The American Spectator

martin j smith| 8.15.11 @ 10:21AM

Do the voters determine which is the best candidate. I wonder about that. The reason we have a large number of candidates is because no one is especially excelling. So we have a lot of imperfect people--as we did in 08. McCaine as the choice in 08 was very bad in a number of ways. He not only ran a poor campaign but he let down those voters who did not want Obama. He should not have run and in the case of this campaign, if we have another McCaine run for president( you know what I mean ) for me that is the end of the Republican Party as a viable opposition.

JimH| 8.15.11 @ 10:49AM

When choosing a candidate in the primaries I have three criteria.
1. The candidates’ positions.
2. The candidate’s character
3. The likelihood of the candidate winning the nomination and the general election.
When the race is wide open these all get considered with character coming first, positions second and chance of winning third. If the nomination is a foregone conclusion I will likely vote solely based on position.

Wayne | 8.15.11 @ 10:58AM

When the primaries begin we will probably have 2 governors and a tea party favorite battling for the nomination. I think the likely three are far better than what 2008 produced. The main thing is to present a contrast to Obama. Do you want a nanny state or do you want a government that supports the free marketplace. That is the choice. I think 60 percent of the voters are tired of the nanny state.

Occam's Tool| 8.15.11 @ 12:24PM

Bachmann is the best of the three, by far. We need a lady with guts who has a hands on knowledge of Islamic extremism, far better than the other two Candidates. Michele has dealt with it first hand.

Oldefarte| 8.15.11 @ 1:23PM

No but the following, if true, might jsut indeed derail Perry's chances:

'....August 15, 2011
Perry's Problematic Pals
By Pamela Geller

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Saturday that he is going to seek the Republican nomination for President, and in his speech declaring his candidacy, he sounded great: "we reject this President's unbridled fixation on taking more money out of the wallets and pocketbooks of American families and employers and giving it to a central government," Perry said. "'Spreading the wealth' punishes success while setting America on course to greater dependency on government. Washington's insatiable desire to spend our children's inheritance on failed 'stimulus' plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed."

Perry promises to fix all that: "We'll create jobs. We'll get America working again. We'll create jobs and we'll build wealth, we'll truly educate and innovate in science, and in technology, engineering and math. We'll create the jobs and the progress needed to get America working again."

Sounds good. But Perry has been sucked into the propaganda vortex, and is now wielding his enormous power to influence changes in the schoolrooms and in the curricula to reflect a sharia compliant version of Islam. He is a friend of the Aga Khan, the multimillionaire head of the Ismailis, a Shi'ite sect of Islam that today proclaims its nonviolence but in ages past was the sect that gave rise to the Assassins. Perry has concluded at least two cooperation agreements between the state of Texas and the Ismailis, including a comprehensive program to feed children in Texas public schools and taqiyya nonsense about how Islam is a religion of peace. Another agreement stipulates that Texas officials will work with the Ismailis in the "fields of education, health sciences, natural disaster preparedness and recovery, culture and the environment." Perry let on that this was all about whitewashing Islam's bloody historical and modern-day record: "traditional
Western education speaks little of the influence of Muslim scientists, scholars, throughout history, and for that matter the cultural treasures that stand today in testament to their wisdom."

It gets worse. Last March, Perry gave a speech in Dallas in the company of Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist was close to George W. Bush, and Perry's anti-tax, anti-Big Government rhetoric sounds like it's right out of Norquist's playbook. But there is a dark side to Norquist as well: Norquist's ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists have been known for years. He and his Palestinian wife, Samah Alrayyes -- who was director of communications for his Islamic Free Market Institute until they married in 2005 -- are very active in "Muslim outreach." Six weeks after 9/11, The New Republic ran an exposé explaining how Norquist arranged for George W. Bush to meet with fifteen Islamic supremacists at the White House on September 26, 2001 -- to show how Muslims rejected terrorism.

The only problem was that the ones with Bush didn't. To Bush's left sat Dr. Yahya Basha, president of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have repeatedly called Hamas "freedom fighters." Also in attendance was Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who on the afternoon of September 11 told a Los Angeles public radio audience that "we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list." And sitting right next to President Bush was Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Hamas-linked Islamic Society of North America, who once told a Muslim crowd chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans that "America has to learn if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come."

It was Norquist who ushered these silver-tongued jihadists into the Oval Office of an incurious president after the worst attack ever on American soil. Yet in December 2003, David Horowitz wrote that Norquist "has formed alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities. Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover's part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends." Nor has Norquist changed course since then.

Grover Norquist was on the Islamic payroll before and after the carnage of September 11. Gaffney revealed Norquist's close ties to Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is now serving time in prison for financing jihad activity. In 2000, Alamoudi said at a rally, "I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas. Anybody support Hamas here? ... Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas. I wished they added that I am also a supporter of Hezb'allah." Alamoudi was at that time head of the now-defunct "moderate" group known as American Muslim Council (AMC), and he was active in other Muslim groups in the U.S. that showed sympathy to or support for jihadists. And Alamoudi gave $50,000 to the lobbying group Janus-Merritt Strategies, which Norquist co-founded. Alamoudi also helped found Norquist's Islamic Institute with a $10,000 loan and a gift of another $10,000.

It was bad enough that Bush was close to Norquist. There is no way the GOP can again nominate anyone who is so completely and utterly clueless about the fifth column within. Ten years after 9/11, can't we nominate someone who can speak to the ominous threat posed by Islamic supremacists in this country? There are no secrets here, even if the stealth jihad is covert and sneaky. We know what they are doing. See their whole plan, and how to fight it, in my new book Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Rick Perry must not be the Republican nominee. Rick Perry must not be President. Have we not had enough of this......'