If We Have to Have a Republican President Next Time, Who Would You Want In Office?
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
The trouble is that many (most?) of the true cons who seemed respectable have slunk away with their tails between their legs rather than confront the mob Trump created and the Dark Money that supports it.
What would happen if Kasich were to run as an independent? Which major party would be hurt most?
My assumption is that Trump-weary Rs and R-leaning Independents would be his base.
That won't happen, but as a thought experiment it's a measure of whether Kasich is a conservative.
Carry that thought experiment a bit further. Ask yourself what might happen if some moderate Dem were to run with Kasich as a unity ticket.
Say Amy Klobuchar. Perhaps she would draw D-leaning Independents and those moderate Dems disappointed by their party.
It's hard to imagine a 3rd party being anything more than a spoiler, but these are troubled times. Could a unity ticket reshape the political landscape?
Once the Rs were willing to nominate a Canadian-born Cuban, you might be forgiven for thinking that constitutional argument has become a joke.
It is amazing to see the suggestions on here. Virtually everyone suggested is a Beta. Just like the idiot we have now, BIden. Leadership comes from Alpha males, and pretty much nowhere else. Trump and Desantis are alpha males, everyone else is a pussy, which apparently appeals to democrats. We are confronted with potentially WWIII right now specifically because 80M idiots voted for wimpy Beta.
I have recently read a few books on Lincoln, who I think walks on water. I don't think he is your classic Alpha. He would wait for long periods of time at the house of Gen. McClellan to meet with him. He put up with tons of crap from McClellan.
Ron DeSantis is the only answer.
Intelligent, veteran, great leader, results
Intelligent, veteran, great leader, results
Honestly if Kasich ran as an independent it would likely just siphon votes from the Dem candidate.
Trump is so divisive that if you are planning on voting for Trump than no one who is conservative but less divisive is going to make you change your mind.
Kasich or Romney would likely only get votes from people who were conservative but anti-Trump and were going to either vote for the D or not vote at all.
Is there an alpha Republican who wouldn't be a disaster for America?
I ask these questions because I fear we are going to have Republican One-Party Rule starting in January 2025, and for a long time into the future.
If so, some of us need to be thinking about and maybe even helping to assure that the Republicans in charge are not the awful specimens we see now. So we need to know who the better ones are.
If you’re going to eliminate sociopaths and liars from running for office your list is non-existent. That applies to both sides of the aisle.
Might depend on how much money big business, Wall Street and Democrats are willing to pour into their campaigns.
I could see guys like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet backing a good R. Not necessarily because they want R government, but because they expect we'll have R government whether we like it or not. So they might put their money toward getting a Republican President they would like better than the guys supported by other plutocrats like Koch, the Meyers, the DeVoses etc.
A Baker-Hogan ticket could be strong, if not for the East Coast thing. Is there a good R governor in the Midwest?
There is not a single Republican I would want to see in the WH. The ones I could stomach aren't even regarded as Republicans now and they are no better than the pre-Trump GOP that ran on nothing but opposition to whatever the Dems proposed. There's not a one of them that has a plan for governing beyond shoveling money to the wealthy.
And yet, in 3 months they will control 2 branches of government, and will use that control to neuter the Executive branch.
Then in 2 years they will control all 3 branches of government. And the Dems won't even have a veto to protect America from their ravages.
So the choice isn't whether you want a Republican in the White House, it's which Republican we'd rather end up with in the White House. Given that that's almost certainly what's going to happen.
Alternatively, do any Dem/libs have any plan to hold on to the WH and maybe even Congress?
If you look at 538, there's basically no hope for the midterms. And red states are rapidly making their elections Democrat-proof.
That reality is staring us in the face. We need to shape it, not moan about.
Short of abandoning the Democratic party and voting en masse as Republicans, there is not one way to shape where they are going. They will NOT, left to themselves, nominate anyone approaching a moderate as a candidate for POTUS...period.
Which gets me back to an earlier point. Obviously we work to elect libs. But can and should we also work to try to make sure the best of the sorry R pool gets their nomination?
Might not work, of course, if it's just us peons in the trenches. Which is why I dropped names like Gates and Buffett.
If you, like @TJ8869, think Mass governor Baker would be a "good" R choice for America, would you be willing to campaign for him in the primaries?
I'm not suggesting libs should actually vote for any R in the 2024 general election. But maybe do all we can to avert another Trump or Trump-wannabe candidacy.
Bernie.
Of course he's an effing socialist, so America would rather stick to sociopaths.
Priorities, you know.
Kidding aside, there are some decent folks in the Dem ranks. I'd like to think the Rs have a few, too.
I have no idea what Baker's stances are on the issues. What I do know is that I voted for Pat McCrory (R) for NC governor in 2012 based on his record as a moderate mayor of Charlotte. He got elected and turned hard right, becoming little more than a simpering rubber stamp for the wingnuts in the legislature. That was the last time I voted R for a state or national office. The only Republicans I've voted for in the past decade are locals who I know personally.
And you might also be forgiven for thinking there was much of an argument, when both Paul Clement and Neal Katyal agree that there isn't.
And of course that whole "John McCain" thingy...
There was no argument on Cruz. McCain, on the other hand, was arguably not an American citizen at birth. His citizenship was definitively granted retroactively by Congress.
Well, lets be clear, when someone says "We need an Alpha male....." you know you are dealing with someone who has a child-like view on being an adult. More reasonable / rational adults subscribe to the Big Stick ideology. Including Lincoln IMO.
This "alpha-male" drive goes with the MAGA craze, ironically one of the LEAST-Alpha's out there. Whimpering, sniveling, big talker with no action. Outside of the extremists, who have lied to themselves on who is / who isn't, MOST of the diehard Cons I know want a rational, reasonable person. Only the far right wingers view the world through an alpha / beta perspective.
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You're right. But likely only 50 or 51 seats. Not enough to get anything done if Manchin and Sinema continue to join knee-jerk R obstructionism on important issues.
Biden was correct that he needs a gain of 2 in the Senate - to have a reliable 50. Plus Dems must hold the House, which now seems very unlikely.
First we had the Romney exception.
Then we had the McCain exception.
Then we would have had (and might still have) the Cruz exception.
I mean it's a stupid rule in the first place. But if we are going to water it down every time the Rs have a candidate who doesn't meet the last version of the rule then, yes, it's a joke.
Not that I'm really suggesting that Arnold can qualify. Plus, I doubt anybody wants him enough to fight for it.
Ah, the better Bush. He wimped out pretty badly in the 2016 primaries, but might be worth considering.
If Obama had been born in Kenya instead of Hawaii, he would have been in the same boat as Cruz, who was born in Canada. Obama's mother was American, his father was not. Cruz's mother was American, his father was not.
Let me repeat. Obama was born in the US, Cruz was not. Obama's father was not American, neither was Cruz's.
Yet Cruz is home free?
At the end of the day, who cares? But it's all stupid.
Republicans aren't interested in an educated policy wonk for President any longer. They want Alpha-Males who yell and scream and make liberals cry. He's a conservative, but a thoughtful one who generally wants to make life better for people and doesn't hate them.
There's a lot of truth to that. For quite a long time it's been more about style than substance.
No ‘exception’ was necessary for McCain. He was a natural born citizen by virtue of jus sanguinis. The only reason he wasn’t born on American soil is that his father was on active service deployment for the United States Navy.
That's not the way it was taught when I was in school. As weird and stupid as it is, "natural born" was taken to mean born in the US. Period.
Then George Meany came along and that was resolved by saying that he was born on US soil in Mexico because his father was ambassador, or something like that.
Then McCain came along and he wasn't born on US soil in Panama, so it was further expanded - by new law, iirc - to include those born to US citizens serving abroad in the military.
And that's where it stands now. But the constitution says none of that, and until Meany and McCain "natural born" meant actually born in the US.
Don't get me wrong. I'm perfectly fine with those adjustments because, as I've repeatedly said, that restriction is dumb.
Personally, I see no reason why a naturalized citizen shouldn't be able to run.
I agree that if I were writing a constitution today I would not preclude naturalized citizens, as long as they did not hold dual status.
In my mind, “natural born” means that you were automatically a citizen at birth because you satisfied at least one of these conditions: 1) you were born on American soil or 2) at least one of your biological parents was an American citizen at the time of your birth.
McCain, Obama, and Cruz all met at least one of those conditions, thus they are/were natural born citizens.
I’d be okay with naturalized citizens running under certain conditions. Obviously the primary reason for the constitutional requirement is to prevent someone with foreign loyalty from becoming President. As long as we establish a method for ensuring that “spirit of the law,” I see no problem with letting a naturalized citizen run.
Kasich should have gotten the nomination in 2016. I would still support him in 2024, but it is unlikely he would get the nomination.
