The ground rules here are to list the negative things I would like to avoid in a candidate.
I’m not looking for someone “perfect”. Or someone that has to pass an all encompassing “purity” test. I just put the balance of positives and negatives on the scales and weigh them.
Some items are more important to me. If I believe you can’t beat Obama, that’s a disqualifier, for instance. If I believe you can’t articulate a clear sentence, I weigh that heavily against you. If I don’t believe a word you say, no matter how nice sounding, I won’t endorse your candidacy. If I think your “posse” includes neo-Nazi, Jew-hating, white supremacists….you’re toast with me.
What I don’t want in a presidential candidate are the following:
1) I don’t want someone attacks America as a foundational platform.
2) I don’t want someone who attacks the free market, capitalism for cheap political gain.
3. I don’t want to be lectured on how to morally live my life by someone who can’t lead by example.
4. My faith is a private matter, I don’t want to be converted to another faith. Lead and I may follow. Push, and expect pushback.
5. If you are blaming America for all the actions of her enemies, you are not fit to lead her or be Commander in Chief of her armies.
6. If you can’t string two sentences together without getting lost in a haze of rambling idiocy, you can’t speak as leader of the free world.
7. If you can’t comport yourself with dignity, grace, elegance, and stand above the deranged frittering of fanatical and rabid internet trolls, you are fit only to join them, not lead them.
8. If you think you are bigger than the presidency itself, than the country or its people, you are too delusional to lead any of them.
7. If you flutter from idea to idea with no grounding, no baseline, no stability, you are a danger to yourself and others if placed into a position of power. You will take yourself and us down an erratic and irrational path too often.
8. If you don’t understand the threat of a radicalized DOJ, the ACORN/SEIU dangers, the NLRB assault on the free market, the dangers of border crashing and organized crime that results from it, the unsustainable path of overloading the system with entitlement gunk…you can’t lead the country.
9. If you are afraid to take on the propaganda machine, you can’t possibly be brave enough to do the rest of the job necessary to carry the message forward.
10. You can change your mind, every rational person does…when presented with new evidence. It’s how often and for what reason that matters more. If you are constantly changing your mind, you aren’t making enough reasoned decisions in the first place.
11. If you are still promoting global warming hoaxes, you are completely lost on the issue and can’t see the dangerous hand of “redistribution” behind it. If you were once for it…and have not come out openly, clearly and unambiguously against it, you can’t lead our energy and natural resource advancement.
12. If you are for pork, earmarks and wasteful boondoggles, you are not serious about economic recovery.
13. If you were for the individual mandate and you still don’t understand how the small c communists are using tyranny to crush the free market, you can’t command the turning around of the ship, because you don’t have a firm grasp of the waters.
14. If you are not conversant on Fast and Furious, East Anglia, ACORN/SEIU, OWS, the Blank Panters voting booth intimidation case, recess appointments, czars and czarinas, Solyndra, the Himalayan icecaps…you can’t possibly understand where the threats to liberty, freedom and the Constitution lie. You can’t understand the tyranny and fraud…you can’t combat it. Being an out of touch cornball won’t cut it.
15. If you are a conspiracy nutjob, a “truther” or you see an “inside job” for 9/11, or for your rise and fall in the polls, you don’t have enough of a grasp on reality to do anything of importance. Like lacing up your own shoes.
16. Being shrill, thin-skinned, strident, loopy, getting into spitball fights and acting in a puerile manner shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind, if you are a Presidential candidate. Anyone can get irritated. Turning it into a diva vendetta is not for the leader of the free world.
17. Being a cheap shot artist, a guy who hits below the belt or has his lackeys and minions do it for him, is not only unseemly, it’s disgraceful. It cheapens you, the process, and the office for which you are running.
18. If the first instinct that comes to mind is “grow up”, “get a grip”, “chill”, “tone it down”, “ratchet it back”, “you’ve got to be kidding”, “are you serious”, “what did he just say”, “did you mean that”, virtually every time you open your mouth, your candidacy is on the wrong track.
19. If I can’t trust your handshake, I don’t want your signature. You want to form a contract with the voters, don’t spout empty platitudes and give us your verbal resume. I don’t care what you did in 1984, I want to know how your going to prevent us from living out the real life threat of “1984″
20. Don’t make a speech, make a difference.
So you’re supporting Santorum?
Santorum fails on 4 and 12 at least.
Not that the others don’t fail on several, but that doesn’t make Santorum something he isn’t.
Sadly is is going to come down to what we have to settle for rather than what we’d like.
On #4 I’d say maybe, maybe not. On #12, yeah, he probably fails. I’m not endorsing him, by the way. It was a lame attempt at being funny.
If you consistently say, “This is beyond partisanship, just do it my way” you are Bill Clinton, or any post-Clinton Democrat.
If all your opponents are extremists, it’s probably you.
If all your sentences are in the first-person singular, you should be locked up until the drugs and therapy start working.
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But I disagree with some of your points, #8 most candidates are at least borderline nuts, #17 cheap shots should be taken by appropriately remote lackeys.
If you don’t like Mitt Romney, just say so. Too bad Sarah Palin is politcally toxic. Of course, she got that way because she passes these tests, and consequently scared the hell out of the MSM. Come to think of it, ANYONE who passes these tests would have to be similarly destroyed.
I have said so.
Early and often.
And, I don’t buy your premise. Anyone who passes these tests would be a landslide winner against Obama. That’s the point.
I can think of a dozen people to put through Part I and Part II, who would come through with flying colors. If we have such low standards…or none at all…we can just swallow any crap sandwich that is served.
No, thank you.
I HAVE standards. I stated what they are…and aren’t…and I put the candidates up against them to be measured.
If they fail, and a dozen others pass with flying colors…I not only can…but SHOULD ask…why would I settle for abject failures …when brilliant options abound?
We ARE going to a brokered convention anyway. Why force through rejects, when the course correction is there to be taken?
Perfection would be someone passing every test. A great candidate would score above the 90% level. Why would we accept losers, flunkies, dimwits and bozo’s instead? If you don’t want to keep getting these crappy choices…stop accepting them as if you have no ability to demand better.
The door is open…and anyone who says that a brokered convention is bad for the party has an agenda. Or so I’ve heard.
I agree, such a candidate could win in a landslide. My “premise” is such a candidate would also cause the evil empire to mount an immediate effort to destroy them. Overt lying would definitely be part of their arsenal (amazing the impact the most ludicrous assertion can have). The MSM accomplished this in the character assassination of Mrs. Palin since 2008). I also hope for another choice beyond the current four. P.S. the first sentence was an attempt at humor.
One recurring theme seems to be a desire for an eloquent public speaker. Why? Jefferson was supposedly terrible at public speaking, yet his written work was arguably unmatched in our country’s history.
As for the desire to take on propagandists, once again, why bother? The smart thing to do is ignore them.
Regarding pork, boondoggles or earmarks, nearly every US chief executive in the past 200 years has signed budget laws each year with pork. Of course, in a strange twist of US history, I believe Barack Obama is the president that can claim to have signed the fewest federal budgets with earmarks. Simply because he has only signed one in his term (back in 2009).
What I don’t want in a candidate – a smear merchant
“…The smart thing to do is ignore them.” I believe that was Karl Rove’s advice to GW Bush. Mr. Rove has since regretted that advice.
If they aren’t for small-gov and fiscal responsibility and advocate a small-stick foreign policy then it’s also a deal breaker.
Good thing Paul is running.