» posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 9:46 pm by Andy D
Welcome to 2012 and the Presidential Race!
I hope you and your family had a safe holiday. I also hope you are ready for the official kick off of the 2012 Presidential race!
As I write this, I am watching Fox News’ coverage of the Iowa caucus. Up until tonight, all of the media coverage has been on campaign happenings, and polls. Now those will still be covered, but the real will also be some real voting to affect candidates. As the weeks start to pass this year,there will be more and more of these caucus and primaries. We are going to finally see something other than polls!
I am lookingforward to the primary and thepresidential race. I am sure it will be exciting, and I wonder how many people will actually be able to pick the Republican nominee after tonight. I do feel comfortable making this prediction: the top three winners will stay in the race, the next three will stay in the race, the rest may not.
filed under President 2008 | 3 comments
Gerrit said:
Jan 05, 12 at 3:17 amRomney won Iowa with less than 10 votes margin, that must be a record when it comes to extremely close results. But Iowa has a somewhat strange voting system, New Hampshire and Florida should probably give more insight in whose chances are realistic to be nominated for the actual presidential elections. Seems Romney has the best odds for now to be the challenger to Obama, although –I am not sure if this sentiment is somehow echoed in the States– on many international political boards I see people openly expressing their hopes on Ron Paul becoming the president.
Not sure what to think of him. I support his stands on capital punishment (but he doesn’t seem to want to enforce his personal views against it on any state), I support his non-interventionalism and opinion to end the Cuba embargo (although I hope he says that with respect for Cuba’s choice of government rather than with underlaying hopes to “imperialise” the island), and he seems to be a very well qualified person when it comes to economy. He’s one of the few candidates to have mentioned the federal reserve in debates.
On the other hand, there is the issue that by the end of his first term (should he be elected) he’d be 80 years old. Also, I somehow have the feeling that the man is really neither a Republican nor a Democrat in heart and just allies with one of both because third party candidates generally have little chances of success. But he doesn’t seem to fit the profile of neither the Republicans nor the Democrats.
Romney for now has the best odds in becoming the challenger for Obama it seems, probably Santoro will not get many votes in more secularised states, and Perry seems to face a large gap (compared to Romney) which may be impossible to overcome.
Gerrit said:
Jan 11, 12 at 4:16 amAndy, just a question I’d like to hear your personal opinion about.
What is your opinion on Ron Paul as a potential candidate (be it as the Republican nominee or as a third party candidate)?
Here in Europe we obviously only get a shortened version of the race for the White House, only highlights rather than full debates etc. But according to the press Paul is winning more and more votes especially amongst young voters such as university students. The Europeans who claim to have insight in US politics (I don’t want to include myself in that group, for all clarity) claim Ron Paul is being censored by the mass media but would be a blessing for the country due to his loyalty to the Constitution and economical policies.
Since you obviously have a much more detailed view on things than us here across the Atlantic: is it correct that Paul is a serious candidate for the White House? What is your personal opinion on him?
(PS: I have read up a bit about him and he does have some good ideas it seems. Ending the Cuba embargo, not interfering with foreign countries whenever possible, trying to repair the economy of the US itself as main focus, … that comes across as quite good. But then as I said, we in Europe obviously get shortened versions of the events so I don’t want to claim to know Paul’s backgrounds well enough to make a totally fair judgement)
Andy D said:
Jan 11, 12 at 4:31 amI don’t think Ron Paul ever had a real chance at the nomination. He did well yesterday in the New Hampshire primary, but Ron Paul has some very extreme ideas. He knows a lot about economics, and I think he might have the best ideas when it comes to the economy. However, he would like to do away with 4 federal offices if he were to when the Presidency (which I support), and he wants to pull all US troops back to the United States from every military base in the world. This would include soldiers that are serving at bases in allied nations. I think that’s just looney. I think those two ideas make him unelectable.
Paul isn’t really a Republican either. He’s a Libertarian. I think Libertarians have some very interesting domestic policies, but by and large I think their foreign policies are extremely unrealistic.
He does have the support of a number of young people, and most of his supporters are very, very loyal. However, I don’t think he ever had enough support to win the nomination.