The Real GOP Candidates

Nicholas Warren

Undergraduate/Biochemistry/Molecular Bi­ology

I have been watching the Republi­can presidential candidates very closely. I feel like Obama has not delivered on the promises he committed to during his past campaign, such as more transpar­ency, meaningful healthcare reform, less corruption, and foreign policies that will improve our standing around the globe. Therefore, I am looking for an alterna­tive to vote for in this coming presidential election that will hopefully bring about some good change. I was disheartened at first with the candidates the Republican Party was fielding like Bachmann, Rom­ney and Perry. I really don’t think crazy or sleazy people should become the leader of the free world. However, I have dis­covered some candidates that are actually sane and have some decent ideas about the direction of our country.

The first candidate I warmed up to was Ron Paul. He has some great ideas about reforming the financial sector, like dismantling the Federal Reserve. And he has some other good ideas like bringing our troops home and legalizing mari­juana. However, I disagree with almost every other of his ideas, like pro-choice, climate change and that he will absolutely not increase taxes. I was starting to be put off by the way he talks and discusses his issues. He is very combative and defen­sive about his issues. What drew the final straw for me was his T.V. ad that demon­ized the word “compromise.” Compro­mise is something that our country runs on and can’t do without. This ad also made it seem like he will be unable to get the legislature to work together; probably the most important job of the President.

Next, I moved on to John Huntsman. In response to Rick Perry’s remarks about evolution and climate change, Huntsman tweeted “To be clear. I believe in evolu­tion and trust scientists on global warm­ing. Call me crazy.” This tweet sparked my interest, because I had lost hope that there were Republican candidates that ac­tually believe in science. After researching Huntsman a bit, I found that he is fluent in Mandarin, is the former U.S. ambas­sador to China, had an approval rating of over 70% while governor of Utah, and is very knowledgeable about multiple reli­gions (Mormonism, Christianity, Bud­dhism, etc). This guy seem like he is good at getting people to work together, and his record shows it. While in office, he got his legislature to craft and pass a bipartisan healthcare reform law. Huntsman also seems like the guy that will improve our standing around the world, especially with China. While he lacks much of a concrete direction on issues, his main strength is that he can get people to cooperate and listens to input from his constituency.

The most recent candidate I have warmed up to is Gary Johnson. Johnson recently opened himself up to answer questions by anybody on the website red­dit.com (most of the info in this para­graph comes from his responses there). This is the first time I have ever seen such a high profile candidate open himself for random questioning from an unscreened audience. Needless to say, he did very well. Johnson has a pretty strong stance on things like legalizing marijuana, com­plete tax reform, climate change and fis­cal responsibility. He pledged to legalize marijuana by executive order, so we won’t have to wait on Congress. He will push Congress to eliminate all income and cor­porate taxes and instead raise revenue by the FairTax (look it up). This way people are not taxed for making money, they are taxed for consuming new goods and ser­vices. You would be able to avoid paying taxes by buying used goods from places like Goodwill. He realizes that climate change is a huge drain on our economy and national defense and we need to switch over to safer and more reliable sources of energy. Lastly, Johnson wants to cut military spending by 43% and elim­inate military foreign aid. He plans to cut the 43% mostly from ending the wars and closing military bases around the world. His motto is that we need a good national defense not an international offense. As you can see, he is a much more moderate Republican than the other candidates and is somebody that would be able to steal many votes from Obama.

Sadly, Huntsman and Johnson are not getting a whole lot of attention in the press. This is partly because crazy people make a better sound bite. Another reason is that these two candidates want to bring meaningful reforms and big political do­nors don’t like that, so they are unable to raise the same amount of funds as other candidates. However, the biggest reason is probably that they are moderate candi­dates. The people who are normally inter­ested in the presidential race this early in the game tend to be more radical. What needs to happen is for more moderate or independent voters to get involved with the process, or at least vote in the prima­ries. If one of the radical candidates gets the nomination, Obama is guaranteed a win, but if a moderate is nominated, there might actually be some meaningful dia­logue on the campaign trail and possibly somebody new could get elected.

Sources:

Ronpaul.com

Twitter.com

John2012.com

Reddit.com

Garyjohnson2012.com