Meet The Candidates: 2012 GOP Thread

I feel sorry for the Republican party. I'm an Independant and vote for whom I think will be the best candidate, but Republicans must be scratching their heads like me wondering why they are letting better candidates simply opt out.

Bob McDonnell-Virginia
Jeb Bush-Florida
Donald Trump

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

Cain's 9-9-9 plan is just the first phase in moving to the FairTax system. If you haven't read about it, it's worth looking into. It will jump start the economy and reduce the IRS to a small fraction of what it is today. It removes the complexities of the tax code and closes virtually all tax loopholes.

I'd be comfortable with Romney or Herman Cain, both would do a good job as POTUS. I think Gingrich would do well as POTUS, but he could never win a general election.

I guess I should look a little more into it but it didn't sound like a "Flat Tax" which I'm all for. Cut the IRS down to small fraction and make sure everyone pays their fair share. Everyone gets hit the same based off of what they earn. No loop holes.

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

and this is what I'm afraid of. It seemed like the Republican Party would come out swinging to take back the presidency, knock Obama off his seat with disenchanted voters, but now it just feels like the options are limited to which crap is better then the other to throw on the ballot.

It's not like it's the Redskins RB situation where we are all like "no we should use this RB more, or that RB more, or this one should be given a shot." Heck it's more like "Ok if we have to who do we pick? WR TO, WR TJ Housh, etc. etc. etc.

I don't think the Cain sales tax has any affect on the states taxes. Why would it?


Of course it would have an impact. Sales tax in states like Washington which has a 9.8% sales tax would have to be adjusted otherwise every time you go buy anything your tax bill bill be 17.8% which is quite regressive for the poor and the middle class. 22 states have a sales tax of at least 8%....17%+ taxes on sales? You try that shit and you're going to have real nice tea party on your door step real quick!

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

most of my peers feel the same way. Was at a party a couple weeks ago and a guy said the samething. My vote is up for grabs, but I really dont see a taker. Their are several canidates I will not vote for though Newt Dogg, Perry, Bachman, and RS.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, two women that have run Fortune 500 companies, both lost races last November for senator and governor, respectively. Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, is another example of a person with business acumen, but wasn't able to translate her successful background into winning a national race. I think people tend to overstate the importance of a business background when considering candidates for national office. It's important, but as much as people hate to admit it being a credible and effective politician actually matters more. You don't govern in a vacuum.The American economy isn't like signing checks for GM; compromise really is the name of the game.

That's why Donald Trump is such a non-starter on so many levels. He spent months wasting time requesting to see Obama's birth certificate while the president was busy giving the green light to kill Bin Laden. Made a fool of himself and has been pretty quiet ever since. Trump's also on the record telling China to go eff themselves and he'd take America's share of oil from middle east countries - no questions asked. He just isn't a serious candidate. Point blank.

The best thing that could happen to the Republican party is for some of the Tea Party congressmen to lose their seats next year. If I'm the GOP I'd be less concerned with maintaining a very unpopular majority in Congress and returning to sensible policy that encourages good candidates to step forward and run for office, than making a bunch empty threats about repealing Obamacare, overturning abortion, and shutting down the government. Get on with the business of the country for crying out loud.

Of course it would have an impact. Sales tax in states like Washington which has a 9.8% sales tax would have to be adjusted otherwise every time you go buy anything your tax bill bill be 17.8% which is quite regressive for the poor and the middle class. 22 states have a sales tax of at least 8%....17%+ taxes on sales? You try that shit and you're going to have real nice tea party on your door step real quick!I haven't done detailed reading on the 9-9-9, but at first pass this phase (Phase 1) is very similar to FairTax (where Cain is ultimately going), what will happen is with corporations/manufacturers/distributors having a lower corp tax rate (or no corp tax under FairTax), the embedded cost for taxes within a product will be forced out by the market. An item that previously cost $ 100 + say 8% state sales tax = $ 108 for item. Under FairTax, the cost of the item would be reduced by slightly less than the Federal Sales tax, so that $ 100 item would now cost $93 + 8% state sales tax + 9% Federal Sales tax = $ 108.81. I'm not exact on the numbers/percentages but that's the concept.

Keep in mind payroll taxes & medicare taxes (which are highly regressive) and fed income taxes are gone. IRS is greatly reduced, tax loopholes gone, underground economy is now taxed at point of sale. Prebate checks are sent out to all valid SS card holders in US to cover for essentials using current HHS poverty level guidlines.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation (http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer)

Herman Cain Rebuts Misleading Ad Against FairTax - YouTube

ML, our troops will be home by year's end (knock on wood). So what new wars has Obama started?


Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen. Libya is all on Obama. Yemen is too, but only drones were used. We had a presence in Afghanistan pre-Obama but he sent 30k more troops. While troops are starting to come home (against the advice of generals) it will be at least another year before the entire surge he sent comes back, and after that another 75k will remain.

If Obama had limited his involvement to just Afghanistan he probably would easily be able explain himself as just finishing the job Bush had started and that he didn’t want to desert the Afghan people when they needed us most. But he decided that he wanted to get his hands dirty in Libya and Yemen, while ignoring Syria and other middle eastern countries.

Ill admit I have no idea what we are doing in Afghanistan or what 75k will do after we supposedly pull out, or the complications of the Arab Spring and general unrest in the middle east, but unfortunately the same is true for the majority of Americans. But our lack of current foreign policy understanding isn’t necessarily because we don’t care its more because its extremely difficult to understand. Which makes it extremely difficult to defend while extremely easy to criticize. Imo Obama’s screwed when it comes to his foreign policy.

And youre right his brand isn’t gone and he is still adored by many and will get a lot of votes, but there are a lot of people who voted for him and feel completely ripped off. I don’t think the republicans can win with anyone but i think they could win with Cain, Romney, Perry or Newt and maybe Paul or Bachman. Although I think that if Romney, and only Romney, gets the nomination Paul could end up running on a third party ticket and give the election to Obama a la Nader or Perot.

The best thing that could happen to the Republican party is for some of the Tea Party congressmen to lose their seats next year. If I'm the GOP I'd be less concerned with maintaining a very unpopular majority in Congress and returning to sensible policy that encourages good candidates to step forward and run for office, than making a bunch empty threats about repealing Obamacare, overturning abortion, and shutting down the government. Get on with the business of the country for crying out loud.I think you may want to leave GOP strategy to someone else. I wouldn't call repealing Obamacare an empty threat depending on what happens next Nov., if the GOP is smart they'll adopt a "state's rights" stance on abortion, and when Ds control the WH and Senate....it takes two to shutdown the gov't.

The end goal of Cain's 9-9-9 plan is commendable, it's convincing people that the means will justify the ends