The Republican
The US presidential election is finally starting to get interesting. Which is why I'm writing two blog postings in a row about it.
The current party in power (the Republicans) have been hurt badly by President Bush's extreme unpopularity. So the President has to distance himself from this election, knowing that if he offers his support for one of the Republican hopefuls (which is what the outgoing President normally does), he'll probably end up ruining that candidate's chances of winning.
The Republicans have two mainstream candidates, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. One of them will almost certainly get the final nomination and go on to the actual election next year. On "the issues", these two are actually pretty much the same--the only real difference I can see between them is that Giuliani seems to be a genuine asshole. In fact, if I have to watch him snigger and roll his eyes one more time when one of the smarter candidates says something, I think I'm gonna smash my computer screen.
I know this is a strong statement to make--but I actually think Rudy Giuliani would be an even worse president than Bush was.
Generally speaking, I do not agree with any part of the typical Republican platform. What amazes me, though, is that there IS a Republican whose ideas I like. I like them a lot, in fact. His name is Ron Paul, and he claims that his platform is the "real" Republican platform--the one that hasn't been watered down and changed unrecognizably over the years.
And I think he'd make a great President.
So does that mean I might actually be a Republican? I find that a little hard to believe. I've always thought of myself as a staunch liberal, and until now I would never have considered supporting a Republican candidate. But if I was able to vote in the US next year, I have to say, I would honestly consider voting for this man.
Of course, the US media--especially Fox News--is terribly unfair to Ron Paul. He has genuinely good ideas, yet they treat him and his candidacy like it's a joke. This open letter does a great job of describing exactly what I'm talking about--and it also has some great videos of Ron Paul speaking around 30 IQ points higher than all of the other candidates.
Unfortunately, it's exactly this tendency to use honest, intelligent, direct arguments that will probably kill his chances of winning the Republican nomination.
