My list keeps getting shorter. Brownback? Backstabber. Tancredo? Wamped out on the WOT. THAT is my personal litmus test. Amnesty and pro-life are second. Gun rights are right behind. But I also realize that I won't get all that I want. But if I get very little of what I want, I will have plenty of company - and the GOP needs to give those people a reason to stay home, not a reason to leave. It's kinda like having an abusive wife yelling at you, asking why you never are home.
But if Ron Paul won, I think I might have to leave the country. His idea of national defense is to hire pirates.
Hehehhe.
Presidents have less power to change the laws and affect public policy than we typically ascribe to them. But there's no doubt the President is the Commander-in-Chief.
Presidents have more power than we are used to - Bush, using a veto ONCE in six years, made us forget that he could be a stop sign to a lot of the nonsense we've seen.
The veto is very situation-driven. Gerald Ford used it 66 times in his abbreviated term, yet you'd be hard pressed to convince me that he affected policy as much as George Bush has.
I wish he had used it about 10 times so far, but up until now Congress was largely giving him what he wanted or could at least live with.