Mid-Term Report Card

Maybe you knew this, but I didn’t: apparently in Alabama (where I live) when you register to vote you don’t formally affiliate with a political party. I was under the impression that up to now I have been a registered Republican, but I haven’t. Nobody in Alabama has — the state doesn’t even give you the option to declare a political affiliation. Which is fine, but I wish I had known. I went through the whole process of re-registering to vote with the intention of de-affiliating from the Republican Party and declaring myself an independent. I did manage to re-register to vote (wonder if that means I can vote twice . . . !), but it was pointless. My bad.

The whole impetus behind the foregoing waste of time is that I cannot in good conscience remain affiliated with a political party that has gone so far off the rails. Up to now I have voted fairly reliably Republican because that is the party that historically has most represented my moral and political convictions. Sure, I have on the odd occasion voted for a Democratic candidate for a local judicial position, because I believed that person would be an excellent judge despite their political leanings. And I have also on a couple of occasions voted third party, or even written in a candidate, in presidential or congressional races. But by and large (97% of the time) I have voted for Republican candidates from the top on down the ballot. I have never voted for a Democrat running for President or Congress. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t — if Joe Manchin was running for president, I’d given him a serious look. If it was Manchin v. Trump, that’s a gimme — it wouldn’t even be close.

Unfortunately, it’s time to dissolve the political bands which have connected me with the Republican Party. It’s not that the Democratic Party is closer to my beliefs (it isn’t), it’s just that the Republican Party has gotten so far afield I can no longer tell myself with any sort of intellectual honesty that it represents me in any meaningful way. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “I didn’t leave the Republican party, the Republican Party left me.” Or, to quote Treebeard, “I am on nobody’s side, because nobody is on my side.” I am now officially (in my mind, at least — Alabama doesn’t care) one of those persuadable independents that the pollsters talk about so much. Practically speaking, my vote isn’t going to mean anything; Alabama is about as deep red a state as you will find. Trump will win this state, no matter what I do. But I have to wake up with myself, so I vote accordingly.

Given the foregoing, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to vote in the 2024 presidential primaries and general election — as are we all, I hope. I figure we’re at about mid-term in this process: the Republicans have had two debates (the Democrats won’t be having any, as far as I can tell, which makes that part easy), and at this point I’m starting to get some sort of feel for most of the candidates. So it’s time for a mid-term report card.

Here’s the standard: when it comes to political candidates for any elected office, I judge the candidates on two criteria: ideology, and character.

A candidate’s ideology is basically what they believe about the role of government, and the policies they would enact to fulfill that role. To earn my vote, a candidate has to be at least generally on the same page as me. We don’t have to agree on every policy detail, but we have to have the same general outlook on how government works (or should work), what it can and should do and what it cannot or should not do, and so forth. For me, a candidate needs to generally be a classicon (a word original with me, I believe) — a conservative as that term has classically been used, not as it has been hijacked. That means things like limited government, low taxes, strong defense, free markets, the rule of law, strong life ethic, etc. Oh — and the candidate needs to have some idea of how our system of government works. Some jobs are not suitable for on-the-job training.

But that isn’t enough. I also look at a candidates character. I’ve posted about this before here, but in short, I’m looking at things like moral compass, wisdom, honor, and honesty. If a candidate has proven themself to be untrustworthy, immoral, dishonest, and unteachable, they aren’t going to get my vote, because I have no confidence in what they will do once in office. On the other hand, if the candidate has proven themself to be someone who knows the difference between right and wrong (and cares!), does what they say they will do (or at least tries to), and is generally a decent, civil and honest person, they will earn my vote.

Now, both of these criteria work on a sliding scale, depending on the office. A candidate for dog catcher doesn’t have a high bar to clear with either one, because the impact of that office on the public in general, while important, is fairly minimal. I mean, I won’t vote for a dog catcher who will torture lost animals once they are caught (character), or who will kill them without some reasonable period of time to find their owners or get them re-homed (policy), but all told, those are pretty low standards to clear. On the other hand, a city mayor has a much larger impact on my community, so I’m looking at those candidates with a bit of a stronger magnifying glass for both criteria. As you go up the ladder (state legislator, governor), the bar continually gets higher. Certainly when we’re looking at the pinnacle of political power — U.S. congressman and president — the standards are much more critical, and the bar is as high as it gets.

So at this point, I’m inclined to consider each of the candidates, and give them a grade based on what I know of them thus far. These are just my personal observations and impressions, so your mileage may vary. Remember, this is just the mid-term — every candidate has the opportunity to bring their grade up or tank it as the process moves forward. I’ll take them generally in order of their rankings in the polls (according to Real Clear Politics), and I’m only looking at meaningful candidates, as determined by . . . me!

Joe Biden. I’m taking him first simply because he’s the only meaningful candidate on the Democrat side. Here’s how he ranks:

Donald Trump. Anyone who has read anything I’ve ever written should know how this one is going to come down.

• Ideology: F. When he was president, Trump did a few good things. But he is not grounded in any sort of meaningful ideology — he simply says and does what he wants the way he wants when he thinks it’s in his best interests. Sometimes that aligns with conservatism; much of the time it does not. In short, his ideology is simply Trumpism. I was actually going to given him a D on this, until I remembered him saying that the Constitution should be terminated in order to keep him in power. Nope — that’s a fail.
• Character: F. One would think I wouldn’t even have to explain this, so I’ll just give a partial summary list: cheated on his wife with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, and then paid off the porn star so he could get elected; bragged to a t.v. reporter about committing sexual assault on women; vilified women in uncouth, even foul terms; disparaged minorities, the disabled, and military veterans; ad infinitum.

Ron DeSantis. I like Ron, and I think he did much better in the second debate than the first. He has some good instincts, but he lets his ambition and fear of the Trump base get in the way of those instincts.

• Ideology: B. DeSantis is generally conservative, I believe, but he has let politics warp his ideology in the cause of defeating Trump. He has used the power of the state to pick fights with businesses which don’t agree with his social positions, and he has jettisoned some aspects of our national security by his stance on Ukraine in order to win Trump voters. Not particularly conservative positions.
• Character: B. I think he’s a pretty good man. But he appears to be putting politics ahead of his stated convictions, and he has appeared somewhat wishy-washy during debates, choosing to tack whichever way the political winds blow, all in the service of getting elected. If getting elected is more important than convictions, you don’t really have the character I’m looking for.

Nikki Haley. Nikki had two strong debates. She obviously knows her stuff — she is eating everyone else on the stage alive with her knowledge of the issues, as well as the policy fixes to those issues. I was seriously disappointed when she allowed herself to get drawn into an argument with Tim Scott about . . . curtains?!?! Not a good look.

• Ideology: A. Nikki is clearly a classicon in her ideology — in the same vein as Ronald Reagan. Whereas I struggle with her abortion policy position as stated in the first debate, she is clearly pro-life, and her foreign policy chops were right on track as U.N. ambassador.
• Character: A. From what I can tell, Nikki meets the character test. Again, I had reservations with her abortion answer, and I also have reservations with the way she has given Trump a pass on so many things over the past 6 years, but all in all I have no question about her integrity and honesty.

Vivek Ramaswamy. I’m a lawyer, so I know something about snake-oil salesmen, and Ramaswamy is the poster child. He gives insurance and used car salesmen a bad name. He is a “businessman” with no political experience (or knowledge) who believes he can impose his will on government and the country by sheer force of will and fiat. Ramaswamy is Trump Lite.

• Ideology: D. This man has no clue what the Constitution says, or how the government functions (i.e. the federal government has no power to do away with state teacher’s unions). He says a lot of things which he knows will appeal to the anti-woke base (his 10 truths), but many of his pithy slogans are either politically meaningless (i.e. we can’t have a policy that god is real), unconstitutional (see above), or unworkable and disastrous (i.e. mass large-scale layoffs of government employees). He has also vowed to abolish the IRS, FBI, FDA, and ATF, among other federal agencies. I could go on — there’s so much to say here — but that about sums it up.
• Character: C. As I said, he just feels slimy. I understand that this is a somewhat less than objective basis for evaluating someone’s character, but there you have it. The only real hard, objective evidence I can point to is his business dealings, in which he accumulated a fortune of nearly $1 billion from a group of affiliated drug companies which never produced anything that would be brought to market.

Mike Pence. There’s no way Pence can win the nomination. I hate to say that, because I really like and respect him, and he gets the highest scores in both categories, but there is no way he’s going to flip any of Trumpists who hate him, and he doesn’t have the charisma to pull the “persuadables.”

• Ideology: A. No one can dispute that Pence is a classicon, of the Ronald Reagan variety. He knows government, he’s got the policy chops, and he has the experience.
• Character: A. I think his performance on January 6, 2021, should suffice to prove that Pence has character of the highest quality. He is honorable and trustworthy.

Now we get into candidates who have 3% or less in the polls, so I’m going to stop here. I really like Tim Scott, but he’s not going to make the cut. I don’t really know much about Burgham or Hutchinson — I’m convinced they know their stuff politically, but I know nothing about their character, which in itself is somewhat indicative that they are probably not well known enough to be viable candidates. Chris Christie is much better known, but is also polling low (about 3%), and his candidacy is also not viable for electoral purposes. I also have questions about his ideology and character (I’d probably give him a B and C, respectively, or something like that). However, I want to see Christie stay in the race and on the debate platform because he says all the things nobody else will say, particularly about Trump. I think his candidacy has value for that reason alone.

Given the foregoing, I cannot and will not vote for Biden, Trump, or Ramaswamy. I would be happy to vote for any of the remaining candidates (might have to hold my nose just a bit for DeSantis, but not too much).

But again, this is just the mid-term report card. A lot can still happen. Probably will.