Republican nominations - Page 458

On February 19 2012 11:11 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Not if it's just an endorsement with Ron Paul returning to being a Congressman and nothing else. If he accepts a position in a potential Romney cabinet, I think it would be a different story for most of the newer, younger support he's gotten during this election cycle.

Now I agree that the really hardcore Ron Paul supporters won't vote for anyone but him, but they aren't the bulk of his supporters anymore. They're a loud minority. These are the people who were saying they supported Ron Paul when he was getting 5-10% of a vote in a primary in 2008, not 20-30% (or more) like he gets now.

His voters are significant enough nationally to hand Obama re-election in a close contest if a big majority of them stay home. If you (very roughly) extrapolate his support, it's gone from being like 2% of the total electorate in 2008 to closer to 10% today. If they can be persuaded to vote, that is.



Gingrich currently couldn't make a dog catcher in West Hollow, Georgia, much less a king. Six weeks ago yeah, not anymore. His casino buddy can keep throwing in 10 million dollar hot fudge injections into his campaign all he wants, Romney grabbed him by his weaknesses and shook him damn hard and Newt couldn't handle it. That's the biggest part of why he's nose-dived, the going got tough and Newt didn't respond in a way that proved positive for his campaign.

Reporting from Columbus, Ohio — Republican GOP hopeful Rick Santorum may be the most prominent homeschooler in America. So it might not have been surprising that, on Saturday, he told a conservative Christian audience that he intended to homeschool his children in the White House.

In his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance, however, Santorum went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.

In the nation’s past, he said, “Most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.”

“Yes, the government can help,” he continued, “but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic.”

He said it is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, “when people came off the farms where they did homeschool or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools.”

On February 19 2012 16:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
I mean... I don't care who you are or where you stand in American Politics, this is frightening:



Source

On February 19 2012 17:02 Sufficiency wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Uh. Why did he say that. What kind of people is he trying to appeal to? There is no way he can win a general election with this kind of altitude. It's practically telling the liberals "ATTACK ME ATTACK ME!"

On February 19 2012 16:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
I mean... I don't care who you are or where you stand in American Politics, this is frightening:



Source

On February 19 2012 11:50 DamnCats wrote:
"Mr. Santorum did not correct the woman’s statement, and he later said it is not his job to correct such statements."

From that NY times article. Guy's a joke.

On February 19 2012 18:17 Blix wrote:
According to dutch media, Santorum claimed that in the Netherlands 10% of deaths are by euthanasia, half of them involuntarily. Old people would wear 'don't euthanize me' badges and flee the country. (truth: <2%; not only is it obviously voluntary, it is quite difficult to arrange; there are 'don't reanimate me' badges for old people) . Being batshit crazy is one thing, spreading verifiable lies is another...

On February 19 2012 09:53 DeepElemBlues wrote:
Ron Paul and Mittens Romney are apparently great personal friends, their wives like each other too, all that jazz.

I think Mittens will limp into the convention and Paul will throw him his delegates in exchange for being Treasury Secretary. Has the added benefit of keeping Ron Paulians on the Republican bandwagon instead of staying at home too.

Being from PA and having gone to several of his speeches / meet-ups back in the day, particularly in 2006, I know the man just a wee little bit, and aside from his rather bad ability to articulate his social conservatism, Rick Santorum is just weird. He just doesn't understand or doesn't care how he comes off to people who aren't as old-fashioned as he is.

On February 20 2012 00:30 BioNova wrote:
I would expect Islamic Chistmas Cookies from Syria in the mail long before that takes place, but I digress to the establishment mouthpieces till then.

"His (Santorum) voting record is ... from my viewpoint, an atrocious voting record -- how liberal he's been in all the things he's voted for over the many years he was in the Senate and in the House," Paul said.

He had kinder words for Mitt Romney, praising his "acceptable management style," a qualification that he said Santorum and Newt Gingrich did not share.

On February 19 2012 18:17 Blix wrote:
According to dutch media, Santorum claimed that in the Netherlands 10% of deaths are by euthanasia, half of them involuntarily. Old people would wear 'don't euthanize me' badges and flee the country. (truth: <2%; not only is it obviously voluntary, it is quite difficult to arrange; there are 'don't reanimate me' badges for old people) . Being batshit crazy is one thing, spreading verifiable lies is another...

On February 19 2012 16:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
I mean... I don't care who you are or where you stand in American Politics, this is frightening:



Source

On February 20 2012 08:58 antelope591 wrote:


Umm...I think Santorum's a nut but I don't see anything wrong with this comment at all. The public school system IS a POS and you can learn a lot more from your parents if they're dedicated enough to put the work into homeschooling. Of course most parents aren't gonna have the patience for that but if they choose to go that route I don't see anything wrong with that at all. Up until university everything you do in the classroom is a joke in public school anyway....I don't think I ever spent more than an hour on homework or studying on a test until grade 12. So where's the big loss?

On February 20 2012 09:04 Talin wrote:


Objectivity is the big loss. If you're homeschooled, you can easily be taught things that are straight up wrong, and your education might end up serving a purpose other than actually learning (correct) things about the world. Even if there are no sinister goals involved, your education might be skewed towards what your parents believe is the right thing for you (so they might dodge things like math or history or whatever else they don't deem as "useful in life").

The general flaw of all these "we can do everything ourselves" ideas is that you can't have a serious society without rules and structure. I mean these ideas were all considered fringe / extremist until a decade or two ago, it's extremely scary that the perspectives of so many societies (not just US) are so skewed today that these ideas are promoted freely by fairly mainstream politicians.

On February 20 2012 08:58 antelope591 wrote:


Umm...I think Santorum's a nut but I don't see anything wrong with this comment at all. The public school system IS a POS and you can learn a lot more from your parents if they're dedicated enough to put the work into homeschooling. Of course most parents aren't gonna have the patience for that but if they choose to go that route I don't see anything wrong with that at all. Up until university everything you do in the classroom is a joke in public school anyway....I don't think I ever spent more than an hour on homework or studying on a test until grade 12. So where's the big loss?

On February 20 2012 09:38 aksfjh wrote:

I would attack the argument in another way. Santorum believes that everybody has the time (or money) to spare in order to teach their children themselves. He also believes that obtaining a state ID to vote is not a problem, since "you need one to fly." These comments, along with others, show that he doesn't actually understand the 21st century families, poor, and general culture. He doesn't know or care that people work 2 or 3 jobs as a single parent in order to simply get their kids into college, or even a good high school. It really doesn't seem like he understands the world outside his Christian, upper class bubble.