My views are similar to those of Orpheus. While I like aspects of Ron Paul's platforms, I find his economic stances almost libertarian in some ways, and that prevents me from supporting him. Frankly, I think Americans already pay less taxes than say, Western Europeans, and get much less in return. The solution is not necessarily cutting taxes, but using the revenue to actually improve the state of the nation instead of waging stupid wars (much of the American infrastructure, e.g. highways, bridges, etc. is in a very bad state, and cutting off streams of revenue are not going to help repair them).
I like Kucinich, but I believe his chances of getting elected are close to zero. Since you asked Orphy, part of the reason he isn't getting good press is because he isn't quite as friendly to the DLC and thus big business (see Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media if you haven't already) and is viewed as likely to shake up the "economic" status quo.
As for the rest, Giuliani is essentially a fascist hawk, Clinton is effectively Republican-lite, Obama has been using the razzle-dazzle and not really stated much in the way of his policy platforms, Huckabee is ignorant on Foreign Policy, and Romney is a hypocrite who will sway with the wind (and particularly right-wing fundamentalists) to win a single vote.
But does it matter? The US, in my opinion, is in a state of decline from which it is unlikely to recover. Whoever gets elected president will, at best, affect temporarily the rate of this decline, not alter its downward trajectory.
|