Posted on 10/03/2011 9:08:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The presidential primaries are starting to heat up, so let's take a look at the top three candidates -- Democrat incumbent Barack Obama, Republican Rick Perry and Republican Mitt Romney. Let's start with the incumbent.
Despite my right-wing roots, I must admit President Obama has not done a terrible job. He is certainly a step up from our last Republican president. One of the major criticisms during Obama's presidential campaign was that he lacked international experience. Ironically, this has been one of his strongest suits, and he has done much to patch up relations that were slaughtered by the Bush administration. While he certainly hasn't been perfect, the fact that most of the countries outside the U.S. like him isn't a bad thing.
However, I request someone get this man an economics textbook. Yes, I understand that he isn't to blame for the 2008 crash. I also realize that health care was a mess and far too expensive, but his solutions to both these problems violate the most basic economic principles.
The thing Rick Perry has going for him is he isn't Sarah Palin.
While he is my pick to win the Republican primaries, I don't think Rick Perry stands a chance against Obama. Those of you that follow elections may remember the tactic used by Obama's campaign that was a death blow to McCain's bid -- the death blow that didn't come from Alaska that is. Obama compared McCain to Bush Jr., and doing the same to Perry is just too easy. Their similarities are too obvious: both were Texas governors, both make fools of themselves in public speech and debate, and their intelligence leaves a bit to be desired. Additionally, Rick Perry is a career politician, and I think career politicians represent exactly what is wrong with our political system today.
Mitt Romney is in some ways Obama's antithesis. Romney is the economic wonder child. Just about everything he touched in the business world turned to gold. The 2002 Winter Olympics took a turn from disaster to one of the most successful winter Olympics, thanks to Romney, and this was no small feat.
While my economic side loves Romney, my political side loathes him. I must admit this is, in large part, because I find his bandwagon-following group of Mormon supporters to be obnoxious. I get it; I myself am LDS, and there is a certain level of inherent trust in someone's integrity when they share your religious beliefs. Just because he shares your religion, though, doesn't make him the best candidate. Like Perry, he has many of the marks of a career politician. As governor of Massachusetts, he was pro-abortion and passed health care reform similar to Obama's. I don't know which Mitt Romney is the real one -- Massachusetts Mitt or 2012 candidate Mitt. Either he was selling out then, or he is selling out now.
So this leaves two questions: Whom do I want to win? And whom do I think will win? Despite my gripes, Romney currently has my vote. I must admit my reasoning for this is largely selfish. Romney is the candidate most capable of getting the nation's economy back on track. As a student looking to enter the work force in the near future, the high unemployment numbers frighten me, particularly because the majority of unemployment comes from my age group. Economics is the most pressing need for our country currently, and Mitt is the man to fix that.
Unfortunately, I believe the presidential race is between Obama and Perry. Despite what many Utahns may think, Obama is a moderate Democrat and will probably control the majority of the swing votes. Perry tries to paint himself as moderate but isn't doing a very good job. I think it's only a matter of time before Americans realize Perry wasn't cut from presidential cloth. My prediction? Obama over Perry by a comfortable margin.
******
Mike Burnham is a junior majoring in economics and international relations. Comments can be sent to him at mike.burnham@gmail.com
Young skull half full of mush. Half full of crap.
His paper is long on feelings while being almost completely vacant of any facts.
Destined for obscurity. What a twit (the author).
****Despite my right-wing roots, I must admit President Obama has not done a terrible job.****
Someone overdosed on Round-Up.
He's a liar.
What a TROLL!
Looks like Utah State will admit any idiot with a fat bank account...like many others. This kid is a damn fool, and a poster child for raising the voting age to 30.
This punk is lying through his teeth. No one thinks this idiot has done a good job unless they are a Rat hack. Maybe if this Economics Major bothered to evaluate the numbers of his guy compared to Bush, he wouldn't sound like a dope.
Perhaps he will soon be blessed with a dose of inflamed and infected hemmeriods. Pray it be sooner than later.
A pox on his offspring as well.
Caddis the younger
Proven-Failed Governor Mitt Romney should be NOWHERE near government in the USA.
"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
Clearly, Mr. Burnham has neither right-wing roots, nor is he ready for prime time. To make the ignorant comments he does about Bush, ESPECIALLY with respect to international relations, demonstrates the depth of this young man's ignorance.
Perhaps another 4 years of school would be more beneficial to him.
Or, better yet, getting out in the real world and discovering what an idiot he is!!!
(I stopped reading after I got to the sentence pasted above.)
I went to a Republican function this weekend in VA. Most of the older people were enthused for Romney. They were wearing Romney stickers. Disturbing. I had my “Yes We Cain” sticker on.
“Yes, I understand that he isn’t to blame for the 2008 crash.”
The Democratic Congress gets the lion’s share of that carcass.
“I must admit President Obama has not done a terrible job.”
One can only wonder what qualifies as “terrible” with this intellectual. ...As an objective observer, like leftists always claim, I can’t recall ever seeing anything more terrible. Look out the window, and see the jobless, homeless and hopeless. It’s much worse than it was with Nixon, even worse than the wreck Carter brought us. Will “terrible” maybe be reached when things get as bad as they were during the worst of Franklin Roosevelt’s depression? It’s here.
He must count this among Obama’s many foreign policy triumphs.
What planet does this guy live on? He doesn't seem to realize that Obama is not taken seriously by anyone in the world. Germany, Russia, China, et al, take him as a joke. All of Obama’s foreign policy ‘pronouncements’ have been immediately bitch-slapped back to him by the international community.
This guy is a good example of judging Obama through love-goggles while dismissing the reality of the current state of the world.
I am for making it a requirement that one must own property to vote the way it was in the early republic. You should have "skin in the game" as they say, in order to play in the 'game'. We are very near the "tipping point" now where more people are on the dole than are actual tax paying property owners and it doesn't take a genius to know what will happen after that happens.
“Despite my right-wing roots,”
He might. Did you look at his name? and where he is from?
That suits me, as well...
Huh? What does his name or his Utah home have to do with anything?? There's no right-wing conservative there, based on his rant. If this twit thinks that his master Obama has improved foreign relations, he has much to learn.
After this there was no point in reading further.
If this clown has a right wing root, he must be taking it via rectum-injection.
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