Go on over to ThreeSources and give them your one word description of the SOTU Speech last night.
All I could think of (besides my own one word answer) was that we HAVE to win in November. We have to.
Bret Stephens doesn’t think that we will. He even places some of the blame on those “A listers” who have decided not to run. Yet those A listers have yet to be vetted Daniels, I like. Christie is very left. Ryan is cold. Jeb Bush….give me a break. Haley Barbour – i don’t know anything about.
Can we win with Newt? I sincerely doubt it. He has a LOT of quotable moments that belong in the ashcan of memory. “The people” don’t watch the debates and Obama will agree to 1, not 3 and certainly not a sit down and casually talk it out sort of debate.
Is he more conservative than Romney. Not a bit.
Does he use better words than Romney. A lot better.
(here is a link about the Gingrich “ethics” problem. It doesn’t look like much to me.)
Can we win with Romney? It’s looking very iffy.
He can not seem to defend himself with the passion he needs. Bain created jobs. Firing companies that are not serving you IS fun. Living off of investments is a better way to live. For everyone, not just the rich. He is the candidate with the least to be embarrassed about (except ahem Romneycare) but he acts like everyone should just see that and he doesn’t need to share.
The MOST important thing to know about all of this……we HAVE to win both houses. No matter what.
Could not post on Three Sources for some reason, so here is my word…”flat”. If I could use more words, I would say “phoning it in” or “no energy”. I heard part of it on the radio in the car and part on TV and it sounded like he was talking in a room with no people for all the response he got from the audience. And by the way, what President TELLS everyone he has a flag with the NAMES of the SEAL team that killed UBL?
I go back and forth between thinking it’s a sure thing even if we were to nominate Zeeba the syphilitic camel, and that we’re screwed no matter what. I’m hoping there are enough reasons for success to counter all the reasons we might receive a blowout.
As you say, both Gingrich and Romney have plenty of reasons why they’re not great candidates – and as a resident of Massachusetts, I think there are more on Romney than people are realizing, but there are still enough on Gingrich that I accept opinions that either candidate is unelectable, as long as they don’t think that the other is perfect. While there are certainly plenty of reasons to go either way, I favor Gingrich mostly because of three things:
1. He’s a shrewder politician, having managed countless elections and orchestrated incredible electoral victories. That may be a significant edge in the race – while Romney has a track record of losing almost every election he’s ever been involved in.
2. He’s something of an ex-Washington insider – few politicians have a record of enacting anything like the change he effectively brought to Washington, which includes both welfare reform and a balanced budget. Given that record, there’s a strong case to be made that he would be the more effective president at enacting conservative reforms to government. I think that a President Romney would get bogged down in D.C. and get very few actual serious reforms through, likely just improving the management of our existing government by a bit.
3. Gingrich is very much the big thinker, big dreamer type. Romney’s vision for how the U.S. should be seems to be much more “like today, but a little bit more efficient”, while Gingrich has huge, transformative ideas for nearly every aspect of government. Given the scope of our economic issues, I would like to see large changes implemented.
Regardless of who gets the nomination, actually getting to the Presidency is certainly the most important issue between the two. And I most definitely agree that more important than winning the Presidency is winning both houses of Congress.
Thanks Taoist…
I seem to be leaning Gingrich, but I await a transformed Romney who realizes he could lose and an angry Gingrich who realizes that he has a LOT of history.
It’s good to hear the MA perspective as I keep hearing the insider DC, GOP devotee perspective.
1 and 2 I like. 3 makes me nervous. Neither of these candidates first reaction to a problem is to envision how more freedom (not government interference) would solve said problem.
And JG – “flat” is a good term for that.
I almost wish we could get Ron Paul for about half the domestic issues, as he truly wants to increase liberty. But I’d want someone else for just about everything else.