Look, I get it. The only difference between a professional politician and a whore is that whores have better principles. And it's incredibly hard to respect and trust anyone who actually WANTS the frigging job. But possibly we could get past this deep-seated desire to find The Next Big Thing and draft some heretofore-unknown George Washington-in-hiding, and actually settle down to choosing a real candidate with better qualifications than "You can tell he's honest, because he's so rude about it!" and "Better than the Democrat".
You've been clear and very detailed about what you
don't want in the "whores" you elect. Can you describe what qualifications you think a "real candidate" should have?
I can do better than that. I can tell you exactly why I'm supporting Ted Cruz.
1) Abortion - Supports free choice of businesses to not participate in funding abortions via insurance; supports a ban on taxpayer funding of abortions; supports a full investigation of allegations of trafficking in human body parts against Planned Parenthood, and prosecution thereof if the evidence supports it.
2) Economy - Supports a Balanced Budget Amendment; supports limiting growth of federal spending to inflation rate; wants to audit the Federal Reserve; supports free market solutions over federal spending.
3) Civil Rights - Opposes Supreme Court decision taking legalized "gay marriages" out of state jurisdiction and has suggested a Constitutional Amendment preventing the Supreme Court from voiding individual state laws on the subject; on the other hand, he doesn't appear to have any problem with gays themselves, having attended a fund raiser hosted by a gay couple in their home; authored a brief to the Supreme Court asking them to reverse an 8th Circuit decision to allow the KKK to participate in Kansas' "Adopt-A-Highway" program.
4) Crime - Convert regulatory offenses to civil offenses; supports full monitoring of sex offenders; supports the death penalty.
5) Drugs - Supports lowering minimums and mandatory sentencing on drug offenses; co-sponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015, to give judges more flexibility on sentencing of drug offenses to end overcrowding of prisons.
6) Education - Supports parental choice in education; opposes Common Core and supports local educational control.
7) Energy and Environment - Opposes moratorium on offshore oil exploration; supports leasing of energy rights on federal lands; opposes federal protection and intervention of environmental "special interests".
8) Government Reform - (This is a big one for me) Opposes use of executive orders to override Congress; Supports reform of IRS
vis a vis harassing people for personal beliefs; supports full enforcement of laws, rather than just those the administration likes; supports debt ceiling limits; supports voter ID requirements; supports auditing all federal agencies with an eye toward reform or even elimination; supports a requirement to identify the actual Constitutionality of all proposed laws.
9) Gun Control - Supports the Second Amendment and opposes any unreasonable and burdensome restriction of gun rights.
10) Obamacare - I think we all know he opposes Obamacare in no uncertain terms, and has actually backed up his campaign promises with action; supports expansion of free market choices in healthcare and insurance.
11) Immigration - (Also a big one for me) Opposes Obama amnesty; supports Kate's Law, requiring a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for any deported illegal who returns to the US; supports a border wall AND an expansion of the Border Patrol AND increasing the ability of the police to ask about immigration status; tried to reverse Obama's executive order halting the deportation of illegal immigrants; opposes a "path to citizenship" for illegals remaining in the country.
That's his actual policies that I like. Yes, I know you don't approve of or agree with any of them, Arian, but you asked a conservative why she's choosing him as the conservative candidate, so that's why . . . policy-wise.
On more personal terms, I like that he got elected and immediately started taking stands and fighting for the campaign promises he made, rather than simply giving them lip service to get in office and then forgetting them. I also like that he speaks firmly, confidently, and unapologetically about conservative values and positions, while still managing to sound like a serious, mature adult. I think he calls them like he sees them, but he expresses it in a way that's actually persuasive and effective, rather than bombastic.
The moment that really got me, on a personal level, was when the #BlackLivesMatter jackasses were hijacking rallies and trying to shout down and silence the speakers with their tantrums. They managed to make the likes of Bernie Sanders and whatshisname, that other Democrat non-entity, flee the stage. Trump's rally got unruly and the protesters were escorted out. But when they tried it on Ted Cruz, he answered them politely and respectfully, but firmly; he kept his own supporters from shouting back at them; and he actually got them to stop disrupting and engage in about as much civil give-and-take as primitives like that can manage. It was a masterful performance of REAL diplomacy, and it was Presidential.
I think, if he gets a chance, Ted Cruz is someone who can genuinely bring in and work with moderates, and even principled liberals, without resorting to the "across-the-aisle compromise" that always seems to translate to caving in.
So that's what I'm looking for in a candidate.
