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smoothoperator wrote:

speedsix wrote:...beg to differ...if you DON'T vote for Romney(sorry as he may be), you HAVE voted for obummer...simple fact...

"War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength." - George Orwell, 1984

One is none?

Charles L. Cotton wrote:It's over. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/delegates" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Didn't Gingrich drop out? Either way though, yeah, I don't see how it could be anyone other than Romney.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:The fact is Ron Paul is a Libertarian not a Republican and his views would not be supported by even a miniscule percentage of Republicans, independents and conservatives of any flavor.

Chas.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one, Chas, in part. You forgot the "probably"s and the "maybe"s. IMHO, the GOP has strayed far enough from the stereotypical "small-government" image that Libertarians might be the way to go if "small government" is the most important issue to you. A non-trivial part of me wants to support Ron Paul for this very reason, but I can't fully get behind him in the primaries without knowing how he would dismantle some of the larger aspects of our government. The chaos that would result from just doing it would, IMHO, be worse than another two Obama terms (also, while I sympathize with the sentiments of Paul's foreign policy, I'm reasonably certain that he'd go too far with it). I will certainly grant you though, that since we don't have a ranked/preferential or rated voting system, that Ron Paul shouldn't be supported if he's not the GOP nominee.

Speaking of Romney... Part of my problem with the whole "party politics" thing is that, as far as I can tell, neither party is willing to even give lip service to the 10th amendment. For instance, I think Obamacare is a bad federal-level law (and not just because it's unconstitutional). But Romneycare (for which he has taken much flak from the rest of the GOP candidates) was done where such a law would belong — at the state level — if it were a good idea. By implementing it there its effects can be studied without jeopardizing the national GDP and job market. I still think it's a bad idea, but at least he didn't throw the nation's healthcare system into turmoil and push us all further into debt to find out if it'd work. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem capable of admitting that some of their ideas are best suited for the state or local governments.