Hello everyone On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan said: > I don't know about your side of the pond but here in the US we seem > to be swinging to the right again. It is interesting how we seem to > alternately elect leaders that are either brilliant thinkers (Bill Clinton, > Barrack Obama) or complete nincompoops (George Bush, George > Bush). Now the right is looking at the likes of Sarah Palin, Tim > Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich as possible presidential candidates next > year. Kind of scary when you think about it. But, this too shall pass... > > Matt: > I don't talk about politics much, but my perception is that Bush, Sr. > was at least as smart as Clinton, though neither one had the > visionary scope of Obama (so saying Clinton is a brilliant _thinker_ > seems wrong, though he was a brilliant political tactician).
Dan: Remember though, Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. And, yes, since his Presidency ended, he's positioned himself as one of the leading voices in America. Matt: >Bush, Jr. > isn't the obvious idiot that Palin is (but God, who is?), but he was > very lazy and incurious, which are very bad qualities for an > executive. The closest analogue to Bush, Jr. isn't his dad, but rather > Reagan--he was smart, but neither that smart nor discerning, and a > mere mouthpiece to whomever he was most recently convinced by > (before he married his conservative wife and started working for > GE, he was a liberal). Dan: I can agree with that although Reagan was (more likely than not) suffering from dementia even while he was in office, so it seemed just a bit cruel to pick on him. But I admit that I did nearly write Reagan instead of the double Bush. As for Bush Sr., I don't know. It is almost as if he wasn't even there. I don't know if he was simply attempting to carry on the Reagan years or whether he genuinely didn't know how to handle a political policy of his own. And Dan Quayle as his running mate had to rank right up there with Sarah Palin! Of all the well-qualified candidates out there and he had to pick Danny boy? Come on! >Matt: > I don't think Palin will ever recover from the (correct) national > perception of her as an idiot. We could only (cynically and crassly) > hope that either her or Michelle Bachmann are on the final Republican > ticket, because unlike Palin who is simply motivated by power, > Bachmann is sincerely a right-wing nutjob, but the country will not > vote in someone who doesn't just bow at the waist to religious > extremism and Tea-Party racist anarchism, but believes and > espouses it. Gingrich, like Palin, is motivated by power, but he > didn't bow low enough and tried to sound Presidential and > reasonable too soon, so I don't know if he'll ever recover. Tim > Pawlenty is too cream-corn to care about: he's a light weight like > Dan Quayle was. He'll bow appropriately and he'll do whatever the > smart folks want him to. Scary enough, but he doesn't have the > charisma of Reagan, so he'll never be a powerhouse. Dan: Michelle Bachmann has so many skeletons in her closet that I think she scares even the staunchest right-winger tea-party-ers. And I agree with you about Gingrich... he's kind of shot his wad already and it's doubtful he can recover. >Matt: > I bet it's going to be Romney. If he can bow low enough to the > extremists who run the table at the Primaries, he'll also get the > votes of the politically smart, who see he's got a centrist enough > pedigree to get "independent" votes: reasonable people who think > that experimenting with different styles of health care can't be all > bad. And he's basically got the backs of the rich, so they'll love him. Dan: Yes, Romney is certainly the frontrunner right now and would be formidable candidate running against Obama, no doubt. Whether or not he has the stones to make it that far remains to be seen. >Matt: > There's a few dark horses out there, I hear though, that might swoop > in and steal thunder. The field is so terrible right now, that I wouldn't > be surprised if a smart, respectable politician we haven't even heard > inkle yet wins. And for this person, they will not make the mistake of > going crazy (Palin, Bachmann), because we already saw how a VP s > election can bring down a campaign. Dan: Well, I think McCain knew his campaign was outgunned and over-matched by Obama's; the picking of Sarah Palin as his running mate could be likened to a drowning man grasping at a straw. What I don't think he realized at the time was how his pick would put such a complete and utter idiot right smack dab into the middle of the national spotlight. And I wouldn't count her out just yet... McCain made her day. Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
