helmuth_hubener
Banned
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2007
- Messages
- 9,484
Dear all,
I come to you from the land of the Normal, Uninformed Voter. I have scrupulously kept myself uninformed this election season and now, thanks to my sacrifice, you can have insight into what the typical American voter sees when he looks at the Election-Time Twenty-Sixteen Dream Machine.
First thing I notice, there's tons of candidates running as Republicans. That's going to be a running joke, but it's also pretty exciting. Lots of variety, lots of pretty interesting people, actually.
A whole bunch of them are anti-establishment kind of people. That would be:
Ben Carson: black brain surgeon
Carly Fiorina: California tech CEO
Donald Trump: CEO
Then there's two who are in the establishment, but they're anti-establishment ideologically. That is, they seem like cut-the-government kind of guys. They are:
Rand Paul: fought the drones
Ted Cruz: fought ObamaCare
Both seem to want to cut government, though Ted Cruz seems more angry and committed to it.
Scott Walker is pretty attractive as a small government guy. He stood up to the unions; that's awesome.
On the other side, there's the establishment people. That would be:
Jeb Bush: he's a Bush. Seems boring. Don't know anything about him, never heard him speak, I don't think. He doesn't embody anything in my mind, so I guess that could be good for him: he's a blank slate, he can take whatever positions he wants, whatever will get him to win. Well, other than "establishment"; he does embody that, just because he's a Bush.
Actually, that's the only boring mainstream establishment guy I can think of.
Rubio I don't know anything about. Other than he's Hispanic. Cuban? So he's a blank slate, too.
Bobby Jindal, he's from Louisiana. That's about all I and anybody knows about him. Maybe he likes frog legs and rowing the bayou?
Is that everybody? I think that's pretty much everybody. No, wait! There's some midwestern governor. The governor of Ohio? Indiana? Actually, maybe both of them are running! Nobody knows anything about them, I certainly don't. But they're governors, so they have leadership experience, so that's a plus (in the typical voter's mind).
Bottom line: it's a race between the establishment and the anti-establishment. Last time, yes, we could be all dogmatic and absolutist about "Ron Paul is awesome, all the rest STINK!" But this time is different. Rand Paul is a different man than Ron Paul, and intentionally so. Honestly, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are not very different. Blasphemy, I know! But read this, for example:
http://www.redstate.com/diary/jkurtinitis/2015/04/08/im-libertarian-im-supporting-ted-cruz/
2016 is a different ball game. In 2008 and 2012 there were a whole lot of boring, establishment people running. Oh yeah, that reminds me: they're running again!
Huckabee: ignorant, anti-gay Southern preacher.
Santorum: some other hyper-religious, anti-science and extremely anti-gay person.
Anyway, so guys like that, sure, we can be whole-hog against them. They have nothing to do with the anti-establishment contingency. They have nothing to offer us, and we have nothing to offer them. But the whole crowd of anti-establishment people, those are all our people. The folks supporting them are our kind of people. They're sick of Washington and sick of the status quo. Great!
So that's how the average low-information (but sympathetic to small government ideas!) voter sees it. There's a whole lot of good options. And a few bad ones. All the green are good guys. The red are bad guys.
I come to you from the land of the Normal, Uninformed Voter. I have scrupulously kept myself uninformed this election season and now, thanks to my sacrifice, you can have insight into what the typical American voter sees when he looks at the Election-Time Twenty-Sixteen Dream Machine.
First thing I notice, there's tons of candidates running as Republicans. That's going to be a running joke, but it's also pretty exciting. Lots of variety, lots of pretty interesting people, actually.
A whole bunch of them are anti-establishment kind of people. That would be:
Ben Carson: black brain surgeon
Carly Fiorina: California tech CEO
Donald Trump: CEO
Then there's two who are in the establishment, but they're anti-establishment ideologically. That is, they seem like cut-the-government kind of guys. They are:
Rand Paul: fought the drones
Ted Cruz: fought ObamaCare
Both seem to want to cut government, though Ted Cruz seems more angry and committed to it.
Scott Walker is pretty attractive as a small government guy. He stood up to the unions; that's awesome.
On the other side, there's the establishment people. That would be:
Jeb Bush: he's a Bush. Seems boring. Don't know anything about him, never heard him speak, I don't think. He doesn't embody anything in my mind, so I guess that could be good for him: he's a blank slate, he can take whatever positions he wants, whatever will get him to win. Well, other than "establishment"; he does embody that, just because he's a Bush.
Actually, that's the only boring mainstream establishment guy I can think of.
Rubio I don't know anything about. Other than he's Hispanic. Cuban? So he's a blank slate, too.
Bobby Jindal, he's from Louisiana. That's about all I and anybody knows about him. Maybe he likes frog legs and rowing the bayou?
Is that everybody? I think that's pretty much everybody. No, wait! There's some midwestern governor. The governor of Ohio? Indiana? Actually, maybe both of them are running! Nobody knows anything about them, I certainly don't. But they're governors, so they have leadership experience, so that's a plus (in the typical voter's mind).
Bottom line: it's a race between the establishment and the anti-establishment. Last time, yes, we could be all dogmatic and absolutist about "Ron Paul is awesome, all the rest STINK!" But this time is different. Rand Paul is a different man than Ron Paul, and intentionally so. Honestly, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are not very different. Blasphemy, I know! But read this, for example:
http://www.redstate.com/diary/jkurtinitis/2015/04/08/im-libertarian-im-supporting-ted-cruz/
2016 is a different ball game. In 2008 and 2012 there were a whole lot of boring, establishment people running. Oh yeah, that reminds me: they're running again!
Huckabee: ignorant, anti-gay Southern preacher.
Santorum: some other hyper-religious, anti-science and extremely anti-gay person.
Anyway, so guys like that, sure, we can be whole-hog against them. They have nothing to do with the anti-establishment contingency. They have nothing to offer us, and we have nothing to offer them. But the whole crowd of anti-establishment people, those are all our people. The folks supporting them are our kind of people. They're sick of Washington and sick of the status quo. Great!
So that's how the average low-information (but sympathetic to small government ideas!) voter sees it. There's a whole lot of good options. And a few bad ones. All the green are good guys. The red are bad guys.
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