The debt ceiling and the fifth labor of Heracles
I was at a dinner party last night at which several intelligent and opinionated people were asked to speak about matters of the moment, including presidential politics (Who? Who?) and the debt ceiling.
Two things saddened me about the former: 1) several people suggested that the Republican to back was the one who was most effective in attacking President Obama; and 2) the person who fit that bill was Mitt Romney.
I think that’s wrong on both counts. In the first place, when it comes to presidential elections, the line to hum is “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.” The successful candidate will be the one who wraps whatever criticisms he makes in the pleasing integument of a positive vision. Bonus points go not to the person who mounts the most telling attack but the one who presents the most creditable alternative.
In the second place, the idea that Mitt “Mr. Establishment” Romney is the best placed candidate is (as I suggested in this space before) laughable. One eminent commentator last night (sorry, Chatham House rules, so no names) commended Mr. Romney because, unlike Barack Obama, he has “experience” and understands business. Well, the president certainly lacked experience running anything other than a political campaign, but more worrisome is his incompetence. Experience accretes naturally with time. What is wanted is insight, understanding, and wisdom, qualities that are gifts of talent, not longevity.
Mitt Romney looks good. He is a successful businessman. But what, aside from RomneyCare™ (aka ObamaCare avant la lettre) does he have to offer? What, for example, does he think about the debt ceiling? We don’t know. He hasn’t said. What specific spending cuts would he suggest to help rein in the deficit? We don’t know. He hasn’t said. The list of things Mitt Romney hasn’t weighed in about would fill a campaign. Several people were impressed with his zingers about President Obama during the recent debate among aspirants for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire. Some of them were pretty good. But what, apart from deprecating the president’s behavior, does Mitt Romney have to tell us? He has been irritatingly equivocal about the disaster that is RomneyCare™. And we know almost nothing about what else he has to offer for the simple reason that he hasn’t offered anything else. (“Oh, but he wrote a book,” replied one Romneyoid last night: and what, apart from the usual content-less bromides, do you find there, pray tell?)
As I said in my earlier reflection on the former governor of Massachusetts, he is a company man when the problem is the company. What is wanted is not a more efficient Washington insider. What is wanted is someone who understands that a large part of our problem is the hothouse culture in which the Washington inside has taken root and thrived. Romney would not change the culture of Washington; he would cater to it, manage and massage it.
In a way, though, the prospect of a Romney administration is an abstract worry. Of all the chief Republican contenders at the moment, he is the one least likely to win. Romney represents a slightly more adult version of business-as-usual than does Barack Obama. He diffuses a more adult tone. But he and Obama are cut from the same bolt of bureaucratic cloth. And if it is business-as-usual you want, why not stick with the pro? Romney would be our Bob Dole, the default establishment candidate whom the voters would eschew — Johnny Mercer again: “Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”
I found it depressing that several distinguished guests at that party could trot out the name of Mitt Romney and believe they had given us something new or at least vital. Mitt Romney is a congeries of yesterday’s establishment Republican — well, I was going to say “clichés,” but so far what he has offered us doesn’t rise to the level of a cliché, which may be tired but at least is something definite. Mitt Romney has tone but no substance. Reality has a way of exposing emptiness and shedding an unflattering light upon equivocation, which is as close as Mitt Romney has come to articulating a policy about any of the critical issues we face.
Which brings me to the topic du jour, “the debt ceiling.” Our host last night apologized for raising the topic. Adults, he acknowledged, really shouldn’t have to spend time pondering such residua of political fecklessness. But the critical issue, as John Hinderaker put it at Powerline, is not the debt ceiling but the debt. And the debt problem, as he observes, “is a spending problem.”
Mitt Romney is analogous to a Soviet apparatchik in the 1980s. Equipped with industrial-strength bureaucratic tunnel vision, such a fellow might have concluded the solution to the USSR’s problems was to build a better TV set… while American entepreneurs (not equipped with tunnel vision, bureaucratic or otherwise) were creating computers and opening up the internet.
Mitt is Conventional Wisdom; very conventional, infrequently wisdom.
Mitt Romney cannot win the Presidency, because he would not have the support of the Republican base. Conservatives are done with RINOs and the Ruling Class.
Anthony Codevilla’s book The Ruling Class speaks for a great many Conservatives.
Sorry, Angelo Codevilla
The name is Angelo, not Anthony.
How the one republican candidate who can’t attack Obama on Obomney care becomes the one best suited to beat O’Spuknik mystifies.
Geez Roger, what do you want? Just tell Romney what you want. You want a conservative? He can be a conservative. You want a big government statist? Well he can be that too. You hate RINOs? He hates RINOs. He will be the anti-RINO. You love RINOs? He will be your RINO. Hell, he will be both. He will be your very own anti-RINO RINO. Just tell him what you want. You want a man that will stand by his convictions? Just tell him what convictions you want him to have and he will do it in a flash. You are being much too hard on the guy.
Very funny BB and spot on!
You don’t mean to say that he’s a blank canvas, upon which people of varying political stripes can project their hopes and dreams?
Mr. Bart (or may I call you Black?),
You and Roger are both guilty of being too kind to Mr. Romney, but at least your version of “too kind” is more accurate than Roger’s.
Funny, too.
I think you meant “Hercules”, but cleaning the Augean Stables is an apt comparison with what needs to be done on Capitol Hill
I had the same thought. So from Wiki:”Heracles is Greek, Hercules is Roman. Pronounce Heracles just how it looks”
There’s a name for the disease somewhere, but for now, suffice it to be called Romney-itis.
Mitt has to be viewed as one of many who seek great office (motivation notwithstanding) but on the surface, at least, is transparenly lacking in character and principle or strong position-preferring instead to say what he believes the crowd wants to hear,that he might gain their approval at the ballet box.
When in a conservative state seeking a conservative job, he morphes quickly into a conservative. When he runs in Moscow west (Massachusetts) he morphs instantly into a far left progressive.
All well and good, until he becomes a POTUS-now he has no identifyable constituancy, but many. Now, no one group can hold him to being what he claimed to be-which is all things to all people. Now he can be whatever his heart tells him to be, and that’s the core problem -he has no identifiable heart (like Obama. Nothing is more dangerous than an unprincipled man running this nation -and those well–groomed smooth-talking,plastic, dime-a-dozen, presidential candidates are just that -unprincipled men.
Character matters -Mitt lacks it. Skill can be assembled in a cabinet, but wise moral judgement must permeate from the top of the office.
Sarah Palin on the other hand, has proven principle and character coupled with a proven ability to say what needs to be said -often at odds with her own party. It is she that America needs most desperately -to cut through the game of politics as usual, plastic programmed presidents can’t do that.
Romney has only won one election, and that was for one term as Governor of a far left state. He financed much of his 2008 Presidential campaign and one only one primary. Just what is impressive about this man? He is the Establishment’s best hope of fooling the conservatives once again.
Romney believes in mandated heath care and global warming. Two positions that are at odds with much of the base and seem to side with the “redistributive” inklings of the small c communists now in power.
For a front runner, he makes a good shadow. He hides in plain sight. He stands for nothing, apologizes for none of his stances, explains none of his positions, heralds no new ideas, broaches no new subjects, creates no new waves, evidences no new ripples.
He is the lake at dusk, faintly touching and receding from the shore, smooth as polished granite on top, relentlessly present and putting us to sleep with a gentle nothingness that is safe and familiar.
He enters the ring not as a feared gladiator, but as the tomato can who throws an occasional pillowed jab at his opponent, clinches often, ducks, bobs, weaves…and mainly tries not to get hit…hoping to be standing at the end, to win on points.
He is less a champion of anything or anybody, much less. He wants to be everyone’s second choice.
“If I can’t have ‘X’, I’ll settle for Romney”.
To do this, he has to give no offense and take none. And, take more positions than the Kama Sutra. This is why he often sounds as if he is for and against something in the same breath.
Now, it is true that any sane person (this automatically eliminates the far left) would vote for a pepperoni pizza before a second term for Obama, so being the last one standing at the end of the U.S. Open qualifying tournament (also known as the Republican primary, where anyone from Walter Mitty to Don Quixote can apparently apply and be taken seriously)is not completely inane as a political strategy.
But in a time and place where we need a hero to step out of the shadows, we get another ever lengthening shadow as the sun sets on what was the greatest nation the world has ever known.
“He is the lake at dusk, faintly touching and receding from the shore, smooth as polished granite on top, relentlessly present and putting us to sleep with a gentle nothingness that is safe and familiar.” Priceless.
More of a description of Obama who’s polish tingles legs. Putting us to sleep and tingling our legs are both both affects of the mindless.
Bob Dole! That’s it. No Thanks.
That, to the Ruling Class, is a feature, not a bug. Romney is the Republican Obama, the best that they can get in a year when Barky will be sent back to being a small-time Chicagoland
thugcommunity organizer.In my opinion the spendaholics have finally been cornered. By the tea party? No (tho they have been vindicated!) By Boehner suddenly finding some intestinal fortitude in an office closet? No.
It is Moody’s et al that is saving us from ourselves. Reid’s astily cobbled “plan” will not satisfy them and they must be satisfied! Neither the D’s or R’s can afford the humiliation of having our debt downgraded. (Some may recall the the bond markets forced Clinton to raise taxes early in his first term which he was able to do because the economy was growing nicely.)
Romney stinks.
And, the ONLY thing he has to offer is that he doesn’t stink as bad as Democrats stink.
Massachusett is a democratic one party dominated state with more corruption than Louisiana in it’s hey day. The few remaining “conservatives” in the state are long sufferring and chasented. Their name for their former Governor is “Mittens”. Which is not a compliment. I doubt “Mittens” could even carry Massachusetts in a Presidential election.
“What, aside from crafting the prototype to ObamaCare, does the former MA governor have to offer?”
His love of Draconian gun control laws.
Perry/Bolton
Tomp,
You’re onto something. Bolton would make a good VP choice if the Candidate at the top of the ticket was weak on Foreign Policy experience…. which is most of the field.
Great. You want a statist-at-heart wearing conservative clothing as President, and for VP a guy who has no track record outside of foreign affairs.
Bolton would be a good choice for Secretary of State.
Perry is a Trojan Horse.
Mitt Romney is another RINO and NOT a conservative. Last time we went with a RINO in 2008 it was McCain, and we lost big time. Do we REALLY want to do that again? Go with a real conservative and we will actually have a chance in 2012. Romney is the candidate the Democrats WANT to face, not a real conservative like Palin or Bachmann. If we get a real conservative to run and make the whole election about Obama’s horrific record (like Reagan did to Jimmy Carter in 1980), we will win.
Pain is personal. The majority of the voting public have not experienced the pain of mismanagement but, as they’ve read about it, they do fear it. Cuts in services and government sponsored programs promise personal experience of that pain – if not now, then in the future. As the great unwashed can’t be convinced by logic and, in any case, are too dumb to understand the issues – ergo, there’ll be a second term.
During which the President’ll be able to redistribute to his heart’s content. But it won’t be wealth, it’ll likely be pain as his economic chickens come home to roost. No need to stand in line, though, there’s enough fair shares to go around!
But maybe that’s a good thing because there can’t possibly be a third term built on similar foundations. And, who knows, it’ll likely be a period of Pax Conservativus during which to have dreams and aspirations on how to be an American will again be encouraged with government as the enabler and not as the definer.
If the Pubbies offer Romney in 2012 the party will go the way of the Whigs.
Romney =s RINO. Any Republican candidate who is a believer in global warming, Romneycare/Obamacare, and gun control is not the man we need running the country and appointing SCOTUS justices.
Romney is another pretty boy, slick, establishment candidate.
Because corralling the beast that is the federal government is like herding cats we need to make two much smaller boxes for two constitutional provisions. Reformulate the power to regulate commerce among the state to match the power to regulate commerce among foreign nations and Indian tribes. There are three entities subject to the same power in the same provision of the same article, but the power doesn’t match up between entities. Match them. Then we need to force congress to make all bureaucratic rules that apply to the public. Bureaucratic legislation is an abrogation of congressional power. The bureaucracies can and should make their own administrative and inter-managerial rules. But nothing they make a rule for should require anything of a citizen. That is congress’ job.
Equating Romney and Obama is rather foolish. I would far prefer a different Republican nominee that Romney. I rather doubt he’ll win the nomination. If he does he will enjoy my enthusiastic support, as will anyone else selected by the Republican party. It is all well and good to work as hard as possible to get a real conservative as the Republican nominee, trashing our RINOs along the way. But lets all remember the damage the Obama administration has already done to this great nation.
Come summer of 2012, we can not stay home, nor just hold our noses and vote; We must work as hard as humanly possible to elect the Republican to the White House, and as many Republicans to the Senate as possible. This coming election is for all the marbles. Obamacare MUST be repealed in 2013. We MUST push a balanced budget amendment through the legislature in 2013. We MUST reform federal regulatory agencies in 2013. We MUST cut real spending, not just spending growth, in 2013. Most of these REQUIRE that we control both houses and the WH. Do I want a conservative in the WH? You bet. However far more important is to get a REPUBLICAN in the WH, who will sign legislation.
“Come summer of 2012, we can not stay home, nor just hold our noses and vote”
I am sorry but Romney is a bridge too far for me. I have held my nose so many times my face is blue. All indicators are the GOP will strengthen their hold on the House and take the Senate in 2012. Seeing what happened with Bush II, divided government is better than having another Bush-like GOP POTUS for a possible 8 years.
romney is a liberal. Can anyone name 3 positions of romney’s that are different from obama? He passed his own version of obamacare, he believes the insane global warming crap and is in favor of the cap and tax system of destroying energy production, he is a big government statist. A president romney would be very similar to the marxist obama. Elitist big government types in the gop, and the marxist democrat party, like him because he would continue to support (give confiscated money from American citizens) the leeches of DC.
Mitt Romneycare is an AGW beleiving RINO who wants to be the first Mormon president, pure and simple. He wants to be the first “Mormon-American” president, same as Bolshevik Barry was the first African-American president.
Bolshevik Barry is by far the most corrupt, venal, childish man-child to occupy the whitehouse. Hey, AA’s: How’s that workin out fer ya? Barry is sittin high eatin’ $100/oz Wagyu steaks and drinkin’ $300 bottles of wine. What be you chompin’ don on bro?
Maybe if a brother gets whacked by one of those gunrunner fast-and-furious guns, your ox will get gored? It’s OK though: he’ll just print up some Obama money for the hood and it’ll be OK. You can put on the leathers and go intimidate some honkeys at the polls: Eric Holder says it be OK. 19 out of 20 AA’s helped vote this piece of Marxist excrement into office. Well Hallelujah and send the coal trucks to Mount Rushmore! Don’t have a job? Awwww. Too bad for you. My heart is just pumping unicorn p*ss and my *ss is just s**tting skittles while I watch you morons waiting for your Obama money. What’s that? He gonna pay my mortgage, gonna put a chickin in my pot, he’s gwine to make whitey pay!
Romneycare’ll put on whatever set of beliefs that he feels will get him elected. Now, I don’t give a s**t about his religion, but does anybody think that the come-to-Jeezus Bible-thumpin’ Christers who believe in Gawwwd are going to vote for this man? Myself, I would vote for a slimy used condom before I would vote for Barry the Bolshevik. But not the Holy-Rollers. (BTW I am a bitter clinger, I believe in God, not Gawwwwd, I believe in Jesus, not Jeeeezus. I just don’t Huckabee my relijjin’ down the world’s throat.)
I hope the party of stooooooopid can put up someone besides the Mormon McCain.
I will vote for Obama before I vote for Romney. At least with Obama I will know what to expect.
Romney won’t take a stand on the current debt crisis until he sees which way the wind is blowing. He has made a few things clear. He is for gun control, is on Algore’s global warming hoax bandwagon, and is for state control of healthcare. He is for the things that are repulsive to conservatives.
On the positive side, he has a great smile that he wears just about all the time while in public. But then, so does Alfred E. Neuman
Romneycare told me all I need to know about Mittens, so I have zero interest in him. For my money, if Rick Perry would get off the pot and sign up, the election would be in the bag, but I’m beginning not to care for his foot-dragging tease either.
Here we go again. The democrats pitch a slow, soft one to the republicans and the republicans strike out. Watching the republican’s cantidates is like watching the clown show at the circus. The difference between Obama and Romney is a half empty bucket of white paint. Hmmm I must be a racist to say something like that.
The best and most qualified for the job are apparently too smart to throw their hat in the ring for the presidency. Really, who would want that job? If it were up to me I would press them into service in this order; Thomas Sowell and Allen West. Highly intelligent men who are practical and of excellent character.
Oh wait, I forgot, I am a racist. Who then?
You obviously don’t run in a working class circle. Romney appeals to those with establishment ties or those who after the last election were saying that the republicans needed to seek the center more. In other words, idiots.
A fine essay from Mr. Kimball. However, does not the fault lie with us? For decades, we the citizenry have demanded more and more government benefits and ever lower taxes. Our lawmakers, always sensitive to constituent demands, have obliged us by borrowing the difference. With that game now up, a serious, long-term, and determined effort to reduce government spending is in order. But will our fellow citizens, who are always so exasperated and impatient with a government whose programs they are so fond of, countenance such measures? Will they—would we—vote for a candidate who tells us that he would reduce Social Security benefits, increase the payroll tax and raise the eligibility age? Or seriously rein in Medicare spending and require us to pay more for our health care? How would Americans feel when it is proposed that a vast number of government programs, useless or redundant or both, be eliminated? Can we agree that student loan programs should be seriously cut? And what about overdue reform of public pensions, whose outsized benefits are too generous to be sustained? And what will be the response when our much beloved military, with branch offices worldwide, is told that they simply cost too much, and that their “pensions,” many of which are now taken at age 42, should be taken much later in life and at reduced amounts? Finally, since no one thinks we can successfully address the problem of our national debt without raising taxes—revenue, if you prefer the euphemism—are we ready for that news? In short, are we as Americans really, truly ready to hear some hard truths, and will we vote into office politicians, now out of easy answers, who will act on them? I wonder.
What bothers me the most is that the Republican establishment seems to blindly follow what the liberal pundits proclaim about the electability of Republican candidates. It reminds me of the old Uncle Remus story about Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Oh please, Brer Fox, don’t throw me into the Romney patch–anything but that!
Remember how Ronald Reagan was “unelectable?” Palin, Bachmann, and Perry are getting the same treatment. And the conventional RINO response is to throw the Dems into the briar patch. Sad.
I thought, in 2008, that Mitt was an acceptable – and better – alternative to John McCain. He wasn’t my first choice, but he would have been a better campaigner than John though we might have never heard of Sarah Palin if Mitt had won the Primaries.
And there lies the rub, it is more and more obvious that the most qualified candidate presented to the American People in ’08 was the Governor of Alaska, and she could very well be the most qualified candidate this cycle if she decides to engage.
We need someone with some Maggie Thatcher “steel” to right this rowboat!
In September of 1994 Newt Gingrich announced the Contract with America.
At that time Mitt was enjoying a Lead over Theodore Kennedy in the race for a Massachusitts Senate Seat.
Mitt’s first response to the ‘Contract with America’?
“That’s the House, I’m running for the Senate!”
That told me EVERYTHING I will ever need to know about Mitt.
No Vision, No Backbone!
He chose the SAFE answer.
And, of course, the more he distanced himself from the Contract, the lower he sank in the polls.
He still plays the game to “Not Loose” rather than “To Win.”
I am also convinced, based on his record in Massachusitts, that Mitt will not be a force to Alter the Course of America rather than he will Manage the Mess made by Democrats better than the Democrats will.
We don’t need better management of doing the wrong things, we need someone who will stop doing the wrong things.
So the fact that Mr. Romney’s experience in business, where he takes over failing businesses and makes them profitable again, is totally discounted by what YOU “think” he’s going to do.
MA was going to have universal health care no matter who was in charge. Maybe just maybe it would have been 10 time worse had he not figured out something most people could live with. I don’t know why we’d want someone who can put together a team of experts and solve problems and who understands that when you lead a group of people not all of them are going to agree with you, so you have to come up with ideas that the majority can get behind.
No please lets field an intolerant, inflexible, inexperienced (in business) candidate. That’s worked so well in the recent past. Or even better a doormat, PC influenced, naive, optimist, that’s also was a winning combination.
Are you speaking of Mr. Cain?
“Business experience” is a complete red herring. The federal government of the United States is not a business, the President of the United States is not a CEO (at least if you read and believe in the Constitution).
We aren’t looking for someone to “run the county” that is the root of the problem we find ourselves in, a succession of Presidents who tried to “run the country” and chipped away at the balance of power provided in the Constitution.
The President is the chief law enforcement officer and cnc of the military, not a dictator to decide where and when that military is deployed nor what laws will or won’t be enforced.
A principled and unshakable defense of the Constitution is the ONLY thing that qualifies someone for this office. . . and it certainly isn’t Mitt (Yes I love Massachusetts’ strong gun laws) Romney.
“What, for example, does [Romney] think about [fill in the blank]? We don’t know.”
What we know about Romney is uninspiring, deeply concerning (RomneyCare, et al) or both. What we don’t know about Romney is deeply concerning, plain and simple.
I’m not seeking perfection but really, ObamNey?
If this is the best candidate the Rs can field then they will have lost the election long before Nov 2012 rolls around. They will have sealed our near-term fate, and the country will endure (or not endure) four more years of Obambastic.
Which raises these logical questions: Can the Rs survive a screw up of this magnitude? Can the country?
Close the primaries, or we are going to end up with another Dole or McCain.
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
Don’t just close them. ELIMINATE THEM.
At least, in their current form.
Answer me this:
Since a political party is a PRIVATE entity, not a government entity (you did know that, didn’t you?), why on earth should taxpayers foot the bill for this private entity to select someone to nominate for political office?
Don’t just come back with something like, “Well, how ELSE are we going to do it?”
Answer the question. As a matter of principal, why are taxpayers expected to fund the activities of a private organization?
Romney looks like a president should look, calm, intelligent, strong, open and approachable, a quick comforting smile filling out a suit nicely.
LMAO, yes I agree, he should start making Holiday Inn Express commercials.
22. Jerry
Funny you don’t care about his religion -what a joke!
You would rather vote for this joke in office and he may have at least one and maybe 2 supreme court appointments. So we won’t need big zero any more he will do what soros has planned all along – to fundamentally change our country!
Romney would appoint conservative judges – and you can take that to the bank!
He is not my first choice – Rubio/West would be my ticket. If Romney defeats everyone in the primaries – I will surely vote for him over obama.
I think you who will vote for zero over Romney are de ms in disguise. Conservatives understand what will happen if obama has another 4 years without having to worry about another election.
What is the evidence to support your statement?
Romney has held exactly ONE political office, and EVERY act of his in that one office was off the left end of the scale. EVERY act.
So, aside from his voluminous and self-contradictory talk, what is the evidence to support your statement?
Facts, please.
I don’t like Mitt Romney. From the first time I heard him, I did not trust what he had to say. It’s not his religion, I’m not sure what it is. But I do not often have this reaction to a person, and I have learned to ignore it at my peril.
Sorry. Maybe I will figure out why, later.
Romney is not my choice, but if it is him against Obama, I will vote for him. The key in 2012 is to maintain the large majority in the House, and gain a sizeable majority in the Senate (especially if we can get a majority of good conservatives) – then Congress can pass bills that will repair the damage caused by 6 years of Dem control. Romney would just need to sign the bills. As Boehner said to Obama, Congress writes the bills, the President signs them. I don’t think (or at least I hope not) that Romney would veto a Republican-passed bill. I would worry more if he was President with a divided Congress.
If conservatives, or even the GOP gains control of both houses I would MUCH rather see Obama in the WH where he can do nothing than Romney who might be able to actually do some damage.
The next president’s fiscal policy will be of little importance, because if the government can no longer borrow it will finally have to cut. Indeed, I believe that this is the only way we will ever achieve meaningful budget reduction.
What will matter — a great deal — is the president’s philosophy with respect to nominations to the federal courts. In the debates they get a little question about SCOTUS, they recite the correct talking point, then move on. But it probably merits more vigorous and probing questioning. For example, will you have a litmus test, and if so what issues and positions will factor into it? Will you choose your nominee differently depending on which party holds the majority in the Senate? If you nominate a conservative who is defeated, what will be your next move? And so on. We might actually get some insight that way.
The worst-case scenario, and the most likely, is a cobbled compromise of half-hearted budget cuts, continuing (smaller) budget deficits, an economy that gets sicker and sicker, and a US that gets weaker and weaker. Taxes on anything that creates wealth will rise, and politicians will tip-toe around cutting the wasteful, snouts-in-the-trough stuff; they will slash things that don’t hit the hip pocket, like defense. Meanwhile, corrupt and brutal gerontocracies like China become even more assertive. What are the odds?
If you want to vote for a Mormon RINO, Jon Huntsman is a better choice.
If you want to vote for someone who can defeat Obama, Michele Bachmann is a better choice.
If you want to vote for a conservative, every single candidate for the GOP nomination is a better choice.
Trying to figure out who we should run against Obama? Try this test…
Which of these is not like the other…
Dole, McCain, Romney, Palin.
You have your answer.