Monday, February 13, 2012
Just a Reminder...
When the fun and games (?) of the primaries are over, we are all going to have to hold our noses and opinions, and vote for the Republican nominee. Yes, I'm not thrilled with Romney (too liberal). But even if the candidate with zipper control problems gets the nomination, the choice is stark and tragic: anyone but Obama. Criticize other candidates' positions, but it is best not to use personal attacks that you may regret having to swallow later.
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Re: "anyone but Obama":
ReplyDeleteI'm ... unconvinced by this argument when I think about many particulars and alternatives, at least the ones I view as important:
I'd grant environmentalism and the war on cheap energy ... except in the case of Romney: too many of his Massachusetts enviro appointments ended up in Team Obama. This is a case where one might hope he'd do better under the different pressures and constraints of being the President, but I gather you can't say there's evidence that will happen.
I'd also grant Obamacare ... except again in the case of Romney for the obvious reasons.
Gun control seems to be a safe issue unless an unconstrained by reelection Obama tried to go hog wild in his second term, but I'd expect that would work to our advantage in at minimum the medium term given how thoroughly we're winning in the political arena.
Now let's look at two issues where in the long term Obama will likely be viewed as being worse than Carter, foreign and fiscal policy:
Under his watch it sure looks like Iran is going to go nuclear, with surrounding states getting mightily motivated to follow; latest rumor is that Saudi Arabia would follow "in weeks", evidently with warheads purchased from Pakistan. On the other hand, I've never gotten the impression we have the stomach for the measures necessary to stop this, whichever party is in control of the White House. See e.g. North Korea.
Then there's the nastiest unexpected gift from Obama: the extent and persistence of his deficit spending, establishing a new baseline where trillion became the new billion, moving up the day of fiscal reckoning you and I have lived under all our lives from "someday" to "soon". While this has inspired a remarkable counterrevolution (the Tea Party et. al.), as long as we can borrow cheaply (probably by virtue of being the one of the least worst places to put your money right now) it's totally in alignment with the "business as usual" bipartisan political establishment. Ignoring Newt, does anyone realistically expect Romney or Santorum with their history plus the Republican Congressional "leadership" of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner turning things around prior to things getting very ugly? The latter two's current highway bill game does not exactly inspire confidence, nor the fact that when faced with a need to trim a trillion from the budget we're only getting proposals that nibble at the edges.
Of course one could also look at what most alarmed me about Carter, his singular ability make any bad situation worse. Having Obama in the White House vs. any of the Republican choices who actually do I gather love America when any of the chickens come home to roost could make a significant difference. Although if you like the Republican Party, you don't exactly want one to be "in charge" if that happens; I think Bob Krumm is onto something when he predicted that "2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President."