.W. Bush, which is a difficult sentence to write given how corrupt and inept their administrations were.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Allen West is a great Congressman. He has very valid points. He is right when he said Obama surpassed Carter as the weakest President.

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I'm sure that you believe this quite sincerely, my friend.

And (IMO) it is because people with your rather warped views have seized control of the GOP that people like Mitt Romney (who I actually don't think is a bad guy overall) had to play the part of a neocon and rabid social conservative in order to secure this nomination. He is failing right now because he has probably lost his identity - I've heard that sometimes happens to even the greatest actors, once they play a certain role or part for too long. People like Allen West and Michele Bachmann (and Jim Traficant ;) ) have been able to find a way into the U.S. Congress only when they've found districts with enough moonbats living there who would elect them. Without fail, whenever they aspire to higher national office, they are promptly dumped on their rear ends... because the United States is not a radical republic. We have our faults, as all nations do. But we are not a people who pretend that hate is love, war is peace or that ignorance is intelligence. And though we have our faults, unlike the GOP/radical right, we don't celebrate our character flaws and pretend that they are attributes.

Allen West may retain his Congressional seat (all depends on how the voter suppression efforts and wingnut turn-out go in Florida). But he will never be a U.S. Senator. He will never be Speaker of the House. He will never be Vice President. And he will most certainly never be President of the United States. Believe as you will. But that is reality.

And lastly, unless intelligent, reasonable, rational people can regain a voice in the GOP, that party will continue to get smaller. There are only so many old, angry, bigoted people left in this country. Either the intelligent, reasonable, rational people, who remain in the GOP, will begin identifying as Democrats (not likely), they will continue to swell the ranks of Independents (more likely) or they will eventually form a third party, which is center-right and has the original ideals of the Republican party (I think either option 2 or 3 would be great for our nation). And maybe their party symbol will be the rhino ( :D )... just to p!ss off the wingnuts and moonbats who stole the GOP from them.