GOP Nominee 2012 - Who Will It Be?, Pt. 4

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I am supporting Mitt. I don't agree with some of his views, however, I feel like he is the candidate most capable of turning the economy around and getting people back to work; and for me that is the most important issue.

Do you know his plan for doing so?
 
I am supporting Mitt. I don't agree with some of his views, however, I feel like he is the candidate most capable of turning the economy around and getting people back to work; and for me that is the most important issue.

Welcome to the forum. I don't recall seeing around very much! :)

Hate to start things off with a disagreement, but I do question your above statement. I don't buy that any president has that much control over the economy or putting people back to work (especially in the private sector. I suppose a president could advocate for legislation that would create more government jobs, but I'm guessing that an FDR-style spate of public employment opportunities is not what you mean't by "getting people back to work.")
 
I just saw recaps on "The Daily Show" of CNN's coverage from last night, complete with their usual over-the-top technology.

Holy shit, those people have WAY too much time on their hands.

The worst thing was sending a reporter to Wasilla-they must have camped out all day waiting for Sarah Palin to show up. It looked like they were using Skype or something, the picture was terrible. Apparently she started all kinds of speculation that she might get into the race. :scream:
 
i, for one, have my DVR set for "Game Change" this Saturday night.

Julianne Moore as Our Sarah gives me the vapors.
 
Welcome to the forum. I don't recall seeing around very much! :)

Hate to start things off with a disagreement, but I do question your above statement. I don't buy that any president has that much control over the economy or putting people back to work (especially in the private sector. I suppose a president could advocate for legislation that would create more government jobs, but I'm guessing that an FDR-style spate of public employment opportunities is not what you mean't by "getting people back to work.")

President Mitt in conjunction with a Republican Congress (but only with both the House and the Senate in GOP hands) could potentially redirect the economy in one way or another. The president is a very important component of that, I think.
 
digitize said:
President Mitt in conjunction with a Republican Congress (but only with both the House and the Senate in GOP hands) could potentially redirect the economy in one way or another. The president is a very important component of that, I think.

But how?
 

Tax policy? Stimulus or lack thereof? Welfare programs that impact demand? More indirectly... appointments to the Federal Reserve (Bernanke's term expires in 2014)? And in the long term, things like education policy?

It's hard for the government to really do much about structural issues that the economy has (they can try, but it tends to not work too well, and can probably manufacture cyclical problems), but for cyclical issues, the president and Congress have a fairly significant amount of power.
 
digitize said:
Tax policy? Stimulus or lack thereof? Welfare programs that impact demand? More indirectly... appointments to the Federal Reserve (Bernanke's term expires in 2014)? And in the long term, things like education policy?

It's hard for the government to really do much about structural issues that the economy has (they can try, but it tends to not work too well, and can probably manufacture cyclical problems), but for cyclical issues, the president and Congress have a fairly significant amount of power.

This is the problem. No one knows his plan. You admit government has little power with structural issues, and many would disagree about what power they have over cycles.

Most of what you talk about are temporary fixes.

Tax policy- most of what republicans are talking about today are quick fixes that will create bubbles later.

Stimulus? No republican will ever be allowed to pass stimulus in this decade.

Education? Very much needed but the GOP is notoriously abysmal when it comes to education. Does Mitt have anything new?

Welfare? What do you suggest?
 
Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you were critiquing the power of the government to impact the economy in general, not Mitt Romney in specific. Although I suppose that one could argue that Romney's relative inaction is in itself really an action that could cause problems, especially given another recession (lack of stimulus). Trust me, I'm not a Romney fan.
 
The worst thing was sending a reporter to Wasilla-they must have camped out all day waiting for Sarah Palin to show up. It looked like they were using Skype or something, the picture was terrible. Apparently she started all kinds of speculation that she might get into the race. :scream:

Ergh, it'd be so nice if the media just left her be to live her life in Alaska and stop asking her about that possibility. Does she even have the fanbase for such an endeavor anymore?

i, for one, have my DVR set for "Game Change" this Saturday night.

Julianne Moore as Our Sarah gives me the vapors.

I'm going to have to remember to catch that either Saturday night or sometime thereafter. I'm very curious about it.
 
Doesn't surprise me one bit

Rick Santorum Frequently Losing Vote Of Fellow Catholics In Primaries

Reuters

By Andy Sullivan

Rick Santorum has put his Catholic faith front and center as he courts religious conservatives in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. That may be hurting his chances with a crucial group of voters: his fellow Catholics.

Santorum has lost the Catholic vote consistently in states that have held nominating contests so far, exit polls show.

The pattern underscores Santorum's continued inability to broaden his appeal beyond a core of voters, mostly evangelical Protestants, who place social issues like abortion and gay marriage at the top of the agenda.

Santorum's staunch opposition to birth control and gay marriage may line up with church doctrine, but could alienate Catholic voters who typically make up their own minds on such matters, analysts say.

"It's not easy to describe the typical Catholic anymore. We've always traditionally been the big tent that included people of all stripes," said Thomas Reese, director of the Woodstock Theological Center, a Jesuit research institute affiliated with Georgetown University.

Politically, Catholics are as diverse as the country as a whole. Some 36 percent describe themselves as conservatives, 16 percent as liberal and 38 percent as moderate, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

President Barack Obama won 55 percent of the Catholic vote in the 2008 election, nearly identical to his margin among the population as a whole.

Catholic voters are split evenly on whether abortion should be illegal and whether the government should do more to protect morality, the research group found.

Despite church teachings against birth control, some 98 percent of sexually experienced Catholic women of child-bearing age have used contraception at some point, according to a 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute.

Santorum isn't the only Catholic candidate in the battle to win the Republican nomination and face Obama in the November 6 election. Newt Gingrich has described how his 2009 conversion to Catholicism has helped him find a new spiritual peace, and he and his wife, Callista, have made a documentary about former Pope John Paul II.

Santorum has made his faith a central part of his candidacy. On the campaign trail, his seven children provide a visual reminder of his opposition to birth control. He has made common cause with Catholic bishops who oppose the Obama administration's new plan to require health insurers to cover contraception.

That uncompromising stance appeals to some Catholics.

"I feel Santorum has better moral clarity than the other candidates," said Ohio Wesleyan University student Marissa Alfano, a Catholic who cited the birth-control controversy as a reason for her support.

But so far, Mitt Romney - a Mormon - has had the most success with Catholic voters.

Romney has won the Catholic vote in eight of 10 states for which exit-poll data is available, often winning a bigger margin among Catholics than among the electorate as a whole.

Gingrich won the Catholic vote in his South Carolina victory, while Santorum narrowly won Catholics in Tennessee on Tuesday.

Santorum didn't help his cause when he said that President John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech calling for separation of church and state made him want to "throw up." Santorum has since said he regretted criticizing the Catholic icon.

As the results came in on Tuesday night, Santorum hunkered down in Steubenville, Ohio, a small city that is home to Franciscan University, a Catholic college with a conservative reputation.

At the rally, George Houston, a theology student at the school, said he wasn't thrilled with Santorum, or any of the other candidates.

"They're all imperfect. You have to filter the good from the bad," he said.

Santorum went on to narrowly lose the state to Romney. Among Catholic voters, who accounted for one in every three voters, it wasn't even close: Romney took 44 percent, while Santorum won 31 percent.
 
Santorum's staunch opposition to birth control and gay marriage may line up with church doctrine, but could alienate Catholic voters who typically make up their own minds on such matters, analysts say.

Shocker, the idea that people might think for themselves, isn't it?

"I feel Santorum has better moral clarity than the other candidates," said Ohio Wesleyan University student Marissa Alfano, a Catholic who cited the birth-control controversy as a reason for her support.

I really wish I knew what "moral clarity" meant nowadays. It's become one of those things that gets thrown around so much and has lost any sort of meaning.
 
I really wish I knew what "moral clarity" meant nowadays. It's become one of those things that gets thrown around so much and has lost any sort of meaning.

It means "agreement with the person who uses the term 'moral clarity'".
 
Shocker, the idea that people might think for themselves, isn't it?
i know! it's a relatively new and radical concept among christianity as a whole.

I cringe every time I drive by my church's "Pray to End Abortion" sign.
ugh. the catholic church near my parents puts a cross on their lawn for every abortion performed...during some period, i don't know. it's a lot of crosses, so i'm guessing it's annually. they don't leave them up year round but it's on the busiest road in that area so any woman who had one gets a nice little reminder every day when they're up.
 
Good grief, are you serious? Overdoing it much there, are they?
sadly, yes. i don't remember if it's for the memphis area or all of tennessee, but regardless it's ridiculous. but also practically across the street is the one of the largest megachurches in the nation (i think?) with three large, gaudy crosses designed to be seen from the interstate.
 
sadly, yes. i don't remember if it's for the memphis area or all of tennessee, but regardless it's ridiculous. but also practically across the street is the one of the largest megachurches in the nation (i think?) with three large, gaudy crosses designed to be seen from the interstate.

Ah, well, there we go, then. Overdoing it is obviously their style.

Megachurches creep me the hell (no pun intended) out. They really do.
 
For you, Indie :wave:

uBM5F.jpg
 


i think that dude is mad because she won't have sex with him, so that makes her a slut.



i'm still in shock that the Democrats were politically skillful enough, and the GOP insane enough, to make this cartoon essentially the dominant political narrative of the past month.

like, they just did to the GOP what the GOP has done to the Democrats for decades.
 
David Axelrod, or whoever came up with the strategy of using this contraceptive issue to stir up support for Santorum in the GOP base while also making Republicans look crazy to moderates, is brilliant. But it was also a bit dirty.
 
If there is indeed an oil shock this year (seemingly more and more likely) and Americans are feeling the strain every day, I think the scales will tip in Mittens' favour.
 
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