So, which presidential candidate would be the worst for America and why?

[irishScott]

So I've seen a lot of debate over who would be better, but screw that. They both suck and we all... well 95% of us know it. So in the end we're going to be choosing the candidate we feel is going to cause the least damage.

So with that in mind, let's argue the negatives for a second. Who will cause more damage to America and why?

 

[nageov3t]

I fail to see any substantial differences amongst the Big Two

 

[EagleKeeper]

Which every candidate has full control over Congress.

More damage was done by Obama when he had a full control than when the Repub controlled the House.

And to appease the Obama haters
When Bush had full control; much more things were passed without close scrutiny.

The Senate seems to have lost/passed on it's full ability to act as a logical counter weight; that is now falling to the House

 

[Jaskalas]

Obama would do less damage, because achieving the Presidency would verify and reinforce the corruption Romney represents. He'd become the Neocon blue print for the future of the Republican Party.

McCain's loss should have taught them something, but in the wake of Bush's legacy they considered it a fluke. We have to keep stopping them until they start nominating conservatives.

 

[brandonb]

I'd probably list Romney. He is just the typical neo-con. Iran would be targetted instantly, and that's all we need, is more war! He is one of those people who "seems fair, but feels foul" as the Lords of the Rings movies said. I do not trust the dude.

Obama is just the other side of the same coin though. I'm not sure if he is any better when it comes to Iran or anything else. He seems more genuine though. You knew when he mentioned Trayvon Martin, you knew what we would say, even if you didn't agree with it.

In summary. I vote Romney by only a hair. But in all honestly, if both got hit by the bus today (or fell off a cliff), I think the world would be a better place.

 

[Ynog]

Which every candidate has full control over Congress.

More damage was done by Obama when he had a full control than when the Repub controlled the House.

And to appease the Obama haters
When Bush had full control; much more things were passed without close scrutiny.

The Senate seems to have lost/passed on it's full ability to act as a logical counter weight; that is now falling to the House

Basically this. When one side has full control (either party), the first thing that goes is actually listening to the other side. When you fail to listen to the other side you will fail to represent the approximately 50% of the population who doesn't agree with your party's ideals.

When you try to paddle upriver, you won't get anywhere just paddling right and you won't get anywhere just paddling left.

 

[Anarchist420]

Obama would do less damage, because achieving the Presidency would verify and reinforce the corruption Romney represents. He'd become the Neocon blue print for the future of the Republican Party. McCain's loss should have taught them something, but in the wake of Bush's legacy they considered it a fluke. We have to keep stopping them until they start nominating conservatives.

I couldn't agree more.

So with that in mind, let's argue the negatives for a second. Who will cause more damage to America and why?

Romney would be worse because he'd spend just as much while trying to say he'd spend less. He and Ryan are a fucking joke. Going by the pattern of Carter to Reagan and Clinton to Bush 43, Romney would not only spend more, he'd also economically regulate more than Obama would (especially with a Republican Congress). The thing that's so pathetic is that so many people believe the Republicans are more economically conservative than the Democrats when the Democrats are actually less economically authoritarian. That doesn't make the Democrats even tolerable, but they're not as awful as the Republicans have been.

All of that said, there is hope that Romney won't win the nomination. Dr. Paul has what his campaign calls a Harding Strategy, and I'm sure the convention will be brokered like the one in Chicago in 1920 was. If it is, then it's over for the former Gov. of MA. It's worth noting that we also haven't even had the CA and TX primaries/cauceses.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Which every candidate has full control over Congress.

Yes, I agree. I've always felt much of the success of the Clinton years came not from Clinton actively doing things, but from him stopping the Republican congress. Blocking both parties from carrying out bad spending and enforcing their extremist ideals is a good thing.

If Obama gets another 4 years, the Republicans won't have the same motivation to be obstructionist. Maybe in the second term we can get some compromises to cut spending on both "sides": defense cuts such as overseas bases, domestic entitlement programs.

Unfortunately both parties love to deficit spend to pay back their backers and buy votes, so I don't have much hope of that.

 

[thraashman]

Going by all the people that have put themselves forth as a candidate since the beginning of primary season, Michelle Bachmann was probably the most dangerous.

If you go with the candidates that haven't yet dropped out. Hard to say. I'd like to say Mitt Romney would be the worst. Problem there is it's near impossible to say what his positions actually are as they change so often and he will be his party's nominee.

If I were to include candidates that are still in it but don't actually have a shot, Ron Paul would certainly be horrifically bad as would Newt.

 

[Moonbeam]

Going by all the people that have put themselves forth as a candidate since the beginning of primary season, Michelle Bachmann was probably the most dangerous.

If you go with the candidates that haven't yet dropped out. Hard to say. I'd like to say Mitt Romney would be the worst. Problem there is it's near impossible to say what his positions actually are as they change so often and he will be his party's nominee.

If I were to include candidates that are still in it but don't actually have a shot, Ron Paul would certainly be horrifically bad as would Newt.

Didn't MB, see why I like her, raise a bunch of orphans in real life or something. How could somebody like that be all bad?

 

[ElFenix]

Didn't MB, see why I like her, raise a bunch of orphans in real life or something. How could somebody like that be all bad?

apparently fostered 23, has 5 children, of which an undisclosed number are orphans.

 

[Genx87]

apparently fostered 23, has 5 children, of which an undisclosed number are orphans.

Remember she is evil.

 

[MovingTarget]

Obama would do the least damage. The Republican Party has tacked even further to the right since Obama won the presidency. I hate to use a But-Bush argument here, but we can't afford that kind of party/candidate running the show. If the Republicans had moderated their positions since Bush I'd be happy to go for Romney.

 

[Lithium381]

obama.
no worries about getting elected again. will implement socialist policies to the detriment of the economy.

 

[DaveSimmons]

obama.
no worries about getting elected again. will implement socialist policies to the detriment of the economy.

Are you expecting the Dems to retake the house?

 

[hal2kilo]

Are you expecting the Dems to retake the house?

Since the 2010 election brought in a bunch of extremist Teabaggers, the chances of the Democrats retaking the HOR have increased exponentially. Dems need 25. As many a 64 seats are in play. Bonerboy even admitted last night that there's a 1 in 3 chance the Dems could retake the house.

 

[Retro Rob]

Maybe in the second term we can get some compromises to cut spending on both "sides": defense cuts such as overseas bases, domestic entitlement programs.

...or just reset everything to zero.

 

[mect]

I think Obama would be the better candidate because it would keep things mixed, and I think the government works best when both sides of the political spectrum are balanced in their representation. That being said, I don't think either are bad candidates, and I'm surprised I see this so much. I guess the metric most people use for a good candidate is someone whose politics overlap perfectly with their own, which is why such a candidate essentially does not exist (or at least never makes it far). Personally, so long as we are getting candidates that are relatively moderate, intelligent, and capable, I think we have a decent selection. In my opinion, this years candidates are the best (as far as both candidates go) we've had for quite some time.

That being said, there were some scary candidates in the republican primaries. The only republican candidate I would have preferred over Romney was Huntsman.

 

[etrigan420]

...or just reset everything to zero.

MARK IT ZERO!!!!1

Of the current candidates, Gingrich would be the worst.

Between the 2 major players, Romney would be the worst.

Paul is worse than Romney.

Bachmann, Santorum, and Palin are off the chart. D:

 

[Lithium381]

I think Obama would be the better candidate because it would keep things mixed, and I think the government works best when both sides of the political spectrum are balanced in their representation. That being said, I don't think either are bad candidates, and I'm surprised I see this so much. I guess the metric most people use for a good candidate is someone whose politics overlap perfectly with their own, which is why such a candidate essentially does not exist (or at least never makes it far). Personally, so long as we are getting candidates that are relatively moderate, intelligent, and capable, I think we have a decent selection. In my opinion, this years candidates are the best (as far as both candidates go) we've had for quite some time.

That being said, there were some scary candidates in the republican primaries. The only republican candidate I would have preferred over Romney was Huntsman.

i'd much rather get obama out and give up the majority in congress . . get someone who respects the constitution in there

 

[Retro Rob]

I think Obama would be the better candidate because it would keep things mixed, and I think the government works best when both sides of the political spectrum are balanced in their representation. That being said, I don't think either are bad candidates, and I'm surprised I see this so much. I guess the metric most people use for a good candidate is someone whose politics overlap perfectly with their own, which is why such a candidate essentially does not exist (or at least never makes it far). Personally, so long as we are getting candidates that are relatively moderate, intelligent, and capable, I think we have a decent selection. In my opinion, this years candidates are the best (as far as both candidates go) we've had for quite some time.

I see that. This might sound silly, but forget trying to support and elect who we may want "individually".

Personally, I'm actually not a political person nor really interested in it, it just seems silly watching a bunch of grown, educated men on TV acting like a bunch of school girls fighting over a cute boy. But, I'm supposed to trust one of them to run my country....

I've always advocated that more can get done if they eliminated political parties and such and agree on something.... and stop loving money. It's all about money and power which are selfish interests...

 

[werepossum]

Obama seized federal control of roughly 8% of the US economy in one four year term. I can't imagine Romney doing that, so I'm going to say Obama would be worse. We also don't know just how leftist would be Obama once freed from a need to be re-elected. Remember "I'll have more space after I'm re-elected?" to Medvedev? We may well find ourselves no longer a nuclear power if Obama gets re-elected. (We could add that to our loss of economic superpower status and space-fairing status - THAT mantle must be getting full rather quickly.)

Assuming a re-elected Obama does not jump far left, the two probably wouldn't be that different. However Romney has an understanding of, and an appreciation for, capitalism and the free market that Obama clearly doesn't have. It's debatable whether a President Romney could get anything useful through the Senate, but he certainly couldn't be worse economically.

The one area where Romney could be worse is tax cuts. Reducing taxes while doing nothing to make investment in this country practical and profitable would simply make our crash that much quicker and harder. More rich people with more money to invest and ever more incentive to do so elsewhere would be a bad thing.

 

[lotus503]

So I've seen a lot of debate over who would be better, but screw that. They both suck and we all... well 95% of us know it. So in the end we're going to be choosing the candidate we feel is going to cause the least damage.

So with that in mind, let's argue the negatives for a second. Who will cause more damage to America and why?

Frankly the system is broken as long as it remains that way it all bad for America.

Obama and Romney will essentially do %95 of the exact same shit policy wise.

 

[Anarchist420]

However Romney has an understanding of, and an appreciation for the free market

No he doesn't. War is anti-market. Governments engaging in trade treaties is anti-market. Having a higher corporate tax rate than the world average is anti-market. Adjusting the min wage for inflation is anti-market. Protectionism is anti-market. Budget deficits are anti-market.

 

[Lemon law]

I think this thread's analysis fails to point out two some facts.

(1) GWB policies and his rubber stamp congress is was what wrecked the American economy.

(2) In the first 2 years of an Obama administration, it was the GOP Senate the knee jerk
filibustered every effort to transform away from the GWB policies so the economy failed to improve.

(3) In the second half of the first Obama administration, the GOP fortified by tea bag nuts still keep GWB policies.

(4) It does not help that Obama has the backbone of a chocolate eclair, he has toadied up to too many special interests to even unite his own party. But still the dems will rally around Obama because all alternatives stink. So in 4 years, Obama has no positive accomplishments to point to. Other than the fact he has kept the economy from going into 25%+ unemployment, And the election of Romney will achieve exactly that. And as Moonbeam says, all the remaining GOP contenders are even worse than Romney

I don't know about you, But I will take a barf bag to the polls in November.