Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Not much more ridiculous than Romney > 0 on its own

When they run out of joke candidates, who will they nominate? Jimmah?

Tecs, maybe we ought to quit going back and forth about Romney vs. Perry and look at the real question this begs:

Should these retards be voting?

8 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...

Cain is his Name has my vote over Romney. This Idjit likes that clear thinking Herman Idjit over the Party Line Idjit or the A&Mbling IdjitBoy.
The joke is the Republican establishment. They can barely contain their glee at throwing out there MCain Deux. The Big F*&^ing Idjits.

Mr roT said...

It must be that.

Let them eat fruity beefcake.

Tecumseh said...

There is an interesting debate on the issue of Establishment vs non-Establishemnt going on here and here.

Here is a cogent comment to Ponnuru's piece by Steve Wilson:

"Reagan was to the right of Romney in all issues..."

Right, but Reagan didn't sound like a bomb-throwing conservative.

In fact, that was the media narrative on Reagan during the entire campaign: He was an extreme right-winger who was going to end Social Security and take us into nuclear Armageddon with the Soviets. And, that narrative largely stuck right up until the last debate. Why? Because the '80 election predates cable and obviously the internet. So, the only material most of America had to measure Reagan came from tiny soundbites during the nightly news. That's it.

But, when Reagan could actually be Reagan in that one debate, he knocked it out of the park. He was informed, counter to the narrative. He was rational, even pragmatic (especially on Social Security), counter to the narrative. He was sensible on defense, counter to the narrative. And, he was hopeful - very, very hopeful. The more people heard from Reagan - directly from Reagan, the more they liked.
We haven't had an orthodox conservative since then, where that dynamic has played out. The more people heard from Sarah Palin, the less they liked. The more people heard from Michelle Bachmann, the less they liked. The more they heard from Rick Perry, the less they liked. I suspect the more they hear from Herman Cain, the less they'll like.

It's hard to be an orthodox conservative and still appeal to a national audience. If it wasn't, then we'd have more people in the White House who have been orthodox conservatives. We haven't.

In national elections style matters almost as much as substance, and perhaps it even matters more. Reagan had tremendous style that appealed to a enormous range of people. He also happened to be right on the issues, too. But, it was his style that allowed him to continue to be popular, in spite of his conservative orthodoxy.

Tecumseh said...

AA: Cain looks reasonably good. But I don't know about his 9-9-9 thingie, looks like a cockamamie scheme to me. Basically, it's a VAT tax in disguise--kind of that 20% tax on every transaction they have in Euroland. The 9% federal sales tax (on top of state sales taxes, than can go up to 8-9% in NY, CA, etc) would be pretty bad. But also the 9% in corporate taxes would be more like a VAT than a true corporate tax -- it would apply at every level of production and distribution, not just on profits. Yes, the individual tax would probably go down for most middle-income people (even after accounting for lost deductions). But, overall, I'm not quite sure it would be neutral.

That said, this is just a plan. Even if elected, how would Cain implement his tax plan (which is essentially all he's running on--he doesn't have much on anything else)? That's up to Congress to decide, and I don't think it would play too well there, even with a GOP majority.

Finally, if this 9-9-9 plan would be implemented, it would create a dream VAT tax for the Nanny State, which would only be able to go up once started -- up to the 20% stable-state level prevalent in Europe. And, of course, the other 9% taxes will also not be set in stone, but would tend to go back to the historical US averages, which are in the 20%-30% range. And, once gone, the mortgage deduction and other such things won't come back, no way.

So, I dunno, AA, count me skeptical. That's the true conservative position--you tend to conserve things, unless something is really broken, and can't be fixed at all. And, if you do start messing up with the tax code -- which does need a major overhaul, no question about it -- I'd rather leave it to the green eye-shades pros, like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Those guys really know what they're talking about.

Mr roT said...

That's the true conservative position--you tend to conserve things, ...

Tecs argues for four more years of Obama, i.e. Romney.

Tecumseh said...

Yyyaaarrrrrrgghhh!!

Tecumseh said...

I blame it on the Duke.

Mr roT said...

Pay up!