Returning to the blogging scene: The 2016 candidates

Recently I got a question as to whether I was sill blogging. And that reminded me that it has been a long time since my last post, and that I ought to get back. A lot has happened since my last post, and it will take a bit to get current.

One development that I do not like is that Chris Christie, my preferred candidate for the nomination, seems to have lost a lot of his support, and instead of being at the top (or near the top) in the polls, is somewhere in the middle of the pack. While I still consider him the best candidate, unless he recovers that top position, I suppose I will have to consider other options. There are other candidates, such as Jeb Bush, and Scott Walker, who could be good Presidents, and my only reason for not supporting them for the nomination is that I feel they have less chance of actually being elected, so if they begin to look electable to me, I could certainly support them.

A couple of candidates have been discussed recently who have a number of attractive attributes, but who lack, to my mind, some important qualifications for the Presidency. If Carly Fiorina had won the election for Senator from California when she ran, I would consider her a high-quality candidate for the Presidency. However, as it is, she is totally inexperienced in the ins and outs of partisan politics, and I can't consider her ready for the Presidency. Her executive experience, to be sure, is excellent, and this is an area where the current incumbent's total lack has shown. So perhaps she would not be a terrible choice, and if she should secure the nomination, I would certainly vote for her against Hillary Clinton in November of next year.

The other person I consider attractive in some ways but insufficiently experienced in some areas for the Presidency is Ben Carson. He is certainly an intelligent and thoughtful man, who could be very useful in a Republican administration as Surgeon General, or at the head of a task force on finding a replacement for Obamacare, or as HHS Secretary, but he has none of the political experience I think necessary.

There are also a number of people who are more experienced in politics and who have, specifically, the executive experience needed for the Presidency: such Governors and former Governors as John Kasich and Mitch Daniels. I could easily support either of these two or others like them, but I fear they need to become better known to the public. They suffer the same flaws that Jon Huntsman did in 2012.

There are a couple of people that I could never support, however. If a religious-right extremist like Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum (Is Rick Perry going to run? If so, he falls into this class.) should get the GOP nomination, the GOP loses my vote. I still would never vote for Hillary Clinton, but my vote would go to any obscure third-party candidate I could find rather than one of these men.

The vice-presidential guessing game

Now (although Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are concentrating on each other) many people are trying to guess who will be Romney's vice-presodential choice. Of course, nobody can read Romney's mind, so it's pure guesswork. Not many expected Sarah Palin to be John McCain's VP choice in 2008.

Many polls have been taken, though Romney is not likely to use the polls as a guide. Some of the results of the polls are interesting. Naturally, since I've said good things about them as presidential choices in the past, I'd be happy with such choices as Condoleezza Rice, Mitch Daniels, or Chris Christie for VP: I've seen all three in the poll results. Of course, all three specifically deny their interest, but one never knows whether such denials are for show or real. It is bad form to say you want the VP slot, and I imagine that anyone who actually said he/she wanted to be VP on a Romney ticket would immediately be stricken from the list!

There is a good chance we will not know for many months. The convention is a long time off, and Mitt Romney doesn't need to announce his choice till then. On the other hand, if he announces his VP choice soon, that person can start to campaign against the Obama-Biden ticket as presumptive nominee, which could be an advantage.

It's just as much a speculation trying to guess when Romney will announce his choice as to guess who his choice will be, however. I guess we simply have to wait and see, as we have to wait and see what the Supreme Court will do in the Obamacare case or any of the other things we are waiting to play out at this time.

Indiana's right-to-work law

Yesterday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a right-to-work law for that state. Hurray for Indiana, but we really need a national law.

Years ago, Federal law outlawed the “closed shop,” where a worker had to be a member of a union to be hired, but allowed “union shop” contracts, where a worker might be forced to join the union after he was hired. Unions love these contracts, because workers can be forced to pay dues to corrupt unions that do nothing worthwhile for their workers. (Any union that really serves the workers it supposedly represents should be able to convince the workers to join voluntarily.)

Typically these days, the only workers who benefit by union contracts are the ones who do a substandard job — because any worker who wants to do a good job gets harassed by the union (since he's showing up the others!) Good workers, as well, are prevented from having their talents recognized, because union contracts typically require a worker to be paid the same whether he performs well or not: either all the workers get the same pay, or their pay is only dependent on seniority. In non-union shops, by contrast, workers get evaluated as individuals, and their pay depends on the job they do. A good worker will not be underpaid, because the employer wants to keep him.

Once upon a time, unions performed a necessary function — there were sweatshops, and workers needed the unions to make their jobs safe and adequately compensated. Those days are gone, at least in the USA. And this is shown by the precipitous drop in union membership — in the 1950s, unions enrolled more than a third of all workers, while now it is only slightly more than 10%. And in the private sector, it is far less than that — less than 7%. Clearly, most workers only belong to a union if they have to. And this is why we need a national right-to-work law: a law that will clearly state that nobody has to belong to a union unless he really wants to.

Another candidate?

Right now, of those declared candidates for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination, my favorite, as I've stated on this blog before, is Mitt Romney. He's the best of the ones who have said they want to run, for a lot of reasons — he's not the extreme right-winger that most of his competitors are, he's proved that he can run both a business and a state, and other things. But it's clear that many Republicans are uncomfortable with him. Why else would Herman Cain — politically inexperienced, and all along running only a few percent in the polls — suddenly vault to the top in the Florida straw poll? And even to me, Romney has his flaws — the main one being his reversing his positions on a number of issues. In this respect, though I hate to admit it, Texas Governor Rick Perry was right. But although Perry is more consistent on the issues, he's more consistently on the wrong side as far as I'm concerned, so I certainly wouldn't prefer him to Romney!

There are two men who, if they decided to run for the nomination, would easily get my support for the office. One is Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels — the man who put the "social conservatives" in their place by saying that in these hard economic times there needs to be a setting aside of the social issues. The other — my absolute first choice if he ever chooses to change his mind and run — is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has taken on powerful teachers' unions and won, who has resisted the effort to make “social conservatism” a badge of the party, and has worked with a Democratic legislature to get his programs through. This last shows his superior leadership abilities.

Of course, both Daniels and Christie have said they aren't running. So I'm stuck with Romney for the time being, given the alternatives. But sometimes I just wish that Christie, particularly, would change his mind. (Latest flash: A report on Fox News says Christie is "reconsidering" his decision not to run, and may decide to change his mind. I hope he does.)

Rick Perry? Oh, no!

Some polls I've seen lately show a surge in the numbers for Rick Perry, putting him in #1 position among Republican candidates for the nomination. I hope that it's just a case of people supporting him because he's a fresh face, the newest entry into the race.

It's clear that Perry is the kind of Republican that Democrats like to paint all Republicans as — pretty stupid. His remarks on creationism, for one, bear this out. And he's taken to comparing himself to George W. Bush by saying "Bush went to Yale, I went to Texas A&M." Nominating Perry almost concedes the race to Obama, unless people are so fed up with Obama's handling of the economy that they'll vote for anyone running against him, and I don't see this yet.

There are certainly problems with Mitt Romney, but so far he seems the best choice. I've seen some mention of former New York State Governor George Pataki as a candidate, and I would — as far as I can tell — be able to support him, but I haven't seen that he was interested in the nomination. I might have really liked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and had a favorable view of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, but both of them have made it clear that they aren't interested. My favorite blog owner, Dennis Sanders, keeps advocating Jon Huntsman, who is probably closer to me politically than Romney, but can he get the nomination in a party where he's polling about 2%? And if he manages to get that nomination, will he be able to make himself known to enough people to get their vote in Nomember 2012 against an incumbent President Obama? So with all these factors, I have to go for Romney.

The field thins out

This weekend, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said he's not running for the Presidency next year. I regret his decision — he was one of the best choices for a candidate to run against Pres. Obama. More and more, it's Mitt Romney that I have to favor, despite some negative vibes.

Of course, Dennis Sanders of the Big Tent Review blog has another favorite: former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah. The fact that Sanders — whose opinions often come close to my own — is so sold on Huntsman means I could probably support him. But he is very poorly known by the American people. Since people don't generally vote for someone they've never heard of, unless Huntsman can show he can get support from enough independent voters to elect him, I retain my skepticism of him. If he does succeed in getting some public recognition, I'd probably support him. But now I can only say that Romney is my favorite, with some misgivings, and Huntsman warrants looking at.

More and more, Mitch Daniels impresses me

A while ago, Mitch Daniels made a remark that impressed me. Though he is "socially conservative," which is normally a negative to me, he made a statement advocating a "truce on social issues" last year. In other words, he wants to work with those of us who will agree with him on fixing economic problems, even if we disagree with his social conservatism. A big plus for Daniels.

Now, another Daniels statement, this time on an issue on which he and I agree. He wants to put aside the proposed Indiana right-to-work law, because there are more pressing issues. I think he's right.

Contrast this with President Obama, who seems to want to push all the issues at once: economic stimulus, health care, environmental, etc. This simply is trying to do too much at one time.

I think this is a sign that Daniels is a good choice for President in 2012. Perhaps even better than Mitt Romney, whom I've rated #1 in a recent posting. He certainly is looking better and better to me.

Working toward 2012 endorsements

Now that this year's election is over, it's time to start looking at 2012. I had hoped that Meg Whitman might have been elected Governor of California, and had she been, she would have been — as I said more than once — my first choice for the 2012 nomination. But I think that one of the qualifications that would have a major bearing on acceptability would be having run a State Government. (Running a big corporation, which Whitman certainly has done, is helpful, but I don't think enough.) So she's out of there for now. Being a Senator is about the only other qualification that I might accept as even close to a Governorship of a State, and if Carly Fiorina had won and Whitman had not, she might be my first choice. But she didn't win, either. So the two people I really might have endorsed enthusiastically under different circumstances are out. So who might I favor?

Two years ago, I was somewhat negative about Mitt Romney, in part because of some ambiguity in where he stood on a lot of issues. But in the current situation, the importance of economic issues makes Romney look pretty good to me. He is currently my #1.

I don't know as much about Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, but whatever I've seen about him I like. I am particularly impressed by something he's said which infuriates a lot of "social conservatives" — as I've said in the past, I think that they harm the party more than helping it, so what infuriates them pleases me. And Daniels has said that he felt that social issues should be de-emphasized, even though he is socially conservative. I strongly support his stand there and for that reason alone, he ranks high in my opinion. And his performance as Governor of Indiana is creditable. Daniels, then, is currently #2 on my list, and I would not be surprised if, on learning more about him, he moves up to #1.

Finally, recently I saw a story to the effect that former Governor of New York George Pataki might run. He is also someone I could easily support. Call him #3 for now; again, as time goes by, he might move up on the list, depending on what happens regarding Romney's or Daniels' actions.

Recent polls for 2012

There have been polls among the Republicans seeking to determine their preferences for the 2012 nominee. And though I think one really ought to see what happens in next month's election, I am certainly interested in the results. They seem to put Mitt Romney first and Sarah Palin second, with other names well behind.

Now, of all the names being discussed, I can accept all of them except one: Mike Huckabee. But of the ones being discussed, Romney is my favorite, so I'm pretty happy so far. (I don't like the vacillation on some issues that Romney has shown in the past, so I'm not entirely happy with him. But he is certainly the most qualified, having been a Governor of a major state and a successful businessman, and actually making an Olympics profitable, which is usually impossible! I'd like to know more about two of the also-rans, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota; what I've seen about them looks good, but I know too little. Palin is certainly not my first choice, but I don't see in her the idiot the Democrats make her out to be. She's too right-wing for my taste, but not as far to my right as Obama is to my left, so if Palin runs against Obama, she certainly gets my vote.

But what about next month? There are people like Meg Whitman, who are not being discussed so far, but if they win, I think they should be. So I think it is really too premature.