KCRag Forum

aknowledgeableperson wrote: Donald "Hair" Trump is running second in the GOP, for now, on the 2012 presidential popularity list.  Seems to be a Tea Party type and a birther.  joke.

aknowledgeableperson wrote:I would say any candidate who runs and says, or implys, that the Big O was not born in the states or is a Muslim is a "joke".

mean wrote: At what point do we split into two different countries? The sane and the nuts... of course, the nuts would just nuke the sane people.

aknowledgeableperson wrote: Which side is sane and which side is nuts?

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Which side is sane and which side is nuts?

chrizow wrote: i'm going to go ahead and slot the birthers and "obama is a goddam MUSLIM" folks in the nut category. 

aknowledgeableperson wrote: I would agree.  But there are a few nuts and insane people on the left.

NDTeve wrote: Pawlenty, Romney, Huckabee, Paul, etc.

Not a real exciting field at this point. Pawlenty would seem to be the lesser of many evils.

But despite the Republicans' troubles, Obama remains vulnerable. A recent Gallup poll shows the percentage of people who see the President as a "strong leader" has dropped from 73% to 52%. While Obama's admirers may look at his cool and cerebral style and see a strong and decisive leader who understands the complex nuances of public policy, far too many voters see only mush. The first law of politics is that what matters is not what is actually true but rather what voters perceive to be true. This President is increasingly perceived as passive and equivocal. His detached style, his affection for nuance and his resistance to getting directly involved in the messy meat chopping of congressional budget writing has created a public persona that is more Adlai Stevenson than Harry Truman, more likely to give 'em footnotes than hell.

Perhaps the best example is the murky message surrounding Obama's decision to intervene in Libya. I think he made the right call to join our allies in supporting a popular revolution against a dangerous thug and to align the U.S. with the youth-fueled reform movement spreading across the Muslim world. While it is too early to tell where this turmoil will lead, the facts of Middle Eastern demography dictate that it is firmly in our national interest to engage with these forces of change to keep them moving toward our democratic values. But the President's war speech, meant to clarify his policy, struck notes of timidity and limitation instead of victory and purpose. Nuanced, yes. Well argued, perhaps. But politically effective? Not at all.
(See the 2011 TIME 100 Poll.)

The President's other political burden is a sagging economy. Though the latest employment numbers have ticked up, too many Americans think his Administration is underperforming on job creation. While some economists think a recovery has begun, the cruel reality of presidential campaigns, once again, is that it is the perception people have of the economy, not the statistical reality, that rules the ballot box. The Obama recovery may prove too weak to help the Obama re-election campaign.

Combine the perception of a bad economy with one of weak leadership and it leaves Obama beatable, something even some Democrats will admit privately. The Republican nomination is very much worth having, warts and all. That is why Romney, Gingrich, Pawlenty and all the others are eyeing a lumpy bed in a cheap motel room tonight somewhere in rural Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, thinking, Only 600 more nights like this to go.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... z1JpMiju9w

ignatius wrote: ... if any GOP candidates are silly pop cultures heads like Palin, Trump or 'too Christian' like the others, the moderates like me will vote for Obama.