Well that's certainly your opinion, and I would like to know why you feel that way (Trump is obvious, but why the other two?) but like I said above, I've just liked what they've had to say. Each one of them has touched on things I agree with here and there. I'm not completely sold on anyone yet, but everyone I listed, I like them thus far. We'll see if that continues.
Cruz, who I earlier qualified as being a candidate who is clearly well-educated and intellectually competent for the job, is undoubtedly the scummiest politician I have ever seen. He has time and time again committed himself to the strategy of appealing to the dumbest and least educated of voters with silly hyperbole and scare tactics, even when they further a position that is completely in the opposite interest of his voters and his appeal. One of the clearest (and most recent) examples of this is his soapbox on net neutrality. Even a majority of conservative voters who are knowledgeable on the issue agree that the only real argument against NN is a veiled argument in interest of big providers: allowing providers to further tier information access will only serve to drive up their profits while restricting access to information for a lot of citizens. Yet Cruz has, in his speech, used hyperbole and framed what amounts of access to information as some kind of digital slavery. Again, this is one of the easier examples just because there's a fair amount of conservatives who also line up to the left of Cruz on this issue, which is just another issue where Cruz is shamelessly exploiting his voters in favor of corporations that are paying him.
Huckabee is the definitions of a hack. While his economic positions are just classic Tea Party anti-poor, and demonstrably ineffectual crap, his social positions are where he really shines. The guy is a former pastor who constantly references his religious past (and speaks using preacher rhetoric and cadence) as some sort of moral authority despite constantly undermining his own morality with really shitty anecdote. A great example of this is the article the TS posted two pages back where Huckabee argued against the legitimacy of transgendered people by saying he would be okay using that argument to shower with girls in high school. This, of course, is a small potatoes example, but it shows what a sleaze the guy is. As a white Christian, I feel that Huckabee is a microcosm of what everyone wrongfully attributes to people like me.
Carson is basically a black Ted Cruz. However, I think Carson is a bit more genuine and less transparent in his corruption. A big problem to me with Carson is that he appeals to his past employment as a physician as some sort of authority on science-related issues. This is really a dishonest misrepresentation of his background, though. Physicians and surgeons are not scientists in their specialization or, especially, in their approach, which is basically to specialize in a singular framework (in his case neurosurgery I believe) and then work in direct relation to the human body--- this does not form an authority on broader sciences or, even less, on specialized sciences like those related to climate change, where he's taken a sadly two-dimensional stance against climate change, despite the fact that there's an almost complete consensus (97 percent of scientists globally) on the reality of climate change from actual scientists in actual climate-related fields. Carson is also a shameless slave to hyperbole scare tactics-- see his repeated comparisons of universal healthcare (something shown to be demonstrably beneficial to society in the rest of the first world) to slavery.
I know that's very long-winded, but you seemed genuinely interested, so I thought I'd give an honest response. My biggest problem with your post is that you qualify the candidates by saying "they can't be worse than Obama," which is just ludicrous. Even to be very critical of Obama's presidency, you can objectively say he's been an at least average president (I, and most presidential historians, would argue he's a bit better than average) and one that is considerably right of his actual Democratic voters. While I can't try to sway you on whether a farther-right president could do a better job (as we certainly have different concepts of what improves our country), to use that to idealize those particular candidates, who are so obviously corrupt or incompetent, is just silly.
EDIT: I realize this post is a bit more of an indictment of the candidates themselves than of their policy, especially economic (where I'm most passionate and where the candidates policies are most provably poor). If you'd like an elaboration on that, which is a bit more dense, let me know and I'll try to bookmark it.
Yea, his campaign people are making him focus his message on the economy and making him steer clear of social issues. If he manages to get in the debates, watch him screw that entire thing up when a social issue question comes up. The guy cares most about that in his policies and would work the hardest on it as well as invading Iran rather than the economy
Yeah, it's hard to trust him being the least bit genuine in the re-branding, but at the very least it's refreshing to see a blue collar social conservative. There's something so despicable about those who appeal to social values that are prevalent in low income voters to bolster economic legislation that works against those voters.
But, even in the last Republican primary, I gave Santorum some credit on being genuine in his appalling social policy. He may be kind of a crazy wacko, but I prefer a crazy wacko with actual principles to a complete shill like Romney, who really has no actual political doctrine except what will get him elected.
Who are your candidates of choice? I feel like I don't see you post much around the board, but you're clearly knowledgeable on the primary field.
