Republicans Picking Their Poison
For Republican peeps only: Who is or would be or whoulda been the least unacceptable president to you:
— Will Truman (@trumwill) May 18, 2016
The parity here is really quite remarkable. What is it with split opposition and pluralities in the GOP?
Gore may have been assisted by some confusion over which Gore. The baseline was meant to be 2008, when all four of them were at least discussed as candidates. Upon hearing that, a couple voters expressed regret for voting for Gore.
Obama came in second!
I should note that this is based on who follows me on Twitter, and in some cases people who follow people who follow me on Twitter, which means that it’s not hugely representative. My twitter friends tend to be #NeverTrump to a great degree, for example. Minority and gay Republicans are way over-represented. Even so, while I am not surprised that Gore won I did not expect Obama to come in second. I sort of expected Kerry to win, if only because of the four he came the least close to the presidency and therefore represented the least threat.
I really, really did not expect everybody to come within five points of one another, and nobody to crack 30%.
I demand a recount! (Too soon?).Report
Were I still a Republican, I’d have voted for Hillary Clinton.
As it is, I’m planning on voting for Hillary Clinton.Report
Hillary Clinton would be fourth on my list.
I am probably voting for Hillary Clinton.Report
You guys both like propaganda too much.
–Will, what’s your e-mail? I think I actually do have a submission to write…Report
None of your options are acceptable.Report
A reasonable response this would be, but if you read the question, you will find that it is a matter of who is least bad, not who is acceptable.Report
I did and that remains my answer and it remains my vote, for the poll, and for the real election. I can throw out a few more names too if you like….Report
Are there any options on the Right that you find acceptable? If so, I’d like a list…Report
None who have indicated interest/willingness to run. Nor most of the established “leadership”. None on the left either.Report
So there might be someone, but they aren’t interested? Who do you have in mind?Report
I don’t. The only folks I’m aware of are those who have expressed interest or ran. None are acceptable. There MIGHT be someone, but I really don’t pay attention to “potentials” in the party. I don’t pay much attention to either party.Report
The old-line about “Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line” seems to be true right now. Democrats are still duking it out and for the most part the “Bernie or Bust” crowd is still loud and strong and shows no sign of becoming reasonable anytime soon. This is freaking the HRC crowd out.
I’ve largely been okay with Sanders and his supporters so far but this week has left me dismayed. Don’t they know how crazy and dangerous it is to let Donald Trump near the White House?Report
Don’t they know how crazy and dangerous it is to let Donald Trump near the White House?
My guess: less dangerous than Cruz or Rubio having the White House. In fact, I think a Trump presidecy would be a lot less damaging the “the US” than the Bush/Cheney WH ACTUALLY was.
Personally, I’m not that worried on a policy front since there’s too many institutional checks in place and Trump doesn’t have the adminstrative acumen to pull off the types of travesties Cheney did. The Big Fear people seem to have is based more in signalling than anything else. Trump is sorta a white-trash politician, with lowclass views and vulgar language. People worry about how that reflects on them, as citizens. As a Nation. And so on.Report
There is one reason why Trump could still do plenty damage for a liberal-libertarian perspective, the judiciary. His picks will be extraordinarily conservative. Trump is most likely going to have a Republican congress and could pass a lot of bad legislation.Report
My guess is that his SC noms will be less “conservative” than those picked by a Rubio or Cruz mandate. (You know, a mandate: what occurs when conservatives win an election…) He’s a total wild card, policy-wise, seems to me, without principle, direction, purpose or process. But because he’s also a blithering idiot in every domain other than self-promotion I don’t see him being successful playing outside the Establishment box.
But that’s just me.
I mean, I agree with you that Clinton nominees will be more liberal-palatable than Trump nominees. But that would be the case no matter who the GOP nominee was. {Sort of…}Report
FWIW, my guess is that the #1 criteria Trump will use will be which judges’ history and rulings most suggest a willingness for the executive office to wield power without checks.Report
The Unitary Executive!? I hear ya about that. It’s perfectly consistent with everything we know about the dude.
Well, except that I’m not sure he’s capable of managing those types of subtle distinctions. Directly or indirectly.Report
Will Hilary? Not just to descend into BSDI, but seriously… if Executive Power and overreach are a concern, its a growing concern of the 21st century (or maybe just modern) presidency.
Scouring the liberal press I couldn’t find anything that suggested Kagan and Sotomayor were selected to pull this back… in fact, Kagan was regarded rather suspiciously, and Sotomayor was seen as a stealth selection (on this point).
I’m not a court watcher, so perhaps they’ve really shown their chops at forcing the President to reign in his interests in expanding his authority…but that’s not exactly the impression I’m getting.
You might even argue that Clinton would be worse (or anyhow, just as bad)… if Bush pushed Executive Power on matters Foreign and National Security Related (which Obama hasn’t rescinded, and in many areas has expanded), and if Obabma has pushed Executive Power on matters Domestic esp. with regards Immigration, on what grounds are we thinking a Clinton Presidency is going to pull back on either front?
So, on this point, its hard to put a point in either column, I’d say. On both sides of the political spectrum I’m hearing increasing volume in favor of Executive power to “fix” things… just different things to fix.Report
I believe that the official defense, insofar as there is one, is that Hillary is awful on this issue but, hey, she’s awful within acceptable tolerances.
While it’s too late to prevent the Gods of the Copybook Headings from coming back to explain things to us, we might be able to forestall them for just a little while longer by sticking to the Devil we know.Report
Well sure, we could all hope that President Clinton will use and expand her powers for totally awesome stuff we like.
I’m still just addressing the narrow question of whether she will be better or worse for the *apparatus* of Executive Power. Will she leave behind an even more dangerous tool for an even more dangerous fool?Report
That doesn’t matter. This election is the most important of our lifetimes. Focusing on whether 2020 or 2024 is really more important is giving aid and comfort to the opposition.Report
Hah. I forget, am I in the opposition or are you? Either way, I don’t think I’m doing it right… no one does what I want.Report
I imagine that the outgroup looks monolithic to the ingroup.Report
Other than starting wars and causing a worldwide depression by defaulting on the debt, Trump is pretty harmless.Report
The fed will just print mo money.Report
This seems to be the opposite of true. And it’s been that way for about 15 years.Report
There were fewer guns being held to heads fifteen years ago.
I mean this very, very literally.Report
My answer would be Obama, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary, in ascending order of unacceptableness. And I’m voting for Hillary too.Report
Mine would be (would have been, would have been about to be?):
Gore (the Senator version)
Obama (the Senator version, and possibly the Post President version *just a hunch*)
HRC
Kerry (if non-Catholic, would beat HRC, but as Catholic he’s unvotable)
I won’t be voting for any of these people in any tense.Report
The phrasing confused me… Took me a minute to realize what it means to “win”.
I’d be interested to see how people would have ranked them 1-4.Report