(09-01-2023 12:48 PM)olliebaba Wrote: I guess since you say he'd get your vote means that if anyone wouldn't vote for him that they weren't smart. This is like a fishing friend who was telling us that no one should drink coffee with sugar or milk. That's how he likes it (black) so everyone should.
You guessed wrong. That's not what I'm saying at all, and I would prefer not to have to defend things that I didn't say.
What I am saying is that I don't think republicans can win the white house in 2024 on their present track. Donald Trump has too many negatives to be able to win 270EVs unless there is a major economic failure in the next 12 months. And if any other nominee has to contend with a third party attempt by Trump, that will hand it to the democrats. So what I am seeing is that republicans need to be smart and look at wining elections, and make their decisions based on that criterion.
And I believe that a candidate who expresses the issue positions that you attribute to Goldwater has a better chance of getting to 270EVs against Biden or Harris or Newsom or any other democrat than does Donald Trump or anyone else from the evengelical right wing of the republican party.
Perhaps I should clarify whom I consider to be RINOs. To me a RINO is a neoconservative, whom Wikipedia defines as "liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the Vietnam protests. Some also began to question their liberal beliefs regarding domestic policies such as the Great Society. Neoconservatives typically advocate the unilateral promotion of democracy and interventionism in international affairs, grounded in a militaristic philosophy of "peace through strength." They are known for espousing disdain for communism and political radicalism." Irving Kristol move from democrat to republican is generally regarded as the launch of the movement. Truman was actually a neocon in many ways, as were the Bushes. In today's environment an Neocon/RINO is someone who takes extreme positions in opposing abortion and gay rights, while favoring military intervention in no-win wars, while China is outflanking us on virtually every front with an economic attack pursuant to which not one Chinese soldier or sailor has incurred so much as a hangnail. None of those, by the way, are historic conservative principles. In 1992 Ross Perot said something that I had been thinking for some time, "In the post-Cold-War era, economic power will become more important than military power." China has learned that lesson; the USA has not.
What I favor is a pro-growth person who would facilitate growth as the best generator of economic well-being and the best way of ensuring that all share in prosperity--JFK's "A rising tide lifts all boats." Policies would include 1) lower and flatter and broader (fewer or no non-business deductions and/or exclusions) income taxes (along the lines proposed by both Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin a decade ago) plus a national consumption tax, like every other developed country in the world, 2) improved infrastructure, including a privatized portion of social security to invest in infrastructure, paid for by user fees set to generate a 5% ROI, 3) improved education, not by throwing more money at failed and failing schools, but by implementing best practices from those countries that achieve better results for substantially less cost, and 4) administrative reform to provide for conressional advise and consent required on all new rulemaking, sunset review of each agency and all its regulations every 10 years, and transferring jurisdiction for resolving aministrative disputes from captive ALJs to Article III aministrative law courts in each federal judicial district, with appeal throgh the applicable circuit court.
I have expressed previously that I would convert welfare into a universal private health care/insurance system based on the Bismarck approach, plus a universal basic income (UBI) based on Milton Friedman's negative income tax (NIT) or the Boortz-Lnder prebate/prefund, which would actually be cheaper than our current system becuase they cut out all of the fat cat bureaucratic overhead (which is why the top 4 counties in the USA for average household income, and 7 of the top 12, are in the DC metro area). Reducing admin/overhead from 75% (gatekeepers for means-tested and focused programs) to 10% allows much greater benefits to be paid to intended beneficiaries, for much less total cost. With those changes in the federal system, states would be free to adopt and provide any current welfare service, paid for with the money that they would save because Bismarck makes Medicaid redundant. Build a floor under every citizen (the social democrat, as opposed to socialist, approach) without massive redistribution of income or wealth, but clearly set it up that people who work would live better than people who don't.
As far as gay rights and abortions, I would favor moderate/centrist positions that are properly considered conservative because they were the common law of the land for the first 150 years or so of the republic.
Militarily I would demand the strongest military in the world, capable of meeting and exceeting JFK's "2-1/2 wars" standard of ADM Sir Jackie Howe's "two power" standard for the Royal Navy around the turn of the 19th century. Where I would differentiate myself from the neocons is that I would seldom, if ever, have to use that military, because nobody would be crazy enough to pick a fight with us, and we don't go around picking on them. Oh, sure, some tinhorn dictator would challenge us, and we would kill him and his cronies, and destroy all their toys, so quickly that nobody else would be willing to take that chance. Never fight a war that you don't intend to win.
Foreign policy, treat your friends better than you treat your enemies. Right now, we are engaged in Cold War II, and this time the enemy is China, not Russia. I would try to reprise a version of the Bretton Woods/NATO/Marshall Plan approach of bribing up an alliance to defeat China. I would base it largely on developing an alliance with the British Commonwealth. Steps that I would go through; 1) admit UK to NAFTA/USMCA to compensate for Brexit, 2) build the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, USA) into a much stronger military and economic alliance, 3) go full speed ahead on the AUKUS military alliance, including possibly transferring some Los Angeles class SSBNs to Australia (instead of retiring them 15 years before their service lives expire) to jump start their nuke program, 4) support the creation of the proposes CANZUK military and economic alliance proposed to couner China, and seek a very close association with them, 5) form a military and economic associate membership with the the British Commonwealth (note that a propoed Commonwealth combined military would be 4th strongest in the world, with probably the second strongest navy), 6) extend military and economic allances with other countries in the area (Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, possibly Taiwan), and 7) in order not to wear out our forces, transfer a number of our current responsibilites to our new allies, kind of like we gave UK the ASW mission in the GIUK gap under NATO. India with 2 nuclear SSBNs, 16 conventional attack SSs, 2 aircraft carriers, 8 amphibs, 11 destroyers, 12 frigates, 18 corvettes, 136 patrol boats, and 5 underway replenishent ships could probably get no worse than a stalemate with China in the Indian Ocean, and Singapore and Malaysia could probaly cut off the Malacca and Sunda Straits to Chinese military and commercial shipping, closing off China's westbound exports and inbound oil imports and effectively shutting down the Chinese economy.
How we build these alliances is the same way that we built the anti-Soviet alliances after WWII--promise them economic growth (transferring non-essential manufacturing out of China to them, and essential back to the USA, plus easy trade access into our economy, could add 10% or better growth to each of their economies), and promise them military protection (we kept 150-250K troops in Europe until the Berlin Wall fell, a similar effort in the South China Sea would rely more on Navy and Air Force than Army because the area is more water than land). In return, they fall in line and follow our orders with regard to Cold War II, just like western Europe did after WWII.
I think Barry Goldwater (and for that matter, JFK) would be very comfortable running on the issue positions that I have set forth. One thought that I have floated around is that repubicans shold launch issue-based campaigns around the issues that I have noted (or similar issues with high approval levels) for the senate and house, lilke Newt did with the Contract in 1994, and let Trump run his personality-based campaign on his own.
(AM)
