I see. I was legitimately asking, even after living in Texas for several years, I only know that him as that snakey guy that worked for Al Gore but talks like George Bush.
No worries, it's a fair question, but I think Perry's got an unassailable answer for it. Though it could stick, anyway, because, well, things like that just stick sometimes.
Dude, doesn't every traditional Republican believe states should have greater control? In fact, every right leaning moderate to neo conservative believes that. I feel like you could support any candidate up there and they would atleast verbally confirm that they believe this.
They argued about it a bit in the last debate. I think Santorum, for example, took issue with it. In general they all feel this way, but to varying degrees. And I tend to think that if someone supports something when asked, but doesn't make it a focal point, there's a good chance it never actually gets followed through on.
But mainly, it's the economic stuff. He understands the basic climate you need to create for growth and employment to thrive. In particular, like Hermain Cain, he harps on the need for "predictability" in regulation so that businesses aren't always having to adjust to a changing set of rules. I really think he "gets" the fundamentals of growth.
It's not enough to balance electability or even stated positions; I think you also need to gauge the likelihood that a given position is just a position, versus something the candidate actually feels strongly enough about to push through, even when they take flak for it. Because, make no mistake, they
will take flak for it. Perry strikes me as far less likely than, say, Romney, to let that sort of think eat away at the margins of his stances. And given some of the fairly un-conservative things Bush did, I'm starting to think that's more important than it used to be.
See, emotionally, I see him as (yes I have said this before) really freaking fake. Just talking points with a country "workin' man" accent. I don't really understand your statement "he doesn't pull punches", but if plain English is this guy not pulling punches, then I would disagree and say that he actually pulls tons of punches.
Hmm, I'm not sure how else to say it, but I'll try: he is blunt. He doesn't give lots of politician-like answers. He doesn't artificially inject nuance where it might not belong just so his answers to things sound softer than they should be. Whether he wins or not, I think a major candidate speaking bluntly about financial and economic reality is good for the country.
It's funny though, his foreign policy is what people in the foreign policy bizz (military. ME) actually want. I can totally confirm this.
I was just in training for two weeks with a bunch of ground pounding Army guys. I, being Air Force, am very far away from the whole combat thing. I sat around about 10 soldiers talking about Ron Paul's foreign policy for HOURS. We talked about blowback, we talked about sovereignty, we talked about HORRIBLE conditions. These guys are gone for 18 months in the majority of cases. I talked to a Sergeant that has been in the Army for 9 years. He has been in the desert for SIX of those years. And he has a wife and children! He has been in Iraq, Saudi, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Korea. We are fighting so many wars and spending so much money that even our own military is tired of it.
I must admit, Ron Pauls foreign policy is the only reason I am taking your bet, Chris. It has people excited. People actually believe that we can strengthen our country with these guys at home and further rescue our economy with the money we will save taking care of OUR country for a change.
I certainly understand the appeal, I just think that a good deal of our foreign policy
is taking care of our country, just in less direct ways. But I get the appeal, I really do. I'm not in the army (thank you for your service, by the way), but my country's been at war for about 40% of my life now, so there's certainly a foreign policy fatigue there. I just think he goes too far with it. I don't think real isolationism is even possible, let alone wise. It's one thing to say we should wrap-up what we're doing, but it's another to say we should have next to no interest or presence in all these places.
I think Ron Paul would be a lot more dangerous (as a candidate, I mean) if he moderated this a bit, and perhaps proposed a less dramatic cut in defense spending. I think the country is absolutely ready to recede from some of these theaters and even cut the defense budget a bit, but I don't think they're going to accept a full-scale withdrawal of the sort Paul is talking about.
For instance, his stance on Iran during the last debate. You have to actually read more about the blowback he briefly mentioned to understand where he is coming from. He is actually totally correct on that issue, but the media flipped it over and called him crazy for it.
I think they called him crazy for his conclusion. He may be technically correct about our past with Iran, but I don't think that validates his current position, which is basically: who gives a crap if Iran has nukes? I'm not sure how one would go about defending that position. It definitely matters if a rogue nation has them. Particularly one that pops its head up every few months to remind everyone that it thinks Israel should be wiped from the map.
Paul's answer to this is generally that the only reason anyone has a problem with us is because we're "over there" in the first place, but there are very relevant, modern examples of this not being true (like Iraqi sanctions), and it would seem to require a
total isolationism. And it also ignores instances where the world presents to us--as it inevitably does from time to time--a situation where isolationism looks morally untenable, and I don't know what Ron Paul does in that situation. Ignore it?
McCain hit him on this pretty hard, Godwin be damned, in one of the '08 debates when he raised the spectre of Nazism and how it fits into this sort of worldview. Paul didn't really answer, he just sort of shook his head and the debate moved on, but melodramatic as it may be considered to bring up the Nazis, I think it was a fair point.