Why Do You Support Him?

Many on the right view Obama and what he has done and what he is attempting to do as an existential threat to this country, but not all of them or even maybe most of them. For many on the right, this is just another election – a chance to replace a Democrat President with a Republican. I believe it's easy to see this by looking at the Republican candidates and their standing in the polls. To a certain extent, you can tell by what you see in the primaries, from the TV coverage and to a degree, by how the candidates conduct themselves.
By in large, there is no discernable sense of urgency or depth of concern perceptible from the voters interviewed on TV. Those TV commentators who aren’t openly hostile to all Republican candidates, have accepted that the nominee is going to be the “establishment” choice. Hell, even the term “establishment” candidate is thrown around as if it were a totally passive term. Rush freaking Limbaugh, for crying out loud, has even joined the parade.
So my thought is; maybe the existential threat that I'm afraid of doesn't really exist. Maybe the direction this country is headed won't really lead to decline and fall. Perhaps the $15 trillion plus debt isn’t unsustainable at all. What if all of the DOOM crap that we have been hearing is really just so much hysteria?
If this is the case, then of course, the candidate whose life and professional record is reflective of a person who will say anything and do anything to whomever and whenever as long as it results in a win for him, this candidate is a harmless choice. We know that he will work with the other side to get things done that both sides want and that the labels conservative or liberal in the grand scheme of things are really not that relevant. In the end, we are members of a group and he is the choice of the ‘establishment’ of that group. Going along with the establishment makes the group more cohesive. As long as the country isn’t in any danger, what's the harm?
So things are pretty bad, but not that bad. We didn’t get here through any fault of a single party, after all. So a candidate who was a member of the institution that got us here – an insider if you will – that candidate wouldn’t be a bad choice either. Even if he used his connections to that institution as a basis for enriching himself wouldn’t be that bad. That's how the system works. The problems have evolved over time and it will take time to fix them. We should just let the system work.
So what if we were to choose a social conservative with a less than conservative history of voting in congress? As long as there is no need to focus on existential problems this person would fit right in. Many people feel that a return to traditional values is long over due and would be good for this country and like I said, if the economic future of the country isn’t at stake, this would be a good thing.
But what if those who think that this nation truly faces an existential threat are correct? What then? Would choosing any of those candidates still make sense?
Look, I don’t pretend to be absolutely right about this, but to me, given the circumstances this country and the world find themselves in, we should be certain that we have a solid basis for selecting the candidate who would have the best chance of saving this country or at least preventing its continued decline.
It’s obvious if you have read up to this point, that I am a Perry supporter and I believe I have a strong basis for that support. But let me go down the list of candidates and give, what I believe to be, a fair assessment of each candidate's strengths and weaknesses.
First Romney. Romney possesses some strong attributes such as the fact that he turned the Olympics around when they were facing really catastrophic economic circumstances. This, by anyone’s standards, was a major feat. He has also had stellar success as a venture capitalist and he was Governor or Massachusetts. One might include that he is very wealthy if that is a criteria that makes sense to evaluate. That to me is pretty much it. Now for the negatives: Many people would give Romney credit for being a successful Republican governor of a strongly Democratic state. But how did he do it? He did it, in my opinion, by giving his ‘opponents’ everything they ever wanted. I would have to say that Romney was one of the most successful Democrat governors that state has ever had. From this, and his work as a venture capitalist, Romney appears to be all about success – his success – and damn any other consequences or considerations. It is clear that Romney will work with the left to get things done, but would he work against the left to undo things if it meant that he wouldn’t be able to put a ‘W’ up in the win column? I have my doubts. He is the establishment candidate. Most people see that term as neutral, at worst. I don’t. I think that the establishment thrives in the status quo and to me, the status quo, at this point in time, sucks.
Gingrich – Newt, regardless of how he wants to portray himself, is an insider. He is student of history and political genius, in my mind. He knows how to operate within the system because he helped make it what it is. With Newt, it’s harder to separate his negative attributes from his positive ones. The fact that he wants to portray himself as an outsider tells me that like most politicians, he has no issue with deceit. Being a student of history, the fact that Newt recognizes this time as historically significant could work to his favor. He might actually do the things that need to be done so he can go down in history. Newt also knows how to work within the system. He made a lot of money out of politics by leveraging that knowledge. My fear of Newt is whether he’s in this for history; for going down in history as President, not necessarily a good or a bad President. Is he in this for the benefits that accrue to the holder of the office? We all know that win or lose, Newt will write a book about this experience. If he is elected, he’ll have material until the day he dies. There is some good and some bad in all of this, but for me, the fact that Newt’s character and his ethics have been called into question on multiple occasions, I simply can’t bring myself to trust that he will do the right things.
Santorum – Santorum was a liberal Republican senator from a highly Democrat state. He’s also a strong social conservative. Santorum bills himself as the conservative choice. That’s good – as long as you think that we need a strong social conservative as President and as long as you think that social conservatism will cure the ills that face us. His voting record as senator was liberal. Santorum to me, is the candidate that I like least in this election. As a liberal Republican, he lost in a landslide to his rival in PA which to me signifies that even the moderate Democrats had serious issues with the way he represented them. For me, Santorum is the wrong man, with the wrong record, at the wrong time.
Paul - Ron Paul would be my second choice in this election. He has a reputation as being off the rails on a lot of issues. For anyone who has really researched his positions on issues, they will know that his positions are significantly mischaracterized. Let me give you an example: His position on Israel. For me as a Jew, this is more important than it may be for many non-Jews. His position is that we should not be giving Israel the more than $3 billion annually that we give them in aid. From his critics, this is all that you know about it. What they don’t tell you is that he believes that giving this aid to Israel at the same time we are giving $20 billion a year to Israel’s enemies, is screwy policy. To me, it's hard to find fault with that. He has other more Libertarian positions on issues that appeal to me as well that make him a better choice than any of the other candidates except for one.
Perry – I’ll start with his negatives. Gardasil – most people fault him as a big government interventionist on this issue. Maybe he shouldn’t have sought to make it manditory. But I, and I think many others who have seen how cruelly cervical cancer kills women, can understand why he might have taken this position. The next negative is that people see the Texas version of the dream act as a program totally at odds with Republican doctrine. That position is indefensible in my opinion. The people of Texas, a huge majority of them, wanted it. Anyone supporting state’s rights should not be at odds with it. Oh - I almost forgot. Perry can’t debate. Perry can’t answer largely irrelevant questions from moderators who for the most part, want to portray all Republican’s as either radical, out of the mainstream, or kooks. I would have liked him to have performed better, but the truth is, Perry, speaking extemporaneously about relevant issues, without practice and without the aid of a teleprompter, is unrivaled in his ability to speak to them. Nobody in the field, with the possible exception of Gingrich, can touch him. Perry has had more than a decade of “vetting” by the media and by his rivals, and he is unassailable. Period. His character is unimpeachable, as are his ethics. The most important consideration to me is for this time especially, his record of success governing Texas, a state with a world class economy that is performing extraordinarily well while the economies of states and nations around it flounder.
That’s it. That’s my assessment of the candidates and that is my basis for my selection.
What’s yours? Is the basis for choosing your candidate sound? Is it fair? What is influencing your decision?
All I am saying is this: If you truly believe this country is at a crossroads in its history, then it’s my opinion that you owe it to yourself and those that come after you to have a sound basis for supporting your candidate.