Right now, my tentative vote is for Santorum. My problem, is that he does not speak enough about the issues that this cycle I feel are most important. You must be able to illustrate a bold vision for the country economically. I trust him on social issues, and foreign policy, but really I trust a few of the candidates on foreign policy, and president has little to do with social issues. Most of the candidates would appoint strict constructionalists to the supreme court/courts when given the chance to. So you have to go to the economy and Jobs. He also does not have a stellar voting record on fiscal issues particularly when GW was in office.

Angry and whiny, like a high school geometry teacher…and I like the guy and would have no trouble voting for him.

Santorum was the template for the destruction of Palin which was the template for Cain – Newt – Bachman – Perry, and soon to be Romney.  Santorum was the first.

SDs=Social Democrats.

Unfortunately I agree that Santorum does come across as, well, pick your adjective: petulant, angry, whiny.  He can make the points he’s making without sounding like a teenager who didn’t get his way.

But I also think that basing one’s judgment of a candidate solely or principally based on his tone is absurd.  Santorum is, ideologically, far and away the best candidate in the field.  Alas, he is probably going nowhere, which is a pity.  You see , we prefer  our candidates to have no clue about the issues but to sound all sassy rather than to be knowledgeable but slightly disagreeable.

The modern GOP.  Gotta love it.

There were more people enthusiastically devoted to the 4H kid who raised the biggest hog at the State Fair, but they might have been hoping for pork.

W was a compassionate conservative by his own words.  By which I think he means….kinda conservative, but willing to use govt power to soften the hard edges of conservatism.

Which is not exactly socon.  A hardcore socon would be like ‘this is right and true, and although I personally am going to be charitable to you, its not gov’t business to bend the truth of reality to make it easier on you.’

As to Scarymatt,

Let’s have a debate about the nature of Libertarians. It is known by all the smart people that Libertarains are weed-smoking pothead computer geeks who want to force the daughters of the upper class to be prostitutes because they could not land a hot chick in high school.  Now your private defintion may be different, but you can’t expect us smart people to know that, can you?

Shorter version: Paul Z is correct.

@beddd0ebf1f1d7f0c1561106bdcdfb31:disqus , that sounds like the common view of people who register Libertarian, but so what?

Look, I’m not going to say you can’t be Humpty Dumpty and make words mean exactly what you want them to mean.  I can’t make you be an effective communicator.  That’s up to you.

It’s clear to me that to you, “SoCon” means, “Agrees with Tennwriter.”

If we’re getting in plugs for our own conspiracies, I want to note that we of the Knights Templar have been conspiring to dominate the world for 900 years now, and we are closer than ever to bringing our master plan to fruition.

When choosing your super-villain in the Grand Conspiracy Theory, always go with experience.

Knights Templar:  The Name You Know, The Name You Mistrust.

Joe people were really pissed off at Republicans that year, and Pennsylvania is a Democrat state. It’s by no means fifty-fifty. What mainly got Santorum beat in my opinion was the Terri Schiavo fiasco, but it wasn’t just that or any one thing. It was a culmination of factors.

Tennwriter: Compassionate Conservative was just some non-sense slogan the campaign came up with, it was never anything other than cocktail republican blather. To my mind W wasn’t a conservative in any sense, a big government Republican with some socially conservative views doesn’t make one a conservative.

Wow. So you think that people that might have considered voting for Rick Santorum decided they preferred Ron Paul instead of him? Really?

No, I’m just pointing out that his performance at Ames was so pathetic, it doesn’t really even warrant discussion.

Name calling, real cute.
The quotation and the fact I cited can be found in the New York Times, before it devolved into what it is today.The fact that we are moving toward a one-world economy(with the aid of bailout and central banks) is reality, I’m so sorry for mentioning it.

When I look at the list of donors for Rick’s 2000 and 2006 campaigns, its like a who’s who list of those who benefit from government largess.

You all may now return to your “reality show” aka the GOP primary.

And you have secret miraculous and magical powers, to boot.  Which is always handy.

Enthused base=Independents join in the fun.

@beddd0ebf1f1d7f0c1561106bdcdfb31:disqus , WTF?  You have a super imagination to imagine that I would vote for Obama, or that anything I said implied that.  Or that I dislike Santorum.  Hell, I voted against Obama twice in 2008.  If a Dem had the balls to primary him, I might have done it again next year (VA has open primaries).

I think we generally agree on principles, but you’ve got a special definition for a fairly common label.  It’s like how ignorant lefties like to call anything they don’t like, “fascist,” except everything you like is “socon.”  Now, proceed to imagine that I said that Romney is awesome or whatever.

Or maybe this is all just your way of adding “doesn’t do reading comprehension” to your definition of socon.

Let’s say All of the Libertarian Horde leaves because of Santorum.  That’s what 25-40 people?

Hyperbole, but the essential point is correct.  There just arent’  that many hardcore libertarians (and then you subtract the ones that vote Libertarian anyhoo).

SSSSHHH!

They are SECRET.

And – magical!

Remember, when you want to join a secret conspiracy for World Domination, you don’t want to trust your future to some fly-by-night group that’s only been around a couple of centuries.  You want a secret cabal that’s been tested by time, sticking doggedly with the Master Plan for nearly a Millennium.

Knights Templar:  In It For The Long Haul, Not Just The Cheap Thrills And Groupies.

He said that on a tour of China, hoping to get favorable treatment in getting into the banking business there.  He was trying to suck up to Mao to make a banking buck, which is what he did and did well.

Matt,
I’d like to say we have similar principles. I remember a list of proposals put forward by one libertarian, and I agreed with 93% of them.  But otoh, you say that a lot of Socons are equal to Progressives. So you say….A=B, but A does not equal C, whereas I say A=C, and I don’t know if  A=B.

 Now, it could be we have similar principles, and one of us is severely ignorant about certain facts, or bigoted (‘them socons should just vote and stay in the back of the bus where their sort belongs’).

The most likely solution is you overstated your case, depending on Typical Socon Kindness and Courtesy not to call you on it, and to pretend it was a serious point.  In other words, you were running a bluff.  And the fault here really lands on the Socons for being gullible.

If a man playing poker with a pair of twos bluffs a man holding four aces, then we congratulate the bluffer on a good play.  And that is what Libertarians have been doing for years.

Now some, really do hate socons more than they love liberty, but I believe you  are not of that breed.  I guess I should apologize for saying you’d vote Obama.

Since reply buttons fade away, and the post is on a different page than the last reply button….

ScaryMatt’s and mine will be intertwined. Mine will the be the one with Extra Sarcasm.

==============

, again, since you seemed to have missed it: My original comment was referring to “socon” in the more conventional sense, which is to say Conservative about Social Issues.

=====Ah, well, that makes it all okay.  Since you’re only saying those nasty, vile …..Um….I think you’ve reduced socons down to Abortion and Gay Marriage….and since you already say you agree with them on Abortion, what you really mean is Believing that 5,000 years of history gets a vote, and that calling a rose a buttercup changes nothing is Statist just like those Progressive scum.

You need to stop saying socon if you just mean normal folk against gay marriage.  I’m pretty sure you’ll offend a lot of Californian Democrats who voted for Obama, and against prop 8 and againsts gay marriage.

Fact is, Obama is against gay marriage, and I thought he was not a conservative.  I guess I should pay closer attention.

Now, we could just ask a typical socon what he’s for.  We’d find a conservative.  Or we could submit to the definition chosen by their enemies.

Socon means Conservative, and I MEAN IT! Including all the social issues.

And btw, I love being called a statist.  Really.  I want to throw my arms open wide with love for the world, and if that accidentally pops a libertarian in the nose….Well, then my right ended where someone’s nose began.

=========You’ve defined “socon” as a very different thing than what I was referring to.

==You evidently are just talking about normal folk like Californian Dems against….oh, I’m repeating myself.

How does that poem go….

First they came for those who stood for ancient tradition in marriage,
And while I was one such, I was a gutless coward so I let them…..

  If there are a lot of people who have the same definition as you do for the designation socon, then I think you guys need to work on getting out the word on how you’ve changed the definition, or you’re going to run into this sort of confusion a lot.

==Or we could just kick the Libertarians from the party.  That was a Lucy arguement of yours, Matt.  Problem is, I’m not Charlie Brown.

I pretty much hammered the Classical Values guy into the ground, and he just could not see the obvious, because if he did a great deal of his arguementorium bit the dust.  Same here.  You’re not going to admit socons are normal conservatives because you’ve got a useful rhetorical weapon in hand.I’m pretty certain that we’re just using the same words to talk about two different things. I’ve said that pretty plainly (IMHO) several times, so I’m not sure why you haven’t understood that yet.

====I do not accept your framing, that’s why.