And Then There Were Six, Five, Eleventy, Some Number
Bye, bye Rick Perry
. Or as Vodka Pundit said, “Rick Perry was running for president?”
Say what you will about Perry – corporatist, opportunist, status quo – his campaign highlighted just how ridiculous the nominating process has become. We don’t care about the resume, we only care how telegenic a person is. Spengler’s Law applies to much more than just gender relations. Perry isn’t a smooth debater, and it is an important predictor as super awesome president and strong talking points regurgitator Obama exemplifies, so he lost. Romney, who has won one, one!, election continues to hoist the electability petard over a soma-addled electorate, Newt Gingrich is not being ignored, the Libertarian wing continues to put all its eggs in the Ron Paul basket, Rick Santorum wears vests, and normally sane people are actually wishing Palin had run.
Obama is going to coast to reelection.
Circuses are out of style, so now it’s bread and primary elections.
Great minds. I just posted about these recent turn of events myself.
Did you hear that they’re saying Santorum won Iowa after all? There was a mistake or an incomplete count or something.
So, social conservatives have no-one to choose from, really, now, do they? Newt, who looks set to consolidate the anyone-but-Romney camp, isn’t much of one, and Romney certainly isn’t… Paul doesn’t stand a chance, ultimately, with the entire establishment against him…
I’m leery of social conservatives because they often embrace statism. I also wish the libertarians would find a candidate besides Paul. He’s almost perfect on so much, socially conservative issues included, but he has a predilection for saying shit that disconcerts average voters. In fact, he almost seems to relish fucking with people more than he relishes possibly converting them. Sure, I only said almost and not totally, but he beats those almosts into the ground. He would be a serious contender if he’d stay focused on corporatism and the like. Alas, he cannot refrain from playing footsie with truthers and the like. Call me a whatever, but I have a lower opinion of Muslims. I don’t think they need a reason, Wilsonian nation building and other wastes of resources are essentially distractions, outside of their religion. They want to kill non-Muslims. To that end, Paul is just as mistaken as Obama and whichever Republican in his approach. They will not be placated by non-action. They respect strength and covert threats. They are stymied by the possibility of violence. None of the candidates, Obama or the Republican offerings, are willing to threaten them into leaving us alone. Threats ignore the classroom brilliance of cultural relativism. Threats get results.
Shorter: I want an angry non-intervention policy based on quietly belligerent strength rather than functional isolationism. Non-Westerners don’t think like Westerners, no matter how much we wish them to.
Yeah, I’m leery of social conservatives, too, in terms of several things, including their busybody-ness / statism (e.g. the War on Drugs), and their propensity to be unwitting dupes of the feminist agenda.
As for the Muslims, I agree that they’re certainly not a religion of peace, and don’t bear the West good will, and we do ourselves no favours in trying to fool ourselves that they do. Though I do incline to the view that if the West were to stop unequivocally backing Israel, that might have some impact in how they react to us (I mean, they’ll never like us, they’ll always hate us, but we might be able to get them to ignore us).
Paul, like many libertarians, can’t help but be ideological rather than pragmatic, which is unfortunate, as it diminishes his electability…