Jeff, to be fair the actual number of ships was at it's lowest in 2007 under the Bush admin. As for Mitt working with Democrats in MA that is not entirely true. He had NO choice in that matter because 80% of the state legislature were democrats.
Also his views back then are also very very different than his views today. By todays standards he would be considered a very liberal Democrat had he still hold the same views he had then.
He is either pandering to the left (until recently) or he has pretty much did a 180% in terms of his beliefs in the last year.
I am also very concern about his lack of knowledge in world geography especially the mid-east. He said Syria is a gateway to the seas for Iran which is totally incorrect. That is not a misspoke.. that is just lack of knowledge.
I also do not believe that Romney will label China a currency manipulator on his first day BECAUSE if he does EVERYONE loses and the ensuing trade wars between the two countries will spell certain economic hardships for both countries and the entire world!!! I am thinking he did it to score political points and for that I give him a pass.. any american who actually believes he will do that and STILL vote for him IMHO would be an IDIOT!!!
With all the being said I am still on the fence about who I think will make a better president. I am one of the very few people left in this country that I think is still non partisan. I vote base on actual verifiable facts and not based on party loyalty, red meat rhetorics, TV speeches, talk show hosts, radio hosts or pundits.
Romney had to move further to the right and sound more hawkish in the Republican primaries. But at heart, he really is a moderate. He actually impressed me a lot in the presidential debates, showing that he is at heart a lot less hawkish than he was showing in the primaries. And I watched most of the republican primary debates! I think a lot of independents want to know that he is just not going to take the country into another war and he did that. He doesn't understand the foreign policy as well as Obama, so he tried to steer everything to economy, which was really smart.
that's because the wizard has told us to, "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
but, ron paul has, fairly comprehensively, addressed the issue of debt as it relates both to gov't spending and federal reserve powers and policies (money supply and interest rates). and, the curtain was quickly pulled on him. i developed an interesting (to me) analysis of ron paul's positions in which i concluded that he was the only candidate who could appeal to both the occupy wall st. and the tea party movements. talk about bridging a perceived gap! i was also somewhat surprised that no one else, to my knowledge, made that observation, or that, if they did, that it was not more widely presented.
Yeah, it's interesting how so many people from different and sometimes opposing political positions are Ron Paul fans. I'd vote for him. Jon Stewart once addressed on his show how Ron Paul was getting zero attention from the media while candidates that were doing worse got more than him.
Next term I think Ron Paul might actually have a pretty good chance when he enters as a third party candidate, but it all depends on the rich donors supporting him or not. By 2016 if Hillary Clinton is still interested she has a really good definite chance of winning it.
Ron Paul has no shot. As he said, a third party candidate has no chance of getting elected with how the media works unless the candidate has a lot of money + name recognition. And in the Republican primaries, Ron Paul just has no shot because of his anti-war, civil liberty and libertarian social positions. It's unfortunately, he is by far the most principled politician out there.
His son Rand probably does have a shot, because he doesn't voice his anti-war stuff as much as Ron and actually try to conform to the mainstream Republican crowd a little bit. While he is not as pure as his dad, you know that he will at least cut spending in a real meaningful way.
My gut feeling tells me that Romney will win the next election. Because Obama has disappointed too many people's over the past four years. Eitherway its going to be a close race and i don't have any luck so far in predicting US politics. Not that i'm a Romney fan, the problem that i have with Mitt Romney 2012 is the same problem that i have with Barack Obama 2008 and that is he is only talking about new spending (primarily on the military) and is not talking about any serious spending cuts which is really needed considering the US fiscal situation. And i don't think that Ron Paul is going to run in 2016 because he will be 81 years old by then.
Ron Paul already said this is his last run.
The problem as I said with Romney is that he is a moderate, not a real conservative. You have to put a real conservative in there like Chris Christie or Rand Paul. Especially Christie, this guy would actually have a chance of winning over what's considered "safe blue" states. The problem is that their social positions and war positions are probably not going to get them through the primaries.
Republican party is facing a huge demographic problem right now. Obama has been terrible the last 4 years and should in reality stand no chance to get re-elected, but he is still running even with Romney. Why is that? You have 90% of black population voting democrats, 67% of Hispanics voting democrats and probably 55% of Asians voting democrats. The minority population is only going up over the next elections. In a few more elections, the entire country is going to become like California. No matter how bad the democrat governor is, the democrats can't loose unless Republicans send a movie star candidate who is moderate posing as a conservative. Unless Republican party makes in road with the minorities, it can't win future elections. The other social issues like abortion, legalization of Marijuana and gay marriage are all drifting away from Republican party. The younger generation are coming around to the democrat positions and they will become the main voting block in a few elections. If a candidate has to be completely pro-life, oppose legalization of Marijuana and gay marriage to win Republican nomination, it's going to put that candidate at a huge disadvantage in the national election.
