The Glade 4.0

After Congressman Paul's strong showing in Iowa, the national media reported that Santorum was the big winner, and that Paul's finish should be disregarded, because after-all, Iowa wasn't really representitive of Conservative values, and that New Hampshire would be a much better indicator of the true national opinion. So, the polls are closed in NH, and almost all districts have reported... and wouldn't you know it, Dr. Paul had an even stronger showing in NH than in Iowa, garnering almost 25% of the vote. The media's take? "New Hampshire really doesn't have it's finger on the pulse of American Conservatives, this should be regarded as a clear win for Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul's showing should be disregarded. South Carolina is where real Conservatism will show it's favor."

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yeah, right.

While he creeps me out, his message seems to be resonating with a lot of voters. It will be amusing to see what happens when he takes a strong showing in South Carolina.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

My question is: who the hell is voting for Mitt Romney? Literally no one seems to like him, but he always comes in at the top of the polls. How?

Also, glad to see Huntsman with a strong showing.

He's been solidly at 25 pct. so he has his loyal following.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

People who want to be on the winning team and don't care about anything else vote for Romney. Those and Rockefeller Republicans.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

What kind of name is "Mit?"

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I've just literally never heard a single Republican express belief in, enthusiasm for, or even approval for Romney.

Mitt is a nickname for Milton. In Romney's case, the nickname is his middle name. His first name is Willard.

Willard Mitt Romney, which given name would you use?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

His haircut is relatively inoffensive?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Every media outlet pegs him as "the electable one."

I've been saying this for a decade now; our media picks our politicians based on whom they deem able to beat the other color. Because electing a person is no longer considered the goal by our populace; the goal is defeating the party that isn't your preference. As such, we deserve what we get, at some level.

Nobody likes Mitt, it's true. However, all the sheep who hate Obama will vote for him, because they've been told, and they've blindly accepted this information, that he's the guy with the best chance of beating Obama.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Will

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

That's pretty much "Mitt" flipped upside-down.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

No, that would be "Mill." I think that is still better than Mitt.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

He was named after a family member and called Mitt from childhood.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I'm not happy with Romney, but it seems he's going to be shoved down our collective throat just like McCain. As I've explainedin other threads he's certainly to the right of our current President, so I think especially if we can get rid of party line voters like Sharrod Brown (Josh Mandell for Senate!) and his ilk due up this year, it's going to drive the country away from the cliff or maybe at least put the breaks on.

I"m sick of the process already, and it's only two weeks in. Maybe we just need to accept that we are going to get a raw deal and accept that maybe we can make some gains if we unite behind anyone to get rid of Obama, before we destroy the conservative ascendancy in the impossible search for the "perfect candidate" with all this infighting, back biting, and gotcha, sound bite debating run by the liberal media.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Because Santorum and Paul are very obviously highly dissociated from reality, and are just getting the "morality" votes from people who think their platforms are the "right" thing to do, regardless of the consequences.

Please illustrate how they are "very obviously highly dissociated from reality". I never seen, nor heard of, them acting as if their consciousness is detached from their emotions, body and/or immediate surroundings; quite the opposite.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'd go with Will.I.Am personally. As a bonus, you would corner the stupid vote.

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A rare bit of brilliance out of FoxNews:

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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1) He didn't take second in Iowa, so Santorum getting more media than Paul makes sense.
2) I haven't heard one person say Paul's showing in NH should be disregarded.
3) Paul is having an impact. He's changing the nature of the debates and highlighting issues that would not otherwise get attention. I think that's as far as he'll ever get, but bravo nonetheless.
4) Paul is getting due media attention at this time. I heard one issue this morning that makes sense - he does have a harder message to convey in 30 second adds. That will be challenging for him. It takes some time to figure him out.
5) Romney's won both contests now. His leader status should certainly not be disregarded.

Ron Paul wants to cut five federal agencies and $1 trillion from the budget from one year to the next. That's an actual position that he has. I'm 100% convinced he's willing to veto everything coming out of Congress and completely shut the federal government down until he gets what he wants. Santorum is an unrepentant theocrat who wants to ban homosexual contact, sodomy even between men and women, pornography, contraception, and will crush our "freedoms" much worse than Bush and Obama put together. He doesn't believe you have a right to privacy in your own home from the government. He also wants war with Iran, OK he didn't say that one outright but he did promise to bomb all of Iran's nuclear facilities, what else is going to result if you do that?

They're not actually crazy, but neither of their platforms are anything approaching realistic or workable.

You make it sound like that's unreasonable. It's drastic. That doesn't make it unreasonable.

People need to be made to understand that if we do not take drastic measures now, they will be forced upon us in a far more severe manner later when the economy disintegrates. That's not fringe, extremist thinking. That's simple logic. The US economy is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own debt burden. This isn't some far off, long-term change in policy that needs to be done to prevent it. It is imminent, and even with actions like Paul is proposing, it might be too late. Without them -- every day that the status quo is maintained, the result becomes worse and pushes ever closer toward inevitability.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Exaggeration and over simplification aren't going to help anyone. This is far from "simple logic". There are quite a few schools of thought on this, and many who completely disagree with your base assertion. Many believe that further stimulus will spur the economy and reduce deficits faster over the long term. Even if you do agree that big cuts are needed, where and how these are made are also far from simple.

Very few people support the idea of cutting a trillion dollars immediately and cutting out five federal agencies completely. Fewer still will agree with him vetoing everything. If he has views that few people agree with, he IS on the fringe.

Current interest payments on the debt are under $200 billion. If it's feasible to cut $1 trillion from the budget, it's feasible to keep the status quo going for a long time. Especially when new debt is being issued at around 2%, meaning if GDP growth is 2% or higher then it's not even a long term problem as the economy will increase faster than the interest payments.

We need to replace a creeping gradual increase in spending with a creeping gradual decrease in spending. Cutting trillions one year to the next is insanity. People need time to adapt.