This is why I don’t want to hear you belly-aching about Obama and telling us all about how you can’t vote for him because he didn’t do some thing you for some quite possibly invalid reason you thought he would do despite having only two years without a Republican congress and almost no time without a Fillibuster.
Any single one of these stooges running for the republicans, including and maybe especially, New Gingrich, could be the next president of the United States if a) enough liberal stay home and b) enough liberals and progressives vote for a third party or do some other stupid thing, ensuring that Obama is not re-elected.
Gingrich has stated that he would use the Federal Marshall Service to arrest judges who make decisions that he does not agree with. Consider the following interview:
SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing… how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?
GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.
So, get all passive aggressive at Obama, maybe you get Gingrich.
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My inner cynic would like to note that I live in New York; if Obama can’t get elected in New York without my vote, then he’s probably screwed elsewhere in the country.
On a more serious note, I do use things like polls and forecasts to judge if it’s ‘safe’ to vote third party. Since we don’t have preferential voting, it’s my way to compromise between the perfect/great and the good — let third parties get more votes so that we don’t get a choice between Truly Terrible and Meh*, but also get some pressure from the left to move things to either many more choices or a choice between two candidates I can live with.
* I’m sufficiently left-wing that most electable Democrats are meh for me.
Can those of us upset about his active efforts against civil rights continue to point out that he’s an asshole?
Becca, it sounds like you vote strategically and thoughtfully, good for you.
I would like to note that I’m from New York too, the only state that has a long history of electing Out of State Liberals to represent us! (Kennedy, Clinton) and the provider of some of the best presidential candidates and actual presidents!
But, I also need to note that I now live in Minnesota and the first election that I experienced here involved a lot of people not voting strategically the day a hundred thousand or so men in their 20s who never voted before or since showed up and put a Championship Wrestler in the State House. Jesse wasn’t a total disaster, but some of his policies have actually set our state back decades.
I won’t be voting for the president, not because I’m dissatisfied with his politics, but because, as far as I can tell, he’s repeatedly broken the law or taken morally repellent positions. It also seems to me that people with those objections represent a far more substantial portion of the liberal opposition to the President than the whiners about politics.
My point is, it’s disingenuous of you to engage with opposition to the President on those terms. You want to vote for President Obama because Newt scares you and Romney cracks you up, I can understand that. You don’t need to reduce my opposition to the President’s illegal and immoral actions to “whining”.
You can and should point out that he’s an asshole, but try to keep things in persepective. He’s not Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich, or Cain.
No, you are whining, unless…
… you can demonstrate real activism in the political system at a level and in a way which contributes substantially and realistically to improving the things you are complaining about.
Minimally this means voting strategically in primaries, but that is not really enough. You also have to vote thoughtfully and strategically for candidates at all levels, because they grow up and run for higher office. If you don’t like the system, i.e., want more parties or want runoff voting, you have to actually do things which involve hours of your time over the course of a year and some of your money, to work towards those things.
And so on.
Perhaps you are doing all that, and if so, good for you. If not, you are whining.
So, which is it? And are you really going to vote for Gingrich if he is the alternative to this president you seem to disdain?
Driveby, just out of curiosity, how old were you during the Contract on America? Perhaps to young to know that it was Gingrich that started the “Republican Revolution” and did the same thing to progressive values under Clinton that Boner and others have done under Obama. The present day nature of the Republican Party compared, say, to the Rocketfeller days, was shaped by a series of events and one of THE key events is Gingrich in the 80s. He is the enemy of all that is progressive and he is much much worse than Bachmann for the simple reason that if Bachmann was actually elected her head would explode and the vice president would be the president.
Gingrich scares me, he’s starting to sound like he is running for a dictatorship…
I may not want to vote FOR Mr. Obama but, a there is a whole flock of Republicans to vote against. Since “none-of-the-above” is unavailable I will use what I can get.
How many times have we heard this conversation now?
“Not voting, or voting for a third party, would allow a Republican to take the Whitehouse, causing irreparable harm to the country and even the entire world!”
“But Obama blah-blah-blah, I can’t in good conscience vote for him.”
“But what about the far worse consequences of letting the wingnut candidate run things for four years? The consequences are almost too horrible to contemplate!”
“But Obama blah-blah-blah, I can’t in good conscience vote for him.”
“Are you really willing to let your principles destroy the country?”
“But Obama blah-blah-blah, I can’t in good conscience vote for him.”
“Do you actually have a coherent argument to make?”
“But Obama blah-blah-blah, I can’t in good conscience vote for him.”
“Are you even listening to a word I say?”
“But Obama blah-blah-blah, I can’t in good conscience vote for him.”
“Fuck it, but you’re a moron.”
I would rather a president harass the judiciary than order the extra-judicial execution of US Citizens. (In the abstract; I’m aware these are not mutually exclusive positions and Gingrich has thrown his full support behind Barack on this issue)
Sorry, I will not vote for someone who believes they have the sole discretion to extinguish the lives of whomever they decree to be a terrorist. That’s kind of a big deal to me, because it’s not the start of a slippery slope, it’s the bottom of the goddamn hill.
I shall, therefore, likely vote for whatever available candidate best represents my support of civil liberties and basic human rights, regardless of whether that might harm the re-election chances of the better of whatever two murderous tyrants proffered by the oligarchic parties.
Eric, which of the current republican candidates agrees with you on this? None.
Do you know how elections work? Apparently not!
If we have a Gingrich in the white house after the next election, exactly how are you and others like you going to live with yourselves if you put him there?
Sorry, but you seem to be the kind of guy to at least pretend to like the truth even if it hurts. So you won’t mind me telling you that you are being very, very stupid.
With all due respect, of course.
Sorry, Eric, but when all the candidates agree on a position, you can’t really use that to decide which of them you’ll vote for (thus, I have a hard time figuring out how Republican voters will decide the coming primary, but that’s an aside). If President Obama does something you don’t like, and the other candidates all agree, then that’s not a good voting point. I disagree with him on many points! But I disagree with far more of the points from the current GOP candidates, so I’d far prefer a second Obama term over any of the current GOP group stepping into the role.
Visions of Cromwell and the Rump Parliament come to mind. Would King Newt do the same to congress critters and state officials as well?
Is this Mark Twain? “Be sure to carefully examine the new rascals before you turn out the current rascals.”
How is it that candidate who make promises of taking completely illegal and treasonous actions are not legally disqualified from holding any office whatsoever? How is it that they are not investigated by appropriate federal agencies?
There was a time when wearing a shirt with an “inappropriate” phrase on it could get minors the attention of the FBI.
Because he’s a Republican. They are the “Law and Order” party so they are therefore Teflon.
@15, was it Will Rogers? The people I could think of who would say something like that would be Twain, Rogers or Churchill, but Churchill would use more syllables.
Here’s the thing: How did we get to this place, where these are the choices? Isn’t it from a generation of Democrats saying “we gotta vote for him, the other guy is so much worse,” while Republicans were saying “no way, we’re holding firm, this guy is too liberal for us”? And every other election those Republicans would lose, but every other election they would win. And the overall discussion kept shifting rightward.
If you’re a liberal and you’re withholding your vote for Obama as a protest, at least in a swing state, you are an idiot and need to take remedial math classes. Becca’s right — in some states, you can safely do the Nader shuffle, but that only applies where you know the numbers for the mainstream party candidate closest to your position are safe. (I have even greater contempt for anarchists who say you shouldn’t vote at all. The only statement not voting makes is that you don’t have any interest in your voice being heard, which is probably not the message they want to send, but that’s where it stands.)
Political absolutism is idiotic, especially on the left, where we have to fight tooth and nail to get anything. Obama’s record hasn’t been the most stellar, but compared to the crop of idiots, whores, and Romneys on the Republican side, he’s the only one who even comes close to representing the interests of the left. If you want a third party vote to make a difference, look to local politics and Congress. Ralph Nader could have made a real difference as a senator or rep from Connecticut or wherever, but frittered away more than two decades as the Presidential candidate from the Don Quixote party instead. That’s a mentality we need to avoid.
I’m not going to vote for Obama unless he prosecutes those who ordered torture. Period.
@Greg
So, in order to justify holding the President accountable for his violations of and disrespect for the rule of law by not voting for him, I have to demonstrate all those things you mentioned, otherwise, I’m just a whiner for wanting the President to obey the law?
@Stuartvo
As I said to Greg, I understand the point that the republicans are generally terrifying, but your dialogue is a pretty grotesque caricature of the arguments of someone like EricLindros or myself. President Obama has claimed that individuals tortured by the United States have no right to a day in court, that he has the right to execute American citizens absent any due process, that the government has the right to eavesdrop on any communications they wish, that Bush war criminals should not be held accountable despite America’s legal obligation to do just that, and that anyone who demonstrates these things to be true (or anyone who commits these acts without being President) is a terrorist. I’m not asking you to agree with me, but can you understand why, given all that, I feel it’s important to exercise one of the few forms of accountability immediately available to me as a citizen, i.e., the power to vote for someone else?
@ Greg Laden
Yes, mine was a question better asked loudly and repeatedly in the public square, and directly of high-ranking scarycons, rather than here. That the Democrats nor media ask it much, if at all, is a major part of the problem. And one more reason we have people who say they aren’t going to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Wonderful.
So your choosing to sit on your hands (for your steadfast single-issue principle) ends up giving the presidency to Newt and he of course refuses to prosecute “those who ordered torture”; he also starts arresting US judges (the same judges who are your only line of defense against being tortured yourself, should you happen to attract the negative attention of a Newt-type government). Then you’ll definitely be a hero to the people! How could you not be acclaimed a hero for sitting it out for “what’s right” no matter how many actual people get harmed by your stance?
Yes, yes, the only thing that’s important is that benjdm got to show off his principle objection to the one (possibly) sane presidential candidate and got away with ignoring the known insanity and predetermined immorality of whoever else would win – Newt, Mitt … Yes, the important thing is that benjdm can tell his fellow humans “I sat for what was right, don’t blame me now that Newt is torturing you to death”.
What a wonderful man benjdm is! What a hero!
I’ll vote for someone, but it will be someone who doesn’t deserve to share a jail cell with G.W. It will be Al Franken or Bernie Sanders or some other write-in candidate.
@hotshoe:
Your heroic vote for Obama won’t stop a President from jailing and/or torturing those who oppose him. The President has already established Bagram prison as beyond the reach of law and is about to sign the NDAA giving him the ability to indefinitely detain anyone at all. (All he has to do is label them a terrorist and invoke National Security about the evidence.)
benjdm:
No, it won’t stop him. However, it will help to keep worse people from getting in office. You know what might help? Campaigning for congressional candidates who are willing to try to change the current course. The President is only part of the equation. Don’t be an idiot.
I disagree with you; I’ve posted a full response at my blog (http://bit.ly/uP6quc) but my argument boils down to this. The only things Obama has actually been able to accomplish in office have been those things Gingrich would also accomplish in office (indefinite detention, US Citizen assassination programs). His first two years additionally demonstrate that the Democratic Party can’t actually accomplish any kind of meaningful progressive action even when they aren’t obstructed by Republican majorities. Voting for either party is, therefore, a vote for the status quo, and as an American, I have the option to vote for something different if I so choose.
To those voting for some third party candidate against Obama because of his awful record on quite a number of things …
… show me a viable alternative. Please. Show me someone who’s polling competitively — even a moderate long-shot that a groundswell of support could sweep in. Do that, and I’m there. Show me I’m not throwing my vote away on a noble statement that means a far worse candidate getting in.
Given a choice between Obama and Gingrich, or Obama and Romney, or Obama and god-help-me-any-of-the-others … I’ve gotta vote for Obama as the least of evils. Not that I’m happy with his whole national security apparatus by any means — but I’m *much less* happy with any of the GOP alternatives.
———-
That said, Greg, I have to note one minor clarifying factor in Newt’s defense here. He did *not* say he would arrest “activist” judges for their activism. He said he would arrest them if need be to compel their appearance before congressional star chambers called to question their decisions.
It’s still an odious, stupid, autocratic suggestion, but the headline’s way of framing it is just the sort of inaccuracy that folks like Newt love in order discredit anything else that’s said on the subject.
Dave:
Lily Ledbetter act
DADT repeal
a start on health care reform
FDA regulation of tobacco
A stimulus that wasn’t big enough but was still better than nothing
Revoked ban on federal funding of stem cell research
Revoked abortion gag order
I’m not going to defend Obama’s record on torture and indefinite detention; he’s clearly wrong on that. But at the same time, you can’t look at all of the above and say there was no meaningful work on a progressive agenda, and if you do, you’re a goddamned liar. If you vote against Obama and Obama loses your state and thereby the election, you and everyone else who did the same is personally responsible for losing all of the above when (not if) the GOP decides to start chipping away at them.
If you are really so stupid to think that giving up all that — some of which, like health care reform, is still as yet unfinished business — is worth getting rid of Obama because of his more backhanded actions, you are beneath contempt and deserve everything you get. The problem is that the rest of us don’t and will be stuck with the results your spite vote.
Dave, don’t make me list the hundreds of things Obama has accomplished!!!! I will you know!
Thanks for the link, I will go look at your blog post as soon as I get a chance to.
@BrianX:
No need for namecalling, but let’s examine each of those a bit, shall we?
Lily Ledbetter act:
Signed a week after Obama took office, with no involvement from Obama (other than cheerleading it) up to the moment he signed it. McCain would have vetoed it, certainly, and it is undeniable that starting the 180-day statute of limitations for an equal-pay lawsuit at the most recent paycheck is very important, as it allows women the ability to more easily bring a lawsuit against an employer.
DADT repeal:
Are you kidding me? This was certainly a deliciously symbolic victory for Democrats, but ENDA (which affects a far, FAR greater number of people) has gone exactly nowhere. And why is that? Because most people wanted DADT ended, so it was popular, so it required very little willpower to push it through. Sorry, I don’t buy it.
a start on health care reform:
That enriches insurance companies, giving them virtually unlimited power to set prices (while forcing Americans to buy insurance at uncontrolled prices). Color me unimpressed. And yes, it’s unfinished business, but let’s face it – it’s going to stay unfinished for a very long time unless we get some actual progressives championing real expansion; otherwise it’s going to stay stuck in the doldrums as it currently is.
FDA regulation of tobacco:
O… kay. Sure. The FDA then also proceeded to put a massive amount of additional control on smokeless tobacco, making it harder and more to acquire, pushing a good number of people back to the real thing. I count this one as a neutral.
A stimulus that wasn’t big enough but was still better than nothing:
Granted. Abso-fucking-lutely granted. But let me tell you – if my leg is broken, and you come to me and tell me that you’re only going to partially fix it but leave it substantially broken, and that you can’t be fucked off enough to fight to make it actually work, I’m going to be more than a little upset. The stimulus had a much smaller impact than you want to believe. No dice here.
Revoked ban on federal funding of stem cell research:
You’ll get no argument from me on this one. This was an unquestionably good thing that Obama did. It is, to me, still not worth the continued erosion of our civil liberties.
Revoked abortion gag order:
Another unquestionably good act. Still not worth the downside of his presidency.
And really, I gotta say that this wasn’t necessary:
I’m not a stupid man. I have carefully considered my opinion on this. The person I have decided to eventually vote for is not perfect by any means, but his benefits, to me, outweigh his drawbacks. And as for you being stuck with the results of my spite vote? Please. I prefer to think that I’m stuck with the results of your utter lack of vision. That sentiment cuts both ways.
@Greg: I appreciate it! I’ve seen the list from multiple people and read it, and furthermore I have been watching his presidency with keen interest since the inauguration… so I do realize that I am engaging in a little bit of hyperbole when I say he’s accomplished *nothing* in that time. But as I pointed out to BrianX, it is my opinion that any good Obama has accomplished does not outweigh the damage he has done, primarily to our civil liberties but also to our lives and national security. If someone told me that I had to make a single choice specifically between Obama and Gingrich and I had no other options, of course I would choose Obama. But that’s not the situation here. Both are equally contemptible in my view, and if I have another option, I will avail myself of it.
Besides, the question’s mostly moot for me, since I live in Georgia, and everyone already knows which way we’re going 😐
Well, Dave, at least I know I have no reason to apologize. You’re being a typical more-liberal-than-thou People’s Front of Judea jackass. I wish we didn’t need people like you, because you’re more trouble than you’re worth.
Maybe you aren’t stupid; I don’t know. Ray Kurzweil isn’t stupid, but he believes and promotes some tremendously stupid thing because he doesn’t have the humility to realize he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But the simple fact is that voting in this country requires a lot of compromise to get any part of what you want. People with your mentality voted for Ralph Nader and we got George W. Bush, and yet you still can’t see what’s wrong with that. Grow up and realize that in the race to get something, “all or nothing” gets you nothing.
@BrianX:
Who said anything about all or nothing? I’m the one phrasing everything in relative terms, saying I’d prefer a candidate whose positives outweigh his negatives. In fact, at the bottom of my previous response to you, I said:
So yes, I do in fact understand compromise. You don’t seem to understand that we merely disagree on what the end result of that compromise should be. Also, it’s not Nader’s fault we got Bush in 2000. It’s the fault of our rather ridiculous Electoral College system that has far outlived its original usefulness, as well as a bad Supreme Court decision and a ballot designer who apparently knew nothing about human factors concepts. Blaming an individual cog for the failure of a broken machine is an exercise in futility, my friend.
Good point re: Kurzweil, btw – I really think he’s a lot smarter than the pabulum he publishes.
Dave, talk to me again when you understand math.
Florida in 2000:
2,912,790 votes cast for Bush
2,912,253 votes cast for Gore
Margin: 537 votes
97,488 votes cast for Nader
17,484 votes cast for Buchanan statewide
3,407 votes cast for Buchanan in Palm Beach County (19.4% of statewide total)
Buchanan’s field director:
“I think 1,000 would be generous. Do I believe that these people inadvertently cast their votes for Pat Buchanan? Yes, I do. We have to believe that based on the vote totals elsewhere.”
2,407 votes cast for Buchanan that most likely should have gone to Gore, based on a statement from Buchanan’s campaign
2,407 is greater than 537. 97,488 is also greater than 537. Had the people who voted for Nader voted for Gore, Gore would have won, but had the people who intended to vote for Gore had their votes counted for Gore, Gore also would have won. My point is that the failure was not the presence of the third option but the following three things:
The faulty Palm Beach County ballot design that in all likelihood threw thousands of votes to Buchanan that should have gone to Gore
A Supreme Court decision that prematurely ended a recount that could have more accurately determined the will of the voters
The Electoral College system that disregards the popular vote in favor of an outdated system that no longer represents the needs of our modern integrated nation
Depriving people of their right to vote for a candidate who better represents their views would not have fixed these structural problems in the electoral apparatus, but fixing these structural problems would have given the exact result you’re looking for (as well as the result that best represents the interests of the people). You’re looking for a band-aid to fix a broken leg.
… a system which hasn’t changed since the 2000 election and therefore is still in play for the 2012 election. If enough people like you either refrain from voting altogether or throw away their vote on some symbolic candidate – who cannot win – syphoning off (partially sane and moral) Dem electoral college votes from your state has the net effect of giving the (insane and totally uncontrollable) ReThug candidate enough states to win.
Since that’s what you’ve stated you’re going to do, we know at least one person to blame when Newt starts arresting US judges: you.
You don’t have a real choice between Obama, some ReThug, and some other as-yet-to-be-named better contestant. In the real world, the world all of us live in, the world with a US Electoral College system, you have the choice between the two parties, one of which is destroying some things which are very important to us, the other of which intends to destroy every thing which is important to us. Pretending that you can sit on your morals and throw your vote away in a spiteful gesture only goes towards hitting all of us with the destroy-everything option.
Not good. Not moral at all.
@hotshoe:
Two points I would like to make. The first is that my vote in particular actually does not matter, since I live in Georgia, which is guaranteed to go to the Republican candidate in 2012 regardless of what I do. As a result, I am free to vote for whomever I like since our broken system makes my vote null and void in the first place.
The second point I’d like to make is that, under your rules, nothing will ever change. If the choice is continually framed as “well, you have these two options and only these two options”, the entire political process devolves into mere tribalism. Both parties have long since ceased to run on issues; now the Republicans run on “we’re more American than they are” (while running the actual Constitution through a shredder) while the Democrats run on “at least we’re not them because OMG THEY HATE US ALL AND ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY!!!!!!” Meanwhile, both parties are completely beholden to Wall Street, fear, and the military-industrial complex, but nobody cares because they get to feel good that they are supporting their favorite tribe.
My vote is not moral or good. My vote is not Democratic, Republican, Green, Socialist, Reform, American Constitution Party, or People’s Front of Judea. My vote is mine, and I intend to cast it after careful consideration of the options and the actual issues at hand, not a bunch of tribal bullshit and fearmongering that does nothing but divide the country in two.
I suppose I don’t quite understand all the vitriol toward the people who legitimately have a problem with the things Obama has done, and won’t vote for him because of them.
It seems that those taking this position don’t care or understand that, for some people, their vote must be earned, not given by default due to the candidate who happens to be the less poor choice of the potential winners. Ballots contain more than two Presidential candidates, and if the two major candidates are both awful, voting for either is morally questionable at best.
You can list all the peripheral accomplishments you like; when a presidential candidate–incumbent or no–claims to have the right to unilaterally order the killing of American citizens they lose my vote. Period. Full stop. There will not and should not be any compromise on the issue of Presidentially decreed murder. I don’t care who the other ‘major party’ guy is because neither will I vote for them if they should also support such a position.
I vote my conscience, not my fears.
Casting a ballot for heinous people because you’re afraid that a worse person might come along is on some level understandable, although I would strongly disagree that such is the right or moral course of action. Excoriating others, however, for supporting a candidate that they think will best represent their views even if said candidate is not polling highly is simply brutish behavior.
If Obama loses and someone worse is inaugurated next January, it won’t be because of me or those like me, and I won’t have voted for any of those clowns either. It will ultimately be because of Obama’s abject failure at following through with his important promises and the utter devastation of civil rights that has occurred under the watch his administration–often with his full support.
The Democratic candidate in the 2012 presidential election, among his numerous other civil liberties disgraces, ordered and carried out the murder of an American citizen far from any battlefield and outside of any legal process. Vote for more of that because the the other candidate I won’t vote for might be worse? Never. To do so would make me complicit in those morally reprehensible acts.
A critical mass will eventually arise and throw out or reshape one of the current parties (Likely the Rs, as they’re already quite fragmented), much in the same way that the Whigs supplanted the Federalists with the arrival of the 2nd Party System and the Republicans the Whigs in the 3rd Party System. Hopefully this happens in 2012. But until people like Brian, Greg and their ilk abandon the notion that a candidate deserves your vote simply because he’s got a shot at winning and he’s not the worst guy in the race that won’t happen. This critical mass never arrives instantaneously, of course; it requires people at the fore of the movement unafraid to tack against the prevailing winds. Those people gain support, and as that support grows, so do the chances for electoral success. But it’s an uphill battle because those people are fighting against not only their true opposition in people who hold opposing ideological viewpoints, but also the opposition of their ideological comrades who are so fearful of losing their tenuous grip on the tattered dingy they’re clinging to they can’t see that if they let go and swim just a bit there’s a much better boat out there. In reality, you guys are just as responsible for this mess, if not more so, as the people who refuse to vote for the corporatist authoritarian thug you’re so desperately hanging onto.
Eric sums up the position of the “conscientious objectors” quite well. Yes, Obama doesn’t “deserve” your vote. You’ll be glad to see him gone.
Even if the wingnut replacement is even worse (which he almost certainly will be) at least the next Democratic contender might actually be more liberal. That is, if there even is a country left for him to be president of.
But ask yourselves this: What has the historical Democratic response to losses been? Moving more to the left or more to the right?
The only way you’re going to achieve anything positive is to get involved at “grass roots” level by promoting local candidates, or joining a larger movement like Occupy. Sitting on your lazy asses on election day is going to achieve sweet fuck-all.
Meanwhile, I’m living here in Not-USA, where I don’t even have a vote in your elections, yet I’ll still indirectly suffer the consequences of your actions. Thanks a fucking lot!
From where I sit, the point is to vote in such a way as to further your policy goals. Now I can’t defend Obama’s handling of a lot of civil rights issues, but he’s the only candidate in the field who has a snowball’s chance in hell of delivering any policies I want to see enacted. If you have progressive goals in mind, Obama is the only logical choice for President, even if you don’t like his civil liberties moves. Of course, Obama isn’t the only influential person in the government; for Congress, then, vote for people who will try to keep that in check. Voting (or not voting, as the case may be) in such a way as to punish someone you don’t like who has nevertheless delivered part of your agenda, knowing that the alternative is likely to set you back or even wipe out the gains you’ve made, is utterly idiotic. It indicates you’re willing to throw everyone else you nominally agree with under the bus for the sake of ideological purity. With liberals like that, we don’t need conservatives.
But more likely you’d get Mitt Romney who won’t be all that bad, from what I gather, right?
Do people really seriously think Gingrich will end up being the Republican party candidate and that his current spell of leading the nomination race in a very weak and bad field is going to last more than a short time?
Even if Gingrich does win the Republican nomination for 2012 which is a very long way from being decided from what I understand of US politics (& sure I could be wrong & am not an expert here.) then it seems highly unlikely from what I’ve heard and read that he could defeat Obama for the Presidency.
Not that it makes Gingrichs comment here any less appalling mind you.
Do people really seriously think Gingrich will end up being the Republican party candidate and that his current spell of leading the nomination race in a very weak and bad field is going to last more than a short time?
I was thinking not but now I am not sure. And, in fact, one can never be sure.
@ ^ Greg Laden : Indeed. I’m not 100% certain (I rarely am for anything) but I’d be very surprised indeed if Gingrich was to end up as US president or even Republican nomination.
I still think Mitt Romney will ultimately end up as their most likely choice – maybe 80% sure or so of that.
What are your thoughts on Romney – not too bad maybe for a Republican?
Did everyone notice that Santorum (on meet the press) has indicated that he would “overturn the supreme court” if elected president, on various issues.
Anybody know how that works? Does it involve a pitchfork?
he could try and stack it, for that you’d only need a simple bill passed through Congress…