Aint that the Truth!

And the Democratic Party of Truman, JFK, or Moynihan?

Or even...

Perhaps, the Clintons (take your pick)?

Let's just scratch Bill...

Post-Obama...isn't he now a racist, by today's standards?

He's a "son of the South" after all...

Ever since Newt became Speaker of the House both Parties have been moving farther apart. At the current rate of increased interest in “winning” over the need of this country and its people our political system will fail before Social Security will run out of money.

MB-

What's your point? Huntsman is running as a moderate republican and there ain't no such animal.

Let's be up front here, I'm a (so-called PHONY) Independent moderate/libertarian and you are a big C conservative with some libertarian leanings? Maybe like Ronald Reagan and Ol' Blue Eyes, you were once a democrat and the party moved away from YOU, like the republican party has from Huntsman. He's probably a conservative Democrat, he just doesn't realize it yet...

Or is that just your "tailoring" to suit this esteemed forum?

Once upon a time there was diversity in both parties, but one of the things that has happened in the past 10 years is the almost complete extinction of moderate republicans, in the congress and in the polls. The National Journal, who keeps track of how all members of congress vote, said that the most liberal republican was more conservative than the most conservative democrat, so both parties have been radicalized and polarized but, (and I am not defending or holding up the democratic party as being superior) the republican party has little if any real diversity with its ranks any more;

Name the LIBERALS in the republican ranks in the senate and house...Snowe, Collins?

Name the conservatives in the democratic ranks in the senate and the house...too many to name.

So, the point of my post was that Huntsman is out of step with the direction his party has been headed in for more than a decade. I don't have any argument that today's Democratic Party isn't the party of Truman, but the Republican party isn't even the party of George W Bush, let alone Richard M. Nixon, the man who created the EPA and Social Security Supplemental Insurance. He makes President Obama look like a right wing reactionary by comparison, doesn't he?

Naw, dangerfield-

I'm simply going to object whenever I perceive that you're singling out the Republicans as an example of how the major political parties aren't what they used to be.

Understand my perspective, dangerfield.

I'm not simply a conservative...I'm a dissaffected DEMOCRAT.

I grew up in a family that idolized FDR. My mom told me stories about how, during the Great Depression in West Virginia, her and her little brother took a little red wagon to the fire station to get federal government food handouts. I admired President Eisenhower for the obvious reasons, but, as a boy, Harry Truman was the badass to me.

I never doubted Democrats in the least, even when JFK, and his hand-picked "best and the brightest" (thanks, David Halberstam) got us all (including LBJ...AND ME, by the way), mired in Vietnam.

But...even after I returned from Southeast Asia...I still voted a straight Democratic ticket for years, dangerfield.

They had to beat the Democrat out of me, pal.

Two events finished me as a Democrat.

First...the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. I don't care whether you oppose the man's judicial philosophy...that's perfectly acceptable, just as it was when Bork was rejected on purely ideological and philosophical grounds. But what the Senate's Judicial Committee Democrats did to Clarence Thomas was simply wrong...Thomas was exactly right when he described it as a lynching.

Then, every Democrat's current perfect Republican President, George H.W. Bush (although of course, not one of them actually ever voted for him), decided to prevent Iraq's Saddam Hussein from controlling virtually all of the oil used by most of the world's western-style democracies.

Even though the first President Bush successfully formed a worldwide coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and persuaded that coalition to foot the bill for the U.S. military operation, MY own Democratic Congress refused to support his effort even though the rest of the world did.

That was it for me.

At the first opportunity, I became a political independent.

Conservative...?

You bet.

But, you know what?

You don't sound like much of a Democrat...by today's standards...either, dangerfield.

Sorry, friend.

The war in Iraq was George W's effort to avenge his daddy, noting more. Funny how conservatives really have NOTHING to do with conservation in the least.

Funny, MixedBag- it was Carter who did it for me. I was embarrassed for having campaigned for him, deeply ashamed of the votes I swayed to him, and angered by his seeming inability to cope with any problem- including a swimming rabbit.

Perhaps my political thinking changed more quickly because of my age- based on your story, I am somewhat younger than you , (the first president for whom I was eligible to vote was Reagan when he defeated Carter).

Sure, I grew up in a democratic family. I remember one summer where the Watergate hearings dominated the television viewing, and the dinner table conversation. Campaigning for Carter against Ford, (another of danger field's lamented liberal republicans), was a no-brainer.

After Carter took office, I came to have a vision of him that you will appreciate- I saw him as a man with a cassette player on his desk, who notices a little kink in the tape- and who winds up in a room full of black spaghetti.

The biggest difference I see between Carter and Obama is that I still do not believe Carter was dishonest. Obama? The list of campaign donors who received taxpayer funding for (often) failed business ventures lengthens each day. I am cynical enough to believe that his newest slush fund proposal is aimed at creating, not jobs, but a honey pot to attract more campaign donations. So, Obama is Carter- without the common sense to use the country's food reserves to ameliorate food shortages and prevent chaos in a sensitive reason, and the moral compass to keep him honest when dealing with taxpayer funds.

I'm looking for a candidate with strong fiscal conservative bona fides, and a commitment to keeping this nation safe. McCain had one of those qualities, so did Hillary- and Obama has neither.

As for Obama's reelection chances- well, I remember myself. Not only are many of those young voters who were so thrilled to be a part of something so romantic and life changing as working for Obama off that particular reservation, they are ready to change teams for good. They will need a candidate who captures their imaginations by giving them a clear idea of what can be done to "change" the "change".

That's what Reagan did. It remains to be seen if there is a candidate in the field who can do it this election.

I do not support Huntsman but if he ran against Obama in the Democratic primary he would be our next president.

All you really have to be is anti-Obama.

MissyTX, Your three sentence analysis is spot on!!

Yeah, keep watching MSNBC and drinking the koolaid... the 2012 election will just be a bad dream, wont it?

GOP Republicans rebrand to "NO"P Teapubilcants.

And since he actually once had a real job and didnt mooch off the government, he cant be a Democrat...darn, a man without a Party.

What was his real job, Bob? Working for daddy? Or all those government-paid political appointee positions?

So does this mean your predicting "generic" (R) will win. Wow! What a prediction, you would make Nostradamus proud.

I know, I know. The point is, is that it is WAY too early to make any worthwhile prediction.

Obama may produce a miricle and jobs will come rushing back. Somebody in the lead may make a bad comment that will haunt them right out of the race. Anything can happen, and usually does. (Remember Gary Hart)??

Joseph - Still hoping for a white knight to arrive? Unhappy with the choices the repubilicant's have provided? Not sure I'll watch the "dog & pony" show on Wed., still to many candudates. Hopefully the slicing and dicing will begin. Until the field is reduced to 2 or 3, I agree its to early to make a hard and fast prediction but Perry hold the inside edge at this point. If his handlers can control his fast and loose lips, he may be the chosen messiah. How dreadful!