Super Tuesday Candidate Primer

Here's my rundown of everyone besides my endorsee, Mitt Romney.

GOP:
John McCain - The "Straight Talk Express" aka "Senor Exporte"
McCain probably should have remembered his nickname before he started campaigning in Florida. Two days before the primary he boldly announced that Mitt Romney was for setting a "timetable" for the withdrawl of troops in Iraq, a position Romney says is a gross distortion of his comment. Regardless, McCain is the same old same old. Despite the breath of fresh air McCain asserts that he is, he is ironocially the only candidate that hasn't plastered the word "change" on his website.

A McCain presidency wouldn't be the end of the world, although it might be the end of America's industrialization. McCain favors imposing voluntary carbon caps, which would set out a finite limit on the amount of carbon pollution the United States produces. The end result is that companies that want to make things, (and as a result release carbon emissions) would now have to trade for the rights to pollute. Of course, setting an arbitrary number of carbon emissions means that as more industry appears the price of being able to release carbon emissions increases. At the end of the day this means that either 1) the price of American goods goes up to compensate for the higher emissions costs, or 2) we have less industry so that we can be competitive in a global economy. In other words, the USA would be voluntarily pricing itself higher than goods from China and India - two nations who are not going to voluntarily impose carbon caps.

Under McCain we can count on at least one export going immediately through the roof - jobs. But I guess if exporting jobs and importing more finished goods counts towards the trade deficit McCain will look like a succees, right?

Ron Paul - Issue candidate who doesn't believe in his own issue.
I read Ron Paul's website. I listened to his speeches. He sounds pretty good right? He is very fiscally conservative and makes a strong case for reducing government and letting the market and people sort their way through things. Too bad he doesn't believe in his own plan.

I was so disappointed when I heard on a radio program that Ron Paul had gotten millions of earmarks passed for his district in Texas. He says that if earmarks are going to happen anyway then you might as well get them for your district. Which is fine - if you want to argue that the present system is inefficient rather than being broken. But Paul things the government is far too big and covers way too much ground. So why not stand up and take a stand? Why not say to the nation, "Earmarks are destroying our ability to rein in our spending"? Well, because that would make it harder to get elected. Ask Jeff Flake. He doesn't request earmarks and he gets criticized for it back at home. Sorry Dr. Paul. If you don't believe in your own plan, why should I?

Mike Huckabee
Huckabee has some good ideas and some bad ideas. The problem is that he has difficulty explaining any of his ideas. I watched Meet the Press a few weeks ago and the host was trying to give Huckabee a tough question on taxes. As it turns out Huckabee cut taxes in some areas and also raised taxes in other areas for a net result that taxes were raised slightly. When Huckabee was asked about raising taxes, he goes into overly defensive mode and starts talking about how the Arkansas Supreme Court mandated that he raise more money for schools so they did that by raising taxes and now Arkansas' schools are performing well. The host then asks "So you did raise taxes then right?" But Huck won't say "Yes. I was mandated to do so and I was a careful steward of those dollars and now we've reached a result that tremendously outperforms what other states do with their money." Instead Huck says, "Hey, I'm not going to apologize for having a Supreme Court make a mandate." So what exactly are you doing Huck?

I guess my issue with Huckabee is that I always feel like he's trying to be as slippery as the other Presidential candidate from Hope, Arkansas once was. And he's totally unelectable.

Democrats:
Hillary Clinton
This is a troublesome one. It's just way too easy to poke fun at her PAINFUL speaking style. I really can't decide whether she speaks like William Shatner or Robocrook. It's slow, monotone, and overly deliberate. Everytime I hear her I think of the worst church talks I've ever heard and then think...wow she could hold her own with these guys. But even though having to listen to her speak in the future would be cause alone for me not to vote for her that seems like an awfully silly reason to not vote for someone.

So what is it about Hillary that makes me say, "No thanks?" It's all about the money for me. She wants to stengthen the middle class, decrease the cost of healthcare, decrease the cost of college, bail people out for their poor decisions on mortgages, reward kids with $5,000 just for being born, and probably give the world a puppy. And she wants to do all of this on my dime. Look, there's nothing wrong with trying to help people who are less fortuante, but how many things are essentials that people could use to survive and how many things are wants that people usually have to sacrifice for? There needs to be a limit on some of this stuff or else we're going to end up with a country of rationed out surgeries, ineffective workers, and ingrates that take without ever trying to give back.

Barack Obama

Obama is an interesintg candidate. He is a good speaker. He seems to carry himself well. Lots of people say they are inspired by him. But I'm just not sold yet. I guess my problem is the same one that a Phoenix radio host has with him - what are people inspired to do?

As soon as I get the link to his 1 minute commentary I'll post it, but a quick summary of Joe Crummey's Obama opinion is that the word inspiration sure means a lot less than it used to. It used to be that when someone was inspired by a leader they looked to see what they could do. JFK's famous line comes to mind. "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." If you read his speech it really is inspiring. It makes me want to go out and do something for someone.

So what does Obama inspire people to do? I'm not sure he inspires people to do anything other than vote and, if you make too much money, pay a lot of taxes. Obama's key initiatives in commercials are universal health care, making sure that anyone who has a job makes enough money to "not be poor," and expanding various and sundry programs and government entitlements. So at the end of the day the only thing that I can be inspired to do after reading his website is to wait around for the government to come in and take care of me.

Obama is engaging and he promises a lot of things that I'm sure many people feel they need. I have no doubt that he genuinely feels that these are things the government should provide. I just disagree.