[charlie22]

Rand Paul all the way for me. Does he have some rather extreme positions? To me, the answer is yes. But on balance, he is much more in line with my values and beliefs than Conway is. To the extent he is extreme, we probably need some extreme right wingers to counter balance the likes of Reid, Pelosi and the like. So even his extremeness, if you will, has positives for me.

I'm what I would call a moderate R. I supported McCain and firmly believe that had he been elected, this country would be way better off today than we are. He would not have passed Healthcare reform. Reform that took a brutal toll on any chance of bi partisanship in DC. That so devastated Obama's political capital he is pretty much powerless to do any good to solve the economic problems of today. He ignored the Republicans and he ignored what a clear majority of Americans wanted, if you are to believe the polls, on health care reform. He didn't care though because health care reform was a pet project of his.

I know healthcare reform was a big pet project of Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and I understand the principle of "striking while the iron is hot" but in not realizing the affect his health care reform would have on the ability to operate in the middle and gain cooperation across the aisle, Obama and the like were foolhardy and reckless. Plus it will prove immensely expensive, thus hurting our ability to take financial steps to help improve the economy.

I dissent from the R right wingers in that I believe the federal govt does have to spend heavily on capital projects to stimulate the economy. Yet I agree with the R right wingers in that I believe that we have too much debt to be able to do big capital spending right now and that such debt undermines our long term economic stability. Healthcare reform made the issue even worse.

Thus we should not have touched healthcare reform until we got the country economically strong. Right, wrong or otherwise, the time was not right for healthcare reform. Unfortunately Obama and his supporters weren't capable of realizing that and pushed forward on their pet project.

I totally agree with Hoot in that a vote for Conway will be a vote for Obama, Pelosi, Reid etc. Conway can say whatever he wants, but he will be beholden to those folks once he gets elected. He just seems like someone that wants to be the professional politician. It is almost impossible to get re-elected unless you can "get things done" while in office; buck your party leaders and you get nothing done. It's that simple; sad but true. And Conway, much much more than Paul, seems to be the kind of elected official that is very, very interested in serving in DC for a very long time. So of the two, I see Conway as being someone willing to sell out his principles in order to get along with his party's leadership for the sake of getting re-elected. Maybe I'm reading Paul wrong, but I can see him giving the R leadership and establishment the middle finger salute when they try to get him to buckle to them. And I like that in him.

Oh, and I love the idea of term limits by the way. Two 6 year terms for Senators; six 2 year terms for House members. 12 years is enough time to be in DC for any one. If term limits are smart for the President, they are smart for the folks in Congress. I'm tired of looking at bios of people in Congress that have done nothing in their lives than serve in Congress for the last 20 plus years. The longer you are in DC, the less you understand Main Street. Show me the politicians that are the strongest party loyalists that put the party and their reelection efforts ahead of the country and I'll show you the politicians that have been in office and power the longest. Heck, most have to get reelected because they have been out of the workforce so long, they aren't qualified to do any thing other than be in elected office. They are scared to death that if they lose an election, their livestyles will be greatly diminished. So they grovel to their party and party leadership so they can "get things done" and get reelected.