{"id":9168,"date":"2015-05-03T21:24:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-03T21:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9168"},"modified":"2015-05-03T21:24:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-03T21:24:32","slug":"lets-define-ideal-gop-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9168","title":{"rendered":"Let&#039;s define &#039;ideal GOP candidate&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>The Daily Signal has put out an online survey asking folks who would be their &#8220;ideal&#8221; Republican presidential candidate in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until I looked carefully at the bottom of the survey form that I realized it is a sincere question.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"D8fLlyy3p6\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/polls\/poll4\/\">Who Is Your Ideal GOP 2016 Presidential Nominee?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Who Is Your Ideal GOP 2016 Presidential Nominee?&#8221; &#8212; The Daily Signal\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/polls\/poll4\/embed\/#?secret=8cPNf0Ir27#?secret=D8fLlyy3p6\" data-secret=\"D8fLlyy3p6\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It gives poll takers a chance to subscribe to Heritage Foundation material. So, there you have it. The poll comes from one of the nation&#8217;s premier conservative think tanks. So, the poll is meant to be taken seriously by those who answer the question.<\/p>\n<p>But regular readers of this blog know my own political leanings\u00a0place me far from the Heritage Foundation. I lean left. So, when I saw the question, I thought it could be laced with trickery.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll declare here (maybe I&#8217;ve done so already; I don&#8217;t remember) that I&#8217;ve voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1972. I wavered once, teetering between voting for President Ford or Gov. Jimmy Carter in 1976; I ended up voting for Carter and I&#8217;ve come close to regretting it in the years since.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve gotten a bit more hardened in my presidential choices over time. I do split my ticket generously, however, and I&#8217;ve been proud of the many votes I&#8217;ve cast for Republican candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Who would be my favorite GOP candidate in 2016 be? Oh, man. How do I answer that one?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it would be the most extreme candidate running. Who would that? Ted &#8220;The Cruz Missile&#8221; Cruz? Marco Rubio? Rand Paul? Mike Huckabee (who&#8217;s not really running &#8212; yet)?<\/p>\n<p>The more extreme the right-wing candidate the better it appears that a centrist Democrat &#8212; such as, oh, Hillary Clinton &#8212; would win the election.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m acutely aware that the Heritage Foundation is now being run by former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, one of the TEA party godfathers. I&#8217;m guessing DeMint personally might favor one of the extremists running for president.<\/p>\n<p>So, think about this one: I agree &#8212; potentially &#8212; with the guy who runs the Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>We might want the same candidate to run as the Republican nominee for president next year.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect, though, that our <em>reasons<\/em> differ wildly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Daily Signal has put out an online survey asking folks who would be their &#8220;ideal&#8221; Republican presidential candidate in 2016. It wasn&#8217;t until I looked carefully at the bottom of the survey form that I realized it is a sincere question. Who Is Your Ideal GOP 2016 Presidential Nominee? It gives poll takers a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9168\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#039;s define &#039;ideal GOP candidate&#039;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[73,1908,1962,2108,2139,2475,2491,3062,3704,5246],"class_list":["post-9168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-2016-campaign","tag-gerald-ford","tag-gop-presidential-field","tag-heritage-foundation","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jim-demint","tag-jimmy-carter","tag-mike-huckabee","tag-president-ford","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}