I looked at this pretty hard because we work for several “big name” Republicans. Here’s my take on the contenders. When reading, keep in mind I happen to be a US Citizen, but I was born, raised, and will return to Israel, which is my real country, and this flavors my commentary.
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Huckabee. Huckabee is like the Shas party in Israel — wants to impose religious social conservatism on people, while being a big-government, big-tax, and a fiscal idiot. The TEA party (which is the new base of the Republican Party — to the extent they overlap) will dump him, but he’ll remain the idol of the hard-core religous base (Southen Baptists). He would lose to Palin or even Myth Romney.
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“Myth” Romney — the born-again conservative. Romney’s daddy lost to Nixon (for those who have forgotten history) in a long-ago Republican primary. Nixon ran to Romney’s right and Romney, senior (who was a liberal) swore he’d never lose an election by being out-flanked on the right. Romney is a big government, big spender, smarmy liberal who combines the worst qualities of Republicans and Democrats. Romney should be viewed as the Godfather of ObamaCare with RomneyCare, which was the same thing. Despite spending millions of his daddy’s money, Romney is still viewed as what he is by the Republican grass roots — a big, fat, fake.
Romney manages to chug along because of what I call “affinity fraud.” This is the fraud people commit on people of like religion, like Bernie Madoff (an Orthodox Jew) who managed to rob a lot of my friends and family (also Orthodox Jews).
Myth, like Bernie Madoff did with Jews, has a commited group of mormons that he has defrauded into thinking he is something he is not. He has a built-in, dedicated, responsible campaign group ready to break out their bicycles and magic underwear and get out the vote. I plea to them: don’t be a victim of affinity fraud.
Like my uncle, who told his wife that Bernie was too good to be true, they won’t listen.
Also, the Republican establishment who like power (regardless of principals) love Romney, as he is one of them.
Myth will be the media’s favorite candidate because he’s unelectable ---- the Republican base just won’t care about this slick used car salesman. They’ll stay home.
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Gulliani — pro abort, never make it out of the primaries
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Newt Gingrich – lots and lots of personal and historical baggage making him borderline unelectiable and he’s very much and insider when people want to get rid of insiders. He’s remotely possible.
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Ron Paul – he published a conspiracy news letter when he was a candidate and before, all about how Joooos were behind all the evil in the world and there are lots of photos of him with the Stormfront website founders. He has a consistently anti-Israel voting record made many an anti-Israel statement. Obviously, I don’t like the guy. Objectively, this crap would make him unelectiable, and was not brought to the fore because he was a fringe guy. If he ever had any traction, I’d go buy adds and vote for Obama (who I hate), because Obama is too stupid to kill me and mine, even though he clearly wants to. Paul would figure out a way.
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DeMint ---- he’s one to watch. He’s certainly a fiscal conservative. He is also a social conservative, but not in a I’ll-impose-Leviticus-on-you way like Huckabee.
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Chris Christie — another one to watch, but he’s too fat and a little socially liberal for the Republican primaries. I bet he’d be a VP slot.
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John Kasich — Ohio – another to warch
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Marco Rubio – Senator Florida — I would not be surprised if this is the guy. He’s good looking, smart, conservative, and kinda cool for a politician. He’s my first draft pick. Only demerit is he’s new.
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Palin ---- she’s a lot smarter than people give her credit. I’ve now met her several times and continue to be amazed at the difference between the public Palin and the private Paln.
I agree with Rove that her stupid reality show was an un-Presidential move, except that it keeps her in the public eye – and makes her money.
FWIW, She was always a big friend of Chabad Lubavitch in Alaska (the “Frozen Chosen”) and Bibi Netanyahu (Likud, Israel) is on record saying he favored her as his favorite candidate. That said, the McCain campaign so badly screwed her (and she let them) that I think she is damaged goods.
Smart or not, people think she is not smart. I do like her because brings out bizarre hatred in liberals (witness the guy who shot his TV because Bristol Palin was promoted on Dancing with the Stars).
