Tuesday March 6, 2012 is Super Tuesday. It refers to the date when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to designate the allocation of delegates for the relevant party’s national convention.
I live in one of those states and I’m registered as an independent voter, although in the state of Tennessee you are not required to vote in the primary of your identified party allegiance.
On Tuesday I’ve decided to help the Republican party help chose a candidate. There are currently four candidates left on the ticket but honestly unless something drastic happens before Tuesday, this is a two candidate contest but here are my thoughts on some of the candidates.
I know there are a lot of Ron Paul supporters and they believe he and his message are being marginalized and I think they’re right but honestly if he wanted to truly make the difference he keeps going on about he would have abandoned the entire two party structure and run as a true independent. I think my libertarian friends faith in Mr. Paul as their champion is more than a little misguided. The most fundamental tenet of libertarianism is free will, the right of the individual to do as they please. With this in mind how can the libertarian champion run on campaign supporting curtailing individual’s reproductive and sexual rights?
Where to begin with Mr. Santorum, the obvious joke here would be nowhere that involves any sort of modern thinking on sexuality. There is currently a list of the 10 dumbest things that have been uttered by Rick Santorum and in an effort to be fair, I did some research just to make sure they weren’t being taken out of context and for the most part they’re not. What puzzles me about Santorum and his supporters is how much their moral agenda resembles the same Sharia Law that they purport to be afraid of.
This leaves us with the current front runner for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, Mitt Romney. Before Mitt started pandering to what is passing for the Republican faithful, I think he had a chance with moderates, independents and people on the fence about the current president. In another election cycle with the party removed from the blinding insanity that is likely to destroy them he would be a fantastic candidate, if they let him be himself. Well as close to being yourself as getting elected will allow.
I believe the Republican party is continuing to shoot itself in the foot by pandering to the margins with every passing day in this election cycle someone utters something that sends another potential voter scrambling for whatever the party is not. Hopefully both parties will continue to pander the margins leaving enough of us in the middle to have sensible conversations and make real progress.
Libertarians are strong believers in the non-aggression principle, meaning we believe you should be able to do as you please so long as you don’t hurt anyone else. That’s why we believe the government shouldn’t be able to prevent you from doing drugs, but that murder should be illegal. So even for a libertarian the abortion issue all comes down to what you believe an unborn baby is. If you believe a baby is a human being with the same rights as a person who has already been born then you’re going to support anti-abortion laws, at least at the local level. Just wanted to offer some clarification!