I don’t get the strategy of any of these candidates. Myth is just resting on his laurels playing to the RINO vote and the others except for Ricky and Myth’s jealous little RINO brother Huntsman (he’s so unctuous he makes Romney look charming) are mostly ignoring him and going after each other for the conservative vote.
I still put absolutely no stock in Cain or Bachmann or any other candidate playing patsy for Myth. I don’t buy into this grand conspiracy stuff. It is possible though they don’t want to piss him off so they will be considered for VP if he wins. Mitt himself pissed off McCain enough that ole John would’ve rather seen Mitt dead than as his running mate. If this becomes a two way race the other candidate will of course have to turn their fire on Myth.
As I said before I don’t like introducing a sales tax (ditching the payroll tax is very nice though). I also question Cain’s strategy of making his tax plan the be all end all of his campaign. I disagree with him that congress is likely to pass it. None of that leads me to prefer Rick over Cain though.
Newt (very mixed feeling on him), MB, and the other Rick had a good night. I like that Santorum seems pissed off at everyone just like me. We’ll see if there is any movement in the polls.
I don't really agree with the basic conclusion that Sarah Palin was our big chance for a conservative savior, but the analysis of the existing GOP field is spot on. We're right back where we started a few monthes ago before anyone knew whether Bachmann, Daniels, Perry, or Huckabee would run -- based on what we have in front of us, it's a matter of picking the "least mediocre" one.
Basically if Bachmann, Santorum, or Cain was elected President, I'd be fairly confident they'd make a good leader, govern with integrity, and make a real effort to reverse the damage Obama caused. That said, I think all three are long shots to win the nominaton and I don't think they'd be very strong general election candidates against the Obama machine. But the bottom line is I could happily vote for any one of those three. Cain's getting all the buzz, of course so was Bachmann prior to Perry jumping in and sucking all the air out of the room for weeks. I don't think this latest surge will last til January, though personally I would love it if Cain kicked Romney and Perry's butts in iowa. But if I had to bet, I'd guess Cain is old news by Thanksgiving and there's a new "rising star" getting all the buzz in a month.
Roemer. Perry, and Romney are in my next tier, don't care for any of them, think they'd be a lousy person to nominate. Roemer has less than a zero chance of winning so I don't concern myself with that. If it's either Perry or Romney I'd have to hold my nose to vote for them. And since I'm in Obama's "home" state, it really doesn't matter how I vote. I wouldn't be happy if any of them were the nominee and bottom line is I don't trust them to do the "right thing" if they became the next President.
Bottom of the barrel for me is Gingrinch, Paul, Johnson, and Huntsman. I'd get physically ill if they were "our" nominee. Newt's the best of the bottom tier, he'd an excellent speaker and a genuine policy genius, but the man is a scumbag and having met him in person I can verify he's a total a-hole to boot. Not to mention he has a record of selling his soul to leftists. If he was nominated, it would most likely gurantee another Obama term. Paul and Johnson are just plain flakey and support the far-left on some major policy isues. Ick. Huntsman is a total RINO, a non-entity, and has zero chance of beating Obama. But at least his daughters are hot.
Are they better than Obama? Yes, I can honestly say that even the last person on my bottom tier (non-entity Huntsman) wouldn't be as bad as Obama. But by the same token, I think this country would improve if Obama was replaced with a piece of plywood sitting in the oval office for the next four years. Being "less bad" than Obama doesn't say much.
2010 really opened my eyes. We had some great victories, but we also had some absolutely repugnant despised liberals win re-election in a "huge Republican year" (Harry Reid, Pat Quinn, Richard Blumenthal, etc.), simply because the well oiled RAT machine outmaneuvered the GOP on the ground, and in many cases we ran lousy candidates and assumed they'd win anyway because it was a Republican year. The RATs can elect completely worthless scum (Al Franken, Todd Stroger, etc.) who would be DOA if they were Republican candidates because the 30% of the country that votes GOP aren't zombie yes-men like the 30% of the country that votes RAT. This gives the RATs an advantage. RAT voters are just plain brain dead and vote for whoever they're told to. I'm afraid 2012 could turn out the same way.
We need a leader and I'm not seeing any on the horizon.