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.
After close to a decade of disenfranchisement, I have the opportunity to vote in the 2012 US Presidential election and by my thinking my choices are severely limited.
Even when I lived in Trinidad I found it difficult to vote along party lines and in the last elections I had a chance to participate in, I ‘wasted’ my ballot with none of the above pencilled in. I long for a representative system that pays more than lip service to representation. I remember reading about a prefecture somewhere that appointed representatives in a jury duty type system – you get called up, you serve for two years, at the end of the term there is someone new. limited opportunities to get entrenched and greedy.
In what is fundamentally a two party system, both sides have become entrenched and greedy. I’ve observed previously that in order to get elected nationally you require a vast amount of money and in order to get that money you’re going to have to start compromising. Either in the beginning by whose money you accept or once the election is over, what is owed to your major contributors.
Currently the Republican party is attempting to find a candidate that they believe can beat Barrack Obama. Looking at the candidates that remain I’m yet to find one that appeals to my values as a voter or doesn’t completely scare me with their beliefs.
why would you spend close to or over $2B, that’s $2,000,000,000 for a job that pays $200,000. there is a fundamental flaw in logic there plus if you think about it for too long you realise at some point, that various makers that make up that money will come due.
these are the thoughts that prevent me from getting to excited this election cycle.
