When you vote for a candidate, do you have a hiearchy of issues or do you “weight issues” and vote for the least evil?
I have certain issues that are “blockers"… and then I weight other issues. The destruction of human life is a blocker for me. If a candidate was phenomenal on absolutely everything I believed in and perfect… except he was pro slavery, for example, that would be another blocker for me.
Mark my words, this next president WILL choose the next supreme court justice who WILL have the power to overturn the slaughtering of millions of unborn children.
I do not mean to diminish at all the importance of other issues. I have seen and believe in the huge benefits to our economy with tax cuts.
But if it comes down to someone who is solidly pro-life and another who is not or who is suspect, I am voting to save the life of the unborn before I’m voting to put some more cash in my pocket.
I guess if wanting to save human life before making an extra buck makes me a bleeding heart liberal, and not a capitalist, then I’m guilty as charged.
george - 08:08am on 08/31/2007
The main reason is that Mitt is gonna win. In the latest poll (by Time no less), Mitt is up 35 to 12 in Iowa.
Sorry, but that’s just a wow moment.
His new “running man” ad is nothing less than brilliant. It really makes him seem accessible and “one-of-us”. Also, women will think it’s sexy as hell.
#1 reason Romney is unstoppable for the nomination?
His enemies have used all their trick plays (dogs on station wagons, flip-flops, etc) in the first quarter. Romney’s bench is deep and the best is yet to come from a man trained as a strategist (hell, he was CEO of one of the top strategy firms in the world!).
3 quarters to go…
Bill Mitchell - 09:08am on 08/31/2007
Bill, Romney is less of a conservative than Huckabee. “Romneycare?” Please.
And his polling numbers in Iowa mean nothing at this point. It’s so early as to be meaningless.
Rob - 10:08am on 08/31/2007
Understand your reluctance to go with Huckabee, but the simple fact of the matter is that everyone, even Paul, has a bit of the taint of the nanny state in him. As Will suggests, we’ve got an engineering problem here where we choose the best possible alternative, not a science problem where we get a perfect solution.
And I hate to admit it, but Romney is formidable, even though he’s got a lot of problems with his historic stances on prenatal infanticide, firearm rights, and medical care. If that doesn’t sink him with the GOP, then certainly a dog with the runs won’t do it.
I hope at least, as I’m terrified of the idea that peoples’ logic is so demented that killing babies is less important than dog doo on the rear window.
Robert Perry - 11:08am on 08/31/2007
Last Spring, I saw Huckabee on a Christian TV program of “The Call”, telling TEENS that if ILLEGAL ALIENS got citizenship and the right to vote, he “KNEW” they would vote for “FAMILY VALUES” and would possibly be the key to “VOTING TO OVERTURN ROE V WADE”.
I live in Texas, not so far from the Mexico border, and our problems with border security are horrendous.
Illegal Aliens have demonstrated that their idea of “FAMILY VALUES” is AMERICAN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS (LIBERAL).
AMERICA being “ALLOWED” to VOTE on ROE V WADE? I don’t see Huckabee being in a position to “ALLOW” THAT or a vote on any of the other destructive Liberal policies that have taken over in America without a concensus by AMERICAN citizens.
Meanwhile, besides smoking, I’ve heard him make similarly Liberal comments about American obesity and American health care programs.
I know more people whose weight problems are pre-existing HEALTH PROBLEMS than they are EATING problems. And none of them, or me or lots of other people want the Federal government telling us what we can eat, or not - especially since they listen to political idiots with agendas on diet, instead of nutrtitionists - and end up changing their minds every few years about “what is healthy or not - like they have changed their recommendations on EGGS so many times the last few years - AND TOOK BRIBES TO CONVERT AMERICA TO TRANS FATS - and now prefer ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS to some healthy natural alternatives, at this time, in spite of study after study on ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS in sweeteners, foods, trans fats, hormones, and medicines, showing the inherent and skyrocketting dangers of artificial ingredients that the FDA is FOND OF, STILL.
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant on THAT.
POINT BEING - I don’t want Huckabee, self-professed “CHRISTIAN” or NOT, telling my family what we have to eat, or promoting government health programs at exhorbitant TAX RATES, in order to gain control of people’s eating habits. This would affect farming subsidies as well. Lots of room for abuse of government micromanaging.
I won’t vote for “fellow Christian” Mike Huckabee - not for DOG CATCHER!
“Though he is mentioned derisively as a “second-tier” presidential candidate, former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee is quietly making gains in New Hampshire, the earliest primary state.
Debra Vanderbeek signed on last week to run Huckabee’s New Hampshire operations. Venderbeek served as chief of staff for former Rep. Jeb Bradley and is an experienced Republican political hand.
“I was surprised to see Deb go with Huckabee,” one Republican state legislator told The Daily Acts. “That fact alone is enough to get me to take a second look at him. I respect Deb’s judgment.”
-----
(2) ”VIVA HUCKABEE!” by Noah Scheiber in The Plank
08.11.07
“Whatever the case, it’s hard to overstate the significance of Huckabee’s performance here. Combined, Huckabee and Brownback--the field’s two leading social conservatives--outpolled Mitt Romney today 33 to 31.5. If, as the results suggest, Huckabee emerges as the lone standard bearer for this group, he’ll probably end up with a block of support to rival Romney’s. (Most “Brownbackers” I spoke to would feel extremely comfortable throwing their support behind the Arkansan.) But, of course, just combining Brownback’s and Huckabee’s numbers actually way understates Huckabee’s potential ceiling. For one thing, he’s come this far running on fumes. It will be interesting to see what he can do with the fundraising boost he’ll enjoy after today. On top of that, there seem to be a lot of social conservatives currently supporting Romney because he’s running as the most conservative of the top-tier candidates. Now that Huckabee has demonstrated his viability, it’s not hard to imagine him peeling off a decent number of Romney’s conservative backers.”
[This may well be a resurgence of the Reagan-democrats of a couple of decades ago. It’s going to be VERY interesting to watch.]
“Huckabee has an extraordinarily different message than any of the other Republican presidential contenders - a populist economic message that may be shunned by conservative operatives and K Street lobbyists in the GOP-dominated Money Party in Washington, but likely has an appeal among rank-and-file working-class Republican voters.”
“America’s aging coupled with high and growing old–age health and pension benefits augers for much higher payroll taxes, with damaging effects on the U.S. economy. This prognosis is supported by our analysis of a detailed dynamic life–cycle general equilibrium model. The FairTax, which proposes to replace the federal payroll, personal income, corporate income, and estate tax with a progressive consumption tax, offers a potential alternative to this dismal economic future. According to our simulation model, these policy changes would lead to major improvements in the U.S. capital stock, long–run real wages and the well–being of the majority of Americans.”
When you vote for a candidate, do you have a hiearchy of issues or do you “weight issues” and vote for the least evil?
I have certain issues that are “blockers"… and then I weight other issues. The destruction of human life is a blocker for me. If a candidate was phenomenal on absolutely everything I believed in and perfect… except he was pro slavery, for example, that would be another blocker for me.
Mark my words, this next president WILL choose the next supreme court justice who WILL have the power to overturn the slaughtering of millions of unborn children.
I do not mean to diminish at all the importance of other issues. I have seen and believe in the huge benefits to our economy with tax cuts.
But if it comes down to someone who is solidly pro-life and another who is not or who is suspect, I am voting to save the life of the unborn before I’m voting to put some more cash in my pocket.
I guess if wanting to save human life before making an extra buck makes me a bleeding heart liberal, and not a capitalist, then I’m guilty as charged.
The main reason is that Mitt is gonna win. In the latest poll (by Time no less), Mitt is up 35 to 12 in Iowa.
Sorry, but that’s just a wow moment.
His new “running man” ad is nothing less than brilliant. It really makes him seem accessible and “one-of-us”. Also, women will think it’s sexy as hell.
#1 reason Romney is unstoppable for the nomination?
His enemies have used all their trick plays (dogs on station wagons, flip-flops, etc) in the first quarter. Romney’s bench is deep and the best is yet to come from a man trained as a strategist (hell, he was CEO of one of the top strategy firms in the world!).
3 quarters to go…
Bill, Romney is less of a conservative than Huckabee. “Romneycare?” Please.
And his polling numbers in Iowa mean nothing at this point. It’s so early as to be meaningless.
Understand your reluctance to go with Huckabee, but the simple fact of the matter is that everyone, even Paul, has a bit of the taint of the nanny state in him. As Will suggests, we’ve got an engineering problem here where we choose the best possible alternative, not a science problem where we get a perfect solution.
And I hate to admit it, but Romney is formidable, even though he’s got a lot of problems with his historic stances on prenatal infanticide, firearm rights, and medical care. If that doesn’t sink him with the GOP, then certainly a dog with the runs won’t do it.
I hope at least, as I’m terrified of the idea that peoples’ logic is so demented that killing babies is less important than dog doo on the rear window.
Last Spring, I saw Huckabee on a Christian TV program of “The Call”, telling TEENS that if ILLEGAL ALIENS got citizenship and the right to vote, he “KNEW” they would vote for “FAMILY VALUES” and would possibly be the key to “VOTING TO OVERTURN ROE V WADE”.
I live in Texas, not so far from the Mexico border, and our problems with border security are horrendous.
Illegal Aliens have demonstrated that their idea of “FAMILY VALUES” is AMERICAN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS (LIBERAL).
AMERICA being “ALLOWED” to VOTE on ROE V WADE? I don’t see Huckabee being in a position to “ALLOW” THAT or a vote on any of the other destructive Liberal policies that have taken over in America without a concensus by AMERICAN citizens.
Meanwhile, besides smoking, I’ve heard him make similarly Liberal comments about American obesity and American health care programs.
I know more people whose weight problems are pre-existing HEALTH PROBLEMS than they are EATING problems. And none of them, or me or lots of other people want the Federal government telling us what we can eat, or not - especially since they listen to political idiots with agendas on diet, instead of nutrtitionists - and end up changing their minds every few years about “what is healthy or not - like they have changed their recommendations on EGGS so many times the last few years - AND TOOK BRIBES TO CONVERT AMERICA TO TRANS FATS - and now prefer ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS to some healthy natural alternatives, at this time, in spite of study after study on ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS in sweeteners, foods, trans fats, hormones, and medicines, showing the inherent and skyrocketting dangers of artificial ingredients that the FDA is FOND OF, STILL.
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant on THAT.
POINT BEING - I don’t want Huckabee, self-professed “CHRISTIAN” or NOT, telling my family what we have to eat, or promoting government health programs at exhorbitant TAX RATES, in order to gain control of people’s eating habits. This would affect farming subsidies as well. Lots of room for abuse of government micromanaging.
I won’t vote for “fellow Christian” Mike Huckabee - not for DOG CATCHER!
You decide if Huckabee’s candidacy is rising:
(1) ”Huckabee Building Support in New Hampshire” by Soren Dayton in The Daily Acts
Wed Mar 14 2007 11:04 AM
“Though he is mentioned derisively as a “second-tier” presidential candidate, former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee is quietly making gains in New Hampshire, the earliest primary state.
Debra Vanderbeek signed on last week to run Huckabee’s New Hampshire operations. Venderbeek served as chief of staff for former Rep. Jeb Bradley and is an experienced Republican political hand.
“I was surprised to see Deb go with Huckabee,” one Republican state legislator told The Daily Acts. “That fact alone is enough to get me to take a second look at him. I respect Deb’s judgment.”
-----
(2) ”VIVA HUCKABEE!” by Noah Scheiber in The Plank
08.11.07
“Whatever the case, it’s hard to overstate the significance of Huckabee’s performance here. Combined, Huckabee and Brownback--the field’s two leading social conservatives--outpolled Mitt Romney today 33 to 31.5. If, as the results suggest, Huckabee emerges as the lone standard bearer for this group, he’ll probably end up with a block of support to rival Romney’s. (Most “Brownbackers” I spoke to would feel extremely comfortable throwing their support behind the Arkansan.) But, of course, just combining Brownback’s and Huckabee’s numbers actually way understates Huckabee’s potential ceiling. For one thing, he’s come this far running on fumes. It will be interesting to see what he can do with the fundraising boost he’ll enjoy after today. On top of that, there seem to be a lot of social conservatives currently supporting Romney because he’s running as the most conservative of the top-tier candidates. Now that Huckabee has demonstrated his viability, it’s not hard to imagine him peeling off a decent number of Romney’s conservative backers.”
[This may well be a resurgence of the Reagan-democrats of a couple of decades ago. It’s going to be VERY interesting to watch.]
-----
(3) ”Democrats Beware: An Economic Populist Is Rising In the GOP’s Presidential” by David Sirota in SirotaBLOG 8/14/07
“Huckabee has an extraordinarily different message than any of the other Republican presidential contenders - a populist economic message that may be shunned by conservative operatives and K Street lobbyists in the GOP-dominated Money Party in Washington, but likely has an appeal among rank-and-file working-class Republican voters.”
-----
(4) Jokisch & Kotlikoff on The Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Effects of the FairTax at TaxProf Blog 8/16/2007
“America’s aging coupled with high and growing old–age health and pension benefits augers for much higher payroll taxes, with damaging effects on the U.S. economy. This prognosis is supported by our analysis of a detailed dynamic life–cycle general equilibrium model. The FairTax, which proposes to replace the federal payroll, personal income, corporate income, and estate tax with a progressive consumption tax, offers a potential alternative to this dismal economic future. According to our simulation model, these policy changes would lead to major improvements in the U.S. capital stock, long–run real wages and the well–being of the majority of Americans.”