Georgia's early/advance voting started yesterday. Although I posted on Facebook saying I would probably vote for Mitt Romney due to him being the most electable of the four remaining Republican candidates, I'm not a Romney fan by any stretch of the imagination--I think he's ignorant on some issues (when commenting on an arms-control treaty, he made some comment that sounded like he thought ballistic missiles were fired from bombers) and prone to changing his views based on convenience. It's certainly possible he changed his views on abortion, for example, as a result of genuine conviction, but given the timing (i.e. running for the nomination of the national GOP, which is much more anti-abortion than the Massachusetts electorate), I'm skeptical.
In 2008, I was a Ron Paul supporter, but Paul's opposition to the bin Laden raid, a comment he made about how the troops would come home faster if their air-conditioning was de-funded, and the possibility he was not being honest about his role in the bizarre newsletters that went out under his name in the 1990s made me rather leery of him. Plus, even though I believe in smaller government, he takes it a bit too far and there will definitely be the perception of him as a radical. However, the candidate I came to support--Jon Huntsman--fizzled.
However, Rick Santorum is too socially conservative to win the general election, while Newt Gingrich has the whole "marry-cheat-divorce-remarry repeat" thing going. However, based on this poll, which is a composite of other polls, it's going to be one of them who wins Georgia when the primaries come on March 6.
If Romney was likely to win Georgia, there's a good chance I would have voted for him since the more states Gingrich or Santorum win, the more likely they are to get the nomination and get destroyed by Obama in November. However, one of those two is going to win Georgia barring some kind of last-minute Romney surge or Gingrich/Santorum implosion and so it's time to think strategically.
At this point, I think Paul and his people know he can't win, but the goal is to get so many delegates that he can have an influence on the party platform. That's something I can get behind--if some Paulite positions like not attacking Iran get made part of the platform, that will be both good for the country and will strengthen the nominee against Obama. Since Georgia is not a winner-take-all state, my voting for Paul could help him get a delegate here and there.
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Newt's Space Comments and the Military-Industrial Complex
While campaigning in Florida, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has been a vocal proponent of space exploration, to the point of promising a permanent American moon base by the end of his second term. Here is one article describring what he's been doing.
I'm not one of those people who thinks we cannot have space exploration because we have poor people at home, home being our own nation or other countries on Earth. There are enough places where there's wasteful spending already to cut to free up money for space-related stuff without reducing funds for things like literacy, AIDS prevention, etc. Farm subsidies come to mind, while the government could take the "weed is illegal but enforcing marijuana laws are not a priority" route that wouldn't save as much as full-blown legalizing it would but would cut some costs.
However, the U.S. financial situation is so dire with the debt and deficit being as huge as they are that the amount of spending needed to build a lunar colony, even a small one like the research stations in Antarctica, would be massively unjustified. The American Colonies weren't founded "just because," but for economic or ideological reasons. The Puritan colonies in the north were founded by people who wanted to create a godly society far away from the Church of England, Georgia to give debtors a new start, Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics, South Carolina as a slave-based agrarian center, the French colonies in Canada to buy furs from the Indians, etc..
Much has been made of the Moon as a possible source for He3 to feed fusion reactors (the film Moon depicts an oil-rig-like colony mining He3 for this purpose), but we don't have that type of fusion yet and might not for quite while. Viable fusion always seems to be 40-50 years away and although I'm an optimist where scientific progress is concerned, one must be realistic. Fusion occurs in nature in the stars, but that doesn't mean it would be easy or cheap to do here on Earth.
And I'm not aware of any religious or cultural groups that want to establish their own ideal society far away from everyone else who've got the scientific training and resources needed to actually do it. Let's remember how dangerous this will be, especially given the recent laming of the American space program. One thing goes wrong in an attempt to establish a new Zion on the Moon (say a meteor smashes the greenhouse or the cosmic-ray shielding isn't thick enough) and the people back on Earth will be watching everyone up there die and be unable to do anything about it.
So not right now, Newt, however awesome it would be to do it.
However, thinking about the whole "space versus the poor" scenario has got me thinking. Many areas in the United States are poor due to industrial decline. The decline of the automobile industry is one of the reasons why Detroit is so awful. Georgia's political representatives have pushed for continued production of the F-22 fighter, despite us already having nearly 200 of them and very little that can face us in the skies, due to Lockheed being a major employer in my neck of the woods.
Some more left-wing people have claimed the U.S. government uses military spending as a kind of Keynesianism, to create jobs and keep the economy going. I admit being ideologically prejudiced against that kind of argument (it smacks of the U.S. being unable to sustain itself without an artificially-large war machine and international responsibilities to justify it), but given the defense of the F-22 program by Georgian politicians, I really can't argue against that being true in at least some cases.
So here's a thought for the long run. Instead of a military-industrial complex that with the defeat of fascism and Communism is no longer as necessary, how about orienting as much of it as possible to a space-industrial complex?
Lockheed, for example, was experimenting with a single-stage-to-orbit called the VentureStar that was canceled after running into some problems. If there was more demand for such technology, I imagine they wouldn't abandon it so easily. After all, it's (potentially) jobs and money that might not be so readily available if there are more defense cuts.
And then there's the space elevator, which would cause launch costs to drastically decline. If you're going to have space-Keynesianism instead of war-Keynesianism, this could lead to jobs in and around centers where materials research is conducted. The LiftPort Group, for example, managed a smaller-scale elevator test on Earth before deciding to focus on a lunar elevator for the time being. They're also engaged in other materials-science research that will bring immediate profits while allowing them to focus on their long-term goals.
Gingrich suggested prizes to provide incentives for private entities to work on this rather than simply increasing federal spending. This makes sense, given the financial constraints everyone is operating under these days and the slowness of many government agencies. The Ansari X Prize has shown promise. However, let's not forget that the Manhattan Project and the goodies that have emerged from the National Labs were government programs as well.
I'm not one of those people who thinks we cannot have space exploration because we have poor people at home, home being our own nation or other countries on Earth. There are enough places where there's wasteful spending already to cut to free up money for space-related stuff without reducing funds for things like literacy, AIDS prevention, etc. Farm subsidies come to mind, while the government could take the "weed is illegal but enforcing marijuana laws are not a priority" route that wouldn't save as much as full-blown legalizing it would but would cut some costs.
However, the U.S. financial situation is so dire with the debt and deficit being as huge as they are that the amount of spending needed to build a lunar colony, even a small one like the research stations in Antarctica, would be massively unjustified. The American Colonies weren't founded "just because," but for economic or ideological reasons. The Puritan colonies in the north were founded by people who wanted to create a godly society far away from the Church of England, Georgia to give debtors a new start, Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics, South Carolina as a slave-based agrarian center, the French colonies in Canada to buy furs from the Indians, etc..
Much has been made of the Moon as a possible source for He3 to feed fusion reactors (the film Moon depicts an oil-rig-like colony mining He3 for this purpose), but we don't have that type of fusion yet and might not for quite while. Viable fusion always seems to be 40-50 years away and although I'm an optimist where scientific progress is concerned, one must be realistic. Fusion occurs in nature in the stars, but that doesn't mean it would be easy or cheap to do here on Earth.
And I'm not aware of any religious or cultural groups that want to establish their own ideal society far away from everyone else who've got the scientific training and resources needed to actually do it. Let's remember how dangerous this will be, especially given the recent laming of the American space program. One thing goes wrong in an attempt to establish a new Zion on the Moon (say a meteor smashes the greenhouse or the cosmic-ray shielding isn't thick enough) and the people back on Earth will be watching everyone up there die and be unable to do anything about it.
So not right now, Newt, however awesome it would be to do it.
However, thinking about the whole "space versus the poor" scenario has got me thinking. Many areas in the United States are poor due to industrial decline. The decline of the automobile industry is one of the reasons why Detroit is so awful. Georgia's political representatives have pushed for continued production of the F-22 fighter, despite us already having nearly 200 of them and very little that can face us in the skies, due to Lockheed being a major employer in my neck of the woods.
Some more left-wing people have claimed the U.S. government uses military spending as a kind of Keynesianism, to create jobs and keep the economy going. I admit being ideologically prejudiced against that kind of argument (it smacks of the U.S. being unable to sustain itself without an artificially-large war machine and international responsibilities to justify it), but given the defense of the F-22 program by Georgian politicians, I really can't argue against that being true in at least some cases.
So here's a thought for the long run. Instead of a military-industrial complex that with the defeat of fascism and Communism is no longer as necessary, how about orienting as much of it as possible to a space-industrial complex?
Lockheed, for example, was experimenting with a single-stage-to-orbit called the VentureStar that was canceled after running into some problems. If there was more demand for such technology, I imagine they wouldn't abandon it so easily. After all, it's (potentially) jobs and money that might not be so readily available if there are more defense cuts.
And then there's the space elevator, which would cause launch costs to drastically decline. If you're going to have space-Keynesianism instead of war-Keynesianism, this could lead to jobs in and around centers where materials research is conducted. The LiftPort Group, for example, managed a smaller-scale elevator test on Earth before deciding to focus on a lunar elevator for the time being. They're also engaged in other materials-science research that will bring immediate profits while allowing them to focus on their long-term goals.
Gingrich suggested prizes to provide incentives for private entities to work on this rather than simply increasing federal spending. This makes sense, given the financial constraints everyone is operating under these days and the slowness of many government agencies. The Ansari X Prize has shown promise. However, let's not forget that the Manhattan Project and the goodies that have emerged from the National Labs were government programs as well.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Ron Paul Rises In Iowa
A couple of interesting articles this morning I found this morning, one via Twitter and one via my home-page.
Paul gears up for long primary slog
Paul stuck through for the entire process in 2008, although his impact was minimal at the end of the day. However, this time around he's got more money and the recent economic crisis will have bolstered his credibility. I heard some talk radio host last night who said it was possible Paul could win Iowa, which leads into my next article...
Paul strength may help Romney in Iowa
This could be a problem in the long run, since if all the people in the GOP who don't want a Romney nomination split between too many candidates, Romney will win the nomination by default. On the other hand, Romney losing a state to a candidate many Republicans deride as having no chance would be a major black mark on his record.
It'd be really interesting if nobody wins a majority of delegates and we get a brokered Republican convention. According to the Wikipedia, there hasn't been a brokered convention in decades.
Who knows? Maybe that'll be Huntsman's chance to shine, since although he's been trying to run to Romney's left, his actual governing bona fides are downright Reaganite in economics, which the Republican Party as a whole is likely go for, while his more socially-liberal views will make him more acceptable to the American electorate as a whole.
(Those who disagree should check out The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How The Democrats Can Win Without the South. Really hard-core social conservatism is not going to be a winning issue in the long run, at least on the national level.)
Plus Paul might get some of his more useful views incorporated into the GOP platform. I doubt it'd be anything radical like the gold standard, but stronger opposition to pork, a more restrained foreign policy, etc. might be doable.
Paul gears up for long primary slog
Paul stuck through for the entire process in 2008, although his impact was minimal at the end of the day. However, this time around he's got more money and the recent economic crisis will have bolstered his credibility. I heard some talk radio host last night who said it was possible Paul could win Iowa, which leads into my next article...
Paul strength may help Romney in Iowa
This could be a problem in the long run, since if all the people in the GOP who don't want a Romney nomination split between too many candidates, Romney will win the nomination by default. On the other hand, Romney losing a state to a candidate many Republicans deride as having no chance would be a major black mark on his record.
It'd be really interesting if nobody wins a majority of delegates and we get a brokered Republican convention. According to the Wikipedia, there hasn't been a brokered convention in decades.
Who knows? Maybe that'll be Huntsman's chance to shine, since although he's been trying to run to Romney's left, his actual governing bona fides are downright Reaganite in economics, which the Republican Party as a whole is likely go for, while his more socially-liberal views will make him more acceptable to the American electorate as a whole.
(Those who disagree should check out The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How The Democrats Can Win Without the South. Really hard-core social conservatism is not going to be a winning issue in the long run, at least on the national level.)
Plus Paul might get some of his more useful views incorporated into the GOP platform. I doubt it'd be anything radical like the gold standard, but stronger opposition to pork, a more restrained foreign policy, etc. might be doable.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
One Area Obama Holds An Insurmountable Advantage Over Gingrich
Here are some thoughts I recently had about the electability of Newt Gingrich. Don't get me wrong--I think Gingrich is a very smart man and if he were to win the Republican nomination, I'd probably vote for him.
That being said, for Republicans interested in nominating a candidate who can beat Obama in 2012, there is one area where Obama has an insurmountable advantage, and that's the much-vaunted area of family values.
Barack Obama's personal life.
Newt Gingrich's personal life.
It would be very hard for Newt Gingrich to run as a candidate strong on family values with a personal life this...complex. Especially since it's more than just adultery-divorce-remarriage-repeat--in a book I bought when I was in school entitled Inside Congress, on page 133 of the 1997 Pocket Books edition, it describes how poorly Gingrich provided for his then-wife and two daughters while they were legally separated. A local church had to start a collection to pay for the family's utility bills. Gingrich was paying $700 per month to support his family and $400 per month on his food and dry cleaning alone.
All Obama needs to do is show he has been married to and remained faithful to one woman since 1992 and there have never been any problems providing for the children and Gingrich will take a major hit. Especially since Obama has not come from an especially stable family himself--see this article by none other than Bill O'Reilly--and yet he has managed to avoid perpetuating the cycle of dysfunction that often plagues unhappy families.
Now, as a consequence of my religious views I'm a big believer that even the most evil people can change. Gingrich has, among other things, converted to Catholicism, which is a fairly big break from his earlier religious background and something that likely cost him political support. If this represents a genuine change of heart, God bless him.
However, though God will forgive a sinner who repents, actions still have consequences, and his prior behavior has made him very vulnerable in certain areas. Gingrich might make a better Cabinet official or chief of staff or general purpose eminence grise for whoever ends up winning the GOP 2012 nod rather than as the candidate himself.
That being said, for Republicans interested in nominating a candidate who can beat Obama in 2012, there is one area where Obama has an insurmountable advantage, and that's the much-vaunted area of family values.
Barack Obama's personal life.
Newt Gingrich's personal life.
It would be very hard for Newt Gingrich to run as a candidate strong on family values with a personal life this...complex. Especially since it's more than just adultery-divorce-remarriage-repeat--in a book I bought when I was in school entitled Inside Congress, on page 133 of the 1997 Pocket Books edition, it describes how poorly Gingrich provided for his then-wife and two daughters while they were legally separated. A local church had to start a collection to pay for the family's utility bills. Gingrich was paying $700 per month to support his family and $400 per month on his food and dry cleaning alone.
All Obama needs to do is show he has been married to and remained faithful to one woman since 1992 and there have never been any problems providing for the children and Gingrich will take a major hit. Especially since Obama has not come from an especially stable family himself--see this article by none other than Bill O'Reilly--and yet he has managed to avoid perpetuating the cycle of dysfunction that often plagues unhappy families.
Now, as a consequence of my religious views I'm a big believer that even the most evil people can change. Gingrich has, among other things, converted to Catholicism, which is a fairly big break from his earlier religious background and something that likely cost him political support. If this represents a genuine change of heart, God bless him.
However, though God will forgive a sinner who repents, actions still have consequences, and his prior behavior has made him very vulnerable in certain areas. Gingrich might make a better Cabinet official or chief of staff or general purpose eminence grise for whoever ends up winning the GOP 2012 nod rather than as the candidate himself.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Ron Paul Ad Criticizes Newt Gingrich
I'm all for people changing their positions based on evidence rather than being inflexible and rigid, but based on the stuff about money, I think Newt's approach to many of the issues herein is not based on examination of the evidence.
(I'm thinking the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business and health-care. I don't think the people who believe global warming is human-caused and a problem have got the money needed to sway him.)
Newt is smarter than the average bear in the Republican field at the moment and I'd support him over Paul (due to the bin Laden raid) and Romney and would probably vote for him over Obama, but this isn't a good sign at all. And given he has written alternate-history fiction (something I'm interested in), that's saying something.
And Ron Paul's ads have gotten better. When I supported Ron Paul in 2008, I remember a really goofy television ad featuring a bunch of people who really couldn't act sitting around a restaurant, with one of them rather unsubtly saying "I'm going to vote for Ron Paul." In TVTropes terms, Narm.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Mitch Daniels: A Good Republican Choice for 2012
I've been pondering the possible Republican nominees for 2012 and here are some thoughts:
Firstly, a candidate who is too socially-conservative is not going to be a contender nationally. Although I admit a bias against social-conservatism-as-government-policy, it's not just my personal distaste coming into play here. American demographic trends are against social-conservatism.
http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/u-s-transforming-into-majority-minority-nation-faster-than-expected-20110331
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/pew_research_center_values.php?nr=1
And those are just magazine articles. The Emerging Democratic Majority
and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South
also corroborate this position.
Huckabee, Palin, etc. will probably win the South and Midwest, but they will probably lose urban areas and due to increasing urbanization in the United States, they will be doomed. Look at Clinton's 1996 victory-map--Dole won the "heartland" and still lost. Bush nearly did so in 2000 and McCain did lose in 2008.
Now, this does not mean I am suggesting the nominee not be socially-conservative personally. A president who lives their values as opposed to paying lip service to them while violating them in private (Gingrich and Vitter come to mind) would be much better for the cause of social-conservatism than trying to use the government to impose these values on a society that increasingly rejects them and provoking a backlash.
Secondly, Republicans should nominate a candidate who can be taken seriously. It is very hard for me to take Sarah Palin and Donald Trump seriously as politicians due to them being reality-TV stars, despite other accomplishments they may have had.
(I'm thinking more about Trump when I say that, although I'm not going to hate on Palin as being a "quitter" like some leftists will. She quit because defending herself against her political enemies' lawsuits cost the state money--the same people calling her "quitter" are the ones whose behavior led to her resignation in the first place. My beef with Palin has to do with her misreading part of the health-care bill and getting the "death panels" meme started. If that comes out in a debate, she's dog meat.)
Furthermore, Trump is a Birther or is at least pandering to them with his "I'm sending investigators to Hawaii" routine. I don't think conspiracy-theorists are going to do well in the general election--look at how people look down at the John Birch Society, for example.
Also, the candidate should not be too inexperienced. I rather like Bobby Jindal, but I don't think he's experienced enough quite yet.
Right now, I'm thinking Mitch Daniels would be the best candidate. As governor, he turned around the financial situation of the state of Indiana and his call for a truce on social issues should help make him more electable at the national level. I notice some similarities with Ron Paul, although Daniels seems to support the drug war (he cites his own arrest for smoking weed as a college student as a good thing, or at least he did in 1989).
Getting him through the Republican primaries, however, could be rather problematic. The "truce on social issues" thing has already gotten a lot of people upset.
Firstly, a candidate who is too socially-conservative is not going to be a contender nationally. Although I admit a bias against social-conservatism-as-government-policy, it's not just my personal distaste coming into play here. American demographic trends are against social-conservatism.
http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/u-s-transforming-into-majority-minority-nation-faster-than-expected-20110331
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/pew_research_center_values.php?nr=1
And those are just magazine articles. The Emerging Democratic Majority
and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South also corroborate this position.Huckabee, Palin, etc. will probably win the South and Midwest, but they will probably lose urban areas and due to increasing urbanization in the United States, they will be doomed. Look at Clinton's 1996 victory-map--Dole won the "heartland" and still lost. Bush nearly did so in 2000 and McCain did lose in 2008.
Now, this does not mean I am suggesting the nominee not be socially-conservative personally. A president who lives their values as opposed to paying lip service to them while violating them in private (Gingrich and Vitter come to mind) would be much better for the cause of social-conservatism than trying to use the government to impose these values on a society that increasingly rejects them and provoking a backlash.
Secondly, Republicans should nominate a candidate who can be taken seriously. It is very hard for me to take Sarah Palin and Donald Trump seriously as politicians due to them being reality-TV stars, despite other accomplishments they may have had.
(I'm thinking more about Trump when I say that, although I'm not going to hate on Palin as being a "quitter" like some leftists will. She quit because defending herself against her political enemies' lawsuits cost the state money--the same people calling her "quitter" are the ones whose behavior led to her resignation in the first place. My beef with Palin has to do with her misreading part of the health-care bill and getting the "death panels" meme started. If that comes out in a debate, she's dog meat.)
Furthermore, Trump is a Birther or is at least pandering to them with his "I'm sending investigators to Hawaii" routine. I don't think conspiracy-theorists are going to do well in the general election--look at how people look down at the John Birch Society, for example.
Also, the candidate should not be too inexperienced. I rather like Bobby Jindal, but I don't think he's experienced enough quite yet.
Right now, I'm thinking Mitch Daniels would be the best candidate. As governor, he turned around the financial situation of the state of Indiana and his call for a truce on social issues should help make him more electable at the national level. I notice some similarities with Ron Paul, although Daniels seems to support the drug war (he cites his own arrest for smoking weed as a college student as a good thing, or at least he did in 1989).
Getting him through the Republican primaries, however, could be rather problematic. The "truce on social issues" thing has already gotten a lot of people upset.
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