Just tossing this out, but is there a chance we could see a brokered GOP convention and see them eventually nominate someone not even running now? That almost seems like the ideal now that Romney is gasping on the shore like a beached whale.
Don’t forget how much the surprise selection of Palin energized the Republican base. Maybe a brokered convention with a surprise selection (not Palin) could be equally energizing. If anything the current primary season seems to show it doesn’t take long for a candidate to ride up or down.
I suspect it’s unlikely, but if there was ever a year for it…
Heh - that bit was so, so amusing. I could hardly believe how completely incompetent JK was in his response… “mumble, mumble, wasn’t me…” What the heck? He could hardly have done a better job for Newt’s campaign if he was being paid to do so.
I’ve thought about it, and on the surface it sounds like it could indeed produce television excitement and ratings…but then there’s this: in this economy and for a party making goo goo eyes at austerity measures, would you want to be the ones saying that your candidates and associated SuperPacs spent upwards of a quarter billion dollars during the primary season and managed for it all to be wasted when those primaries couldn’t come up with a winner? That just seems like something the Democrats would make hay with up and down the line, not only in the Presidential race, but also in congressional and gubernatorial contests as well.
IainC
1784
This is fine as long as you understand that nobody has an abortion for convenience in the third trimester. The women who need late abortions are those who wanted to have a baby and found that there was a good medical reason for not doing so late in the process. Someone who is pregnant and wants an abortion is not going to carry the child for 6 months before deciding what to do about it.
I’m looking forward to Gingrich being nominated so I can refer to Republican voters as “gingbats”.
I’m not even sure that this is an option, given the current “delegate” structure to the primaries, and especially considering the “winner-take-all” structure that many GOP primaries still use. In a two-man race (the de facto situation today) even the “superdelegates” won’t make that much of a difference. There hasn’t been a brokered convention since, what, the 1950s? And even then, “brokered” didn’t mean nominating someone who wasn’t on the ballot… it just meant that the race was close enough for the superdelegates to make the choice.
Now don’t get me wrong – the two party system is not (entirely) enshrined in law, so in theory anything could happen. But the GOP national committee did issue their guidelines, which are as binding as any other civil contract. If someone like Newt wins the delegates necessary to be the nominee and the semi-mythical GOP Establishment tries to take it away from him, he’d sue them into the ground and run anyway, taking the mantle of “Republican” and disputing the legitimacy of the other guy. Given Newt’s personality, he’d probably relish it.
I would be a lot of fun for the Democrats. Imagine how much mileage they’d get out of the fact that the GOP nominee was not even democratically chosen, but rather anointed by “The 1%”.
Erik_J
1787
Exactly this. I would be livid if the democrats pulled something like that. I can only imagine Republicans would feel the same way, perhaps even more so.
Timex
1788
I’m not sure I understand why you think that.
To me, it seems fairly clear that killing someone is a more absolute violation of their rights than virtually anything else.
Certainly, it’s difficult to come up with a concrete metric by which you could evaluate the “liberty units” of some action, but in cases like this is seems fairly clear.
The women who need late abortions are those who wanted to have a baby and found that there was a good medical reason for not doing so late in the process. Someone who is pregnant and wants an abortion is not going to carry the child for 6 months before deciding what to do about it.
I suspect that there are cases where decisions are put off, or something else happens which is not medically related (a couple breaks up or something). However, if we limit the discussion to just medically related cases, then the discussion kind of resolves itself. At that point, it’s no longer a question of weighing a life against a few months of (severe) inconvenience. It’s a life against a life, so it seems like the abortion could take place without moral problems.
So I think we’re in agreement regarding that. If late term abortions for non medical reasons do not take place, then that’s good, and those are the only ones that I would find morally questionable.
From your libertarian standpoint, should the state be able to make you donate a kidney to someone who will otherwise die?
That is true, because that is the safest way to do it. And I have absolutely no problem with that, as mentioned. But if we follow the line of reasoning that a fetus is a person, and that no one has the right to parasite on another person’s body for any reason, then I suppose we would have to remove the fetus and let it die on its own. So let’s not.
Additionally, despite considering myself a libertarian, I would generally support keeping someone alive in a situation where the requirement is merely to give them blood transfusions for a few months. Perhaps it’s not because I think they have the “right” to them, but rather because I think it’s moral to try and keep other people alive if you can do so without compromising the liberty of everyone else to a significant degree.
I would have no problem freely donating blood to keep someone alive, but if you have the wrong blood type, and everyone who has the right one refuses, do you have the right to force them?
But some who would consider themselves strongly pro-choice may take issue with my reservations regarding late term abortions. Although, at the same time, I think virtually everyone shares those reservations to some extent. I don’t think anyone thinks that it’s ok for a woman to just have a late term abortion for fun, just because “hey, it’s her body!”
From a legal perspective it seems you’re definitely pro-choice. As a feminist and pro-choice advocate, of course, I might think you’re judgmental and have a paternalistic attitude towards women that put the Social Democrats of the 1930s to shame. That seems to drive a lot of debate on the internet about abortion among men, with all the pearl-clutching about women having abortions for the wrong reasons and implying that there should be some kind of moral standard for women having abortions, instead of just trusting women to know their own situations better than the state can.
Scuzz
1791
If true you can bet the right wing of the party will use that against Romney as that is one of their problems with him as it is. Gingrich himself may have to be careful as I think he has in the past supported some of Romney’s “liberal” ideas.
Doesn’t accusing Obama of stealing his ideas mean that Obama’s ideas shouldn’t see opposition from the Republicans (at least those who share Mitt’s views)?
Alstein
1793
That’s a big part of Obama’s message- that the Republicans have shifted so far to the right that Republicans have to back away from things they supported 10-15 years ago, and/or that Romney shifts to win votes.
I agree that Romney stuck his foot in his mouth on this one, but it seems to be evading front page headlines. I don’t know if that’s good for him or if it’s a matter of being kept fresh for more debates and campaign ads.
In the interest of quotes that can be taken out of context:
Fidel Castro is right.
This actually makes me wonder if Gingrich would actually stand a chance in the general election. Look at Bush (Jr) – An objective observer could tell you all of the reasons he was a terrible candidate and would make a terrible president but, in the end, none of that mattered because he energized the Republican voters.
Gingrich hopefully cannot hide his un-likability for very long but it’s scary to think that he could not only win the nomination, but also the election simply by being brash and getting the faithful to nod their heads (pseudo)sagely.
I.e., Bush demonstrated that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Let’s hope Gingrich isn’t Dubya II in this regard.
Nope, but he stepped down in 2008 due to failing health. He is “only” 85, though.
One other point I thought of regarding the GOP Convention selecting a different nominee than one who is currently in the race.
I’m of a firm belief that running for President is such an incredibly difficult thing to do that there’s really no analogous election contest to compare with it. Guys who’ve run multiple successful elections for various offices have run for President and taken an absolute bellyflop. That’s why–and I’ve posted this before–it behooves a candidate to get in the race early, and make the inevitable mistakes you’re going to make early on.
Of course, how a candidate reacts to those flubs and gaffes is also important. If you don’t learn from them, you don’t gain much. However, if you look at John Kerry in 2004, Obama, Clinton, and McCain in 2008, and now Romney and Gingrich in 2012, I think there’s a definite pattern to the resilience forged learning by doing to run for President. Compare that to the candidacy of a guy like Wes Clark in 2004–a bright guy who just wasn’t experienced enough for the rigors of campaign. I think you also see it with the selection of Sarah Palin in 2008 and the campaign of Rick Perry this year.
