Iowa Caucus

[Flagg]

Is it me or are the current republican candidates even worse than Bush?

Huckabee is even more of a fundie nutbar than Bush. Giuliani is even more of a war whore and 9/11 exploiter than Bush. Romney has even more corruption and contempt for individual liberties than Bush. It seems to me like they Republican front-runners have each taken one aspect of Bush's personality and exaggerated it to form their campaign strategy. And if they were to all combine into one, you would get ... GIANT ROBOT MEGA-BUSH!!! FORM BLAZING SWORD!!!!!

I would say that Huckabee is better than Bush in that he really does seem to care about helping the poor and for social welfare. That's why his win in Iowa was seen by the Republican elite as a bad thing. He's got the Christian conservative and foreign policy credentials, but not the corporate cronyism ones.

However, he's more of a Christian supremacist than Bush is, so that makes him worse overall as far as I'm concerned.

[Guardsman Bass]

Is it me or are the current republican candidates even worse than Bush?

Huckabee is a fundamentalist, but he at least seems to have more populist concerns that Bush did - he isn't quite the unholy combination of war whore, corporate whore, and religious nutbar that Bush is. Hence why the corporate side of the Republican despises him.

Romney is at least somewhat capable, and he can work with the Democrats, but he's also rather slippery on direct positions. I'd take him over Bush, but only if there was a democratic congress in place.

Giuliani scares me the most. He's as much as, and possibly more, authoritarian than Bush - and unlike Bush, he's more intelligent on how to use it (although possibly not so much in evading the consequences, if the Bernard Kerik investigations are any hint). He's also a full force fearmonger.

Thompson looks kind of like an empty seat. He's unabashedly Republican, but there's nothing about him that really seems unusual.

Ron Paul is, well, nuts for the most part - and honest about it. I have no idea why he has generated such a fucking cult among internet goers.

McCain is okay, other than his equivocation to Bush, but I get the impression that he's not that popular among the diehard Republicans who unfortunately also donate the most money to the Republican cause.

[Gandalf]

Is it me or are the current republican candidates even worse than Bush?

Huckabee is even more of a fundie nutbar than Bush. Giuliani is even more of a war whore and 9/11 exploiter than Bush. Romney has even more corruption and contempt for individual liberties than Bush. It seems to me like they Republican front-runners have each taken one aspect of Bush's personality and exaggerated it to form their campaign strategy. And if they were to all combine into one, you would get ... GIANT ROBOT MEGA-BUSH!!! FORM BLAZING SWORD!!!!!

It's interesting to think that come next year we may very well be pining for the days of the Shrub and his alleged attempts at leadership.

[RedImperator]

I've been saying for years now that I can't understand why you haven't seen a candidate or party that combines social conservatism with economic liberalism (in the modern sense of the word "liberal"). Now, apparently, we have one, and he won the Iowa caucus after being outspent 20-to-1. Expect to see more Huckabees in the future--with the ratio of Christianity to populism shifting one way or another until someone gets elected President.

[Lord Poe]

I don't really care if people think he's a MLK ripoff. The only thing in common with him and MLK is they're both black; Obama has his own charisma and inspiration; if he didn't, he wouldn't have gotten so far from almost nothing.

Exactly. He's definitely not an MLK wannabe. He doesn't try to affect that "from the mountain" preaching like every other joke of a black candidate has done since MLK. I'm looking at you, Jesse and Al.

Obama seemed very real, very relaxed to me when I watched his speech. There was no indication of, "Here comes the light-hearted portion of my speech! Boy this'll get a laugh!"