{"id":1013,"date":"2011-09-14T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:37:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:37:24","slug":"here-come-the-republicans-sigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/here-come-the-republicans-sigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Here Come the Republicans. (*sigh*)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ve watched the Republican debates. Yes, I have strong opinions about them. Yes, I\u2019ll write about them. Don\u2019t rush me.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m so reticent to talk about Election 2012. It\u2019s not that I hate the non-Huntsman candidates \u2013 it\u2019s just that I have absolutely no enthusiasm for them. Nothing in these debates has changed that. I find I\u2019m rooting for Romney, so I must still be a Romney guy. I do think he\u2019d make the most competent president, but that\u2019s hardly the fire in the belly that creates the do-or-die loyalty to stirs men\u2019s souls. (Vote Romney! He\u2019s competent!)<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s start at the bottom, shall we?<\/p>\n

Every time Little Jonny Huntsman opens his mouth, I want to throw something at the TV screen. Our erstwhile governor touts his jobs record and his state\u2019s accomplishments as if he actually noticed such things were happening at the time. In fact, Jon Huntsman all but ignored the business of his office and abandoned Utah at the first opportunity. (In his defense, he\u2019s a great example of what people can accomplish when their governor gets out of their way.) When he touts his \u201cprivate sector\u201d experience, I wonder if he\u2019s speaking of his work at Marie Callendars when he was in high school, because that\u2019s the last real job he\u2019s had. He was appointed to be ambassador to Singapore in his twenties, and his very rich pop got him appointed to a string of equally meaningless positions until he ran for governor in 2004 and won on the basis of his father\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, when he called Rick Perry a traitor because he thought a massive fence along the border was an unworkable idea, it was delightful to watch the paranoid smile that crept over his face as the audience booed him. This man reeks of entitlement, and I have to admit that it\u2019s kind of fun to see him getting his teeth kicked in for the very first time.<\/p>\n

Ron Paul is a colossal embarrassment. When he\u2019s talking about subjects unrelated to Federal Reserve conspiracies or the sins of the United States, he\u2019s actually refreshingly blunt and almost reasonable. His response to Wolf Blitzer about charitable health care was thoughtful and inspired. But when he starts questioning Israel\u2019s right to exist and regurgitates Bin Laden talking points about the cause of 9\/11, you have to wonder who let this guy loose to mingle with actual people.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, is there a non-laughable reason they let Rick Santorum continue to participate in these debates? He\u2019s earnest and heartfelt, but he\u2019s just extra noise, and the time he sucks up would be better spent hearing from people who actually have a snowball\u2019s chance in hell of being elected president of the United States.<\/p>\n

Herman Cain is just extra noise, too, but his noise is more fun to listen to than Santorum\u2019s is. He\u2019s got no shot at all, but he\u2019s honest and funny. He reminds me of Morry Taylor, another rich dude who didn\u2019t realize that America isn\u2019t willing to use the presidency as an entry-level position into politics. (If you said \u201cwho?\u201d when you read the name Morry Taylor, keep in mind that that\u2019s exactly what everyone will say in two years when you say the name Herman Cain.)<\/p>\n

Then we get to Newt Gingrich.<\/p>\n

Alas, Newt makes the most cogent points, the most reasoned arguments, and the strongest case against Obama. If I were coming in from Mars and didn\u2019t know that Newt had served divorce papers to his wife while she was dying of cancer, and that he\u2019d been having an affair with his soon-to-be third wife while he was criticizing Clinton for the Lewinsky mess, he would be my guy, hands down. He\u2019s easily the smartest guy in the stage, and he might actually have had a shot if he\u2019d kept it in his pants.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m told Michelle Bachmann is a nutjob. She may very well be a nutjob, and, like Mary Kaye Huntsman, she\u2019s married to a self-loathing, closeted gay man. She\u2019s said really stupid things on the campaign trail \u2013 Hooray! I was born in the same town as a serial killer! – but she keeps her own nuttiness in the closet in these debates, and I find myself not despising her. Her attack on Rick Perry for forcing dangerous cervical cancer inoculations on 12-year-old girls was far more powerful and heartfelt than Romney\u2019s cynical attempts to do the same. Perry has essentially coopted her Tea Party support and removed any reason for her candidacy, but I don\u2019t resent seeing her on the stage in her long-shot attempt to undermine Rick Perry\u2019s inexplicable lead.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to Mr. Perry.<\/p>\n

I honestly don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

So this is the Tea Party darling. Why? \u00a0He took a number of very reasonable positions in the Tea Party debate that should tick off the loons. His immigration stance isn\u2019t nearly screwball enough to satisfy the TPers, and when he had an opening to stick the knife in Romney for Massachusetts health care, he refused to take it. I actually found myself in the awkward position of agreeing with him more than almost anyone else and yet loathing him more than any of the candidates except the two bottom feeders. (In case you\u2019ve forgotten, that would be Huntsman and Paul.)<\/p>\n

Why? Is it because I\u2019m so loyal to Romney that I viscerally despise the guy who may take the nomination from him?<\/p>\n

Well, maybe. But one of the things that is so frustrating is to see how unprepared Perry seems on most of the issues. He\u2019ll say things that are relatively reasonable, but he sounds as if he\u2019s just thinking about them for the first time. He\u2019s timid; he\u2019s clumsy; he\u2019s strangely low-key. And yet he manages to display his lack of preparation with an arrogant swagger that I find extremely off-putting. Mr. Perry, what right do you have to act so sure of yourself when you\u2019re clearly not so sure of yourself? (Mrs. Cornell, incidentally, quite likes Mr. Perry and thinks I\u2019m just jealous that I don\u2019t look as good in cowboy boots.)<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Mitt. He\u2019s a much better candidate this time around, and he has yet to be caught flat-footed by anyone. He gives as good as he gets, and he even manages to fake looking passionate about it. I just wish I believed that he believed in anything.<\/p>\n

So, as of now, I\u2019d be willing to vote for any of the top six candidates before I\u2019d vote for Obama, who I view as a well-intentioned but failed president. I have no real enthusiasm for any of these folks, which makes election season far less fun. However, in the event that either Paul or Little Jonny secures the nomination, I will spend the next year and a half as a full-time, rabidly enthusiastic, unpaid volunteer for the Obama reelection campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"Yes, I\u2019ve watched the Republican debates. Yes, I have strong opinions about them. Yes, I\u2019ll write about them. Don\u2019t rush me.I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m so reticent to talk about Election 2012. It\u2019s not that I hate the non-Huntsman candidates \u2013 it\u2019s just that I have absolutely no enthusiasm for them. Nothing in these debates ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5016,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/5016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}