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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[scriver]

Mayhaps Biden is secretly the Claudius of American politics?

What do you mean by that?

Emperor Claudius is famous (truthfully or not I do not know, but so the story goes) for ensuring nobody thought him a threat while growing up(/before inheriting the empire) by playing dumb, so his familicidal relatives wouldn't kill him.

[10ebbor10]

Not just playing dumb. He's described as having a limp, stuttering and have spastic episodes.

Mentally fine though, unlike some other members of his family.

[mainiac]

The real brilliance is that everyone was so shocked to see Cladius wasn't incompetant that they didn't think to ask how marrying your brother's his wife allows you to jump over his adult son in the succession line.  But I don't think it was until Stoppard (1966) that historians even caught onto that one.

[smjjames]

Bidens only main flaw seems to be his gaffe-proneness, or that's just his most obvious flaw and it's not even a flaw that would completely nuke his chances. Plus the fact that we're used to his gaffe-proneness by now.

Not that the republicans won't abuse that fact on the election trail.

[Bauglir]

It is, however, almost a non-issue. I'm not certain about having a reputation for gaffes, but gaffes themselves have little to no effect on election outcomes. So rest easy - you can ignore any popular article with that word in its title.

[smjjames]

I wouldn't put it past the Republicans to try and make a mountain out of a trivial thing as being gaffe-prone. We've gotten so used to his gaffe proneness by now that we just go, 'oh it's just crazy old uncle joe' when he makes a silly gaffe.

It'd be like trying to make an issue out of George W. Bush's 'bushisms' and the mistakes he often made. It's just a part of their personalities.

In fact, as a person, George W. Bush seems like a pretty nice guy, but as a politician, he sucked.

[Sheb]

Of course they will. Hardocre Republicans will insist it makes him unsuitable, the rest of the electorate will shrug and moves one. Same as Mitt Romney's gaffes.

[FearfulJesuit]

Title of topic changed to better reflect my avatar.

[RedKing]

That's what it comes down to, I'm afraid. One thing the Republicans do have going for them is a tolerance bias in their favor, somehow. Lots of Republicans can pass for quaintly conservative statesmen, while Democrats with the same level of absurdity are Literally Satan and out to vivisect your children to appease minorities.

Candidate #1: "I think we should abolish the 14th Amendment!"
Voters: "He's just an old-fashioned kind of guy, longing for a simpler time. We have too many amendments anyways!"

Candidate #2: "I think we should have a liveable minimum wage."
Voters: "OMG the Reds are here! They'll be sending us all to the gulags next!"

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

...liveable minimum wage."

No such thing.  Raising minimum wage causes the wages of more experienced to raise.  With both of those rising, prices will rise in the name of profit, whether for corporate greed or by necessity of survival for small buisnesses.  "Livable" minimum wage becomes no longer "Livable".  Eventually (if they don't immediately do it), companies would move as much as possible away so that they could make maximum profit, reducing jobs and increasing unemployment.

[Angle]

...Except that that's complete bullshit. We HAD a livable minimum wage for quite some time.

Though on second thought, with the way companies behave these days, it might just be true. It doesn't have to be - they could just accept a margin of profit that merely lets them live like kings. But then, that might be too much to ask.

Maybe we should just axe capitalism.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Capitalism is probably one of the better practical systems.  The problem lies with corrupt politicians who create tons of loopholes that companies are able to jump through easily.

[Angle]

The problem is with companies that actively campaign for corruption, not just in politics, but in our culture at large.

[Frumple]

Maybe we should just axe capitalism.

Capitalism would probably be fine if we just occasionally killed the top quarter or so of the system and redistributed the funds around. Figuratively or literally, kinda' don't care at this point. Maybe every fifty years or so. Stop market domination with an axe, stuff like that. Kept the competition actually flowing. Stop inheritance entirely past a certain point, perhaps. Hard limit CEO et al wages and bonuses. All sorts of stuff.

Well, and kept it the hell away from necessary goods that don't respond well to market forces (*coughhealthcareinfrastructureeducationjusticeetccough*).

... or just peg max allowable profit to national standard of living or somethin', I'unno. Bastards who get better as everyone else gets worse need a bullet to the head, but I'd settle for air-tight legal bonds stopping that BS. _{And maybe a little maiming or something. You must have this few limbs to ride the gravy train?}

E:Wait, wait. Why are we talking about this in the US politics thread? Aren't we supposed to be mostly avoiding metadiscussion?

[Bauglir]

Yeah, the merits of capitalism are probably not kosher for a long discussion, but perhaps a discussion of the corruption lobbying industry is more on-target.

Fun story - I'm actually in a Business and Government grad course right now. The textbooks' bias is showing pretty hard - in the name of "fairness", they're basically trying to play up the dilemmas lobbyists face between corrupt and legitimate activities. So we wind up in situations where "organizing meetings between party leaders on yachts" is the sort of thing we're supposed to sympathize with lobbyists for having to put up with, and the whole cycle of "Work for the government, then companies that you were regulating" is presented as ethically ambiguous instead of textbook cronyism. It's a blatant sort of "Teach the controversy" thing, and I really expected better at this level of education.