O'Connell's Off Topic

What's ironic is that preemptive war was never a "right" ideology. The neo-cons (former dems that became repubs) say it is, and the republican party was hijacked by them back in the 80s under President Reagan. Yet since Reagan was revered as the greatest conservative President (ideologically) in some time, republican voters were snookered into believing that all of the repubs during his administration were true conservatives, which Bush 1 proved to be false and was the reason why Ron Paul ran for President as an Independent in 1988. Dr. Paul knew then, and now some 20 years later people are beginning to see the forest for the trees as well.

Maybe most repubs (like Ann Coulter) will continue to disagree with Ron Paul's non-intervention foreign policy, but at the very least they have to admit that the military industrial complex is too expensive with the status quo, and think about backing him instead of another fiscally irresponsible candidate. All they have to do is go through the vetting process and look at each candidate's legislative records. Ron Paul is the only strict Constitutionalist. Constitution! No where in the Constitution is preemptive war mentioned.

People need to take a step back and look at the root cause of our country's problems, and come to terms with why they really occurred, because they didn't just begin with the election of Obama.

To sum up today's average voter, I'll leave you with this video...

Clearly more prayer is the only answer!

CPAC is a joke. Paul only won the straw poll because his people registered more supporters for the conference. Everyone knew going in that he would win. I'm not saying I dislike Paul, but you can't read into these things.

As it stands right now there are about 12 people considering a GOP run, but only 3 or 4 that could be called viable candidates. Letting this many non-viable candidates hang around only creates the perception that Republicans have no leadership and no clear path (which we don't). IMO the party needs to separate itself from the likes of Sarah Palin, John McCain, etc.

IMO the party has allowed the media to create the perception that the party is run by the religious right. You know its bad when you have media members seeking the opinions of Franklin Graham. This perception needs to change.

People can dog Romney for his healthcare plan in Mass, but being a Rep in Mass means you'll be making some concessions. Romney isn't my first choice, but is a far better choice than Palin, Barbour, Jindal, Thompson, etc. I would rather the party go the direction of a Newt Gingrich type.

I wonder though if it there's not still a lot of true blood repubs, but that they have become corrupted by the system so that they compromise principles for votes making them appear more like Dems.

Just a thought, but in any case it's still repulsive.

All this makes me think the two party system itself lends itself to corruption and politicking. I don't know about scraping it all together but that would have to be better than what we have now. I hate all the political rhetoric and positioning and what seems like endless campaigning and polling for re-election instead of getting down to the serious business at hand.

Obama has to be the epitome of today's politician in that you can never take him at face value. He never shows his hand completely, and more often than not is positioning, leveraging and flat out deceiving . He always seems to be saying much but meaning little. I simply cannot stand to listen to him. With all the effort I can muster, usually 15 minutes and that’s it before I have to go barf.

If Paul was about 30 years younger and had Romney's looks, then he might be electable. The repubs better hope they can come up with better candidates than the ones that led the poll.

They need to somehow get Mitch Daniels and Paul Ryan on the ticket. Unfortunately, both are Big 10 area guys, but they have it going on.

It wasn't long ago most analysts were saying they don't see how Obama could win even talking him up as a martyr for his agenda. The problem though, as you pointed out is galvanizing the conservatives, repubs and tea party people together to support one single candidate. If they cannot agree and some independent pulls enough votes Obama can't lose.

There's still time as a lot can happen in 2 years but it would be nice to see someone jump out there that people can all rally behind.

I don't see any real deterrent for candidates although 2 younger viable choices do appear to be holding off for 2016 which are Rubio and Christie.

I think Christie could probably win it in 12 but he doesn't think he's ready for that and that is a respectable stance. There was specualtion he might go for a VP position however which could be a big plus for someone else like Romney.

My favorite potential candidates are Paul, Romney, Huckabee, and Jindal.

Though I haven't heard much about Jindal in a while.

I agree with this.

Ron Paul in 2003 was going after the neo-cons, basically calling them liberals.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4156174553630131591#