Quote:Regarding the part in bold.  Bill Clinton wasn't necessarily a bad president in my opinion, but I certainly wouldn't put him at the same level as Ronald Reagan.  One thing that is interesting regarding Clinton's presidency is remember, he had a Congress led by republicans.  I like to do a lot of reading, and one book that I found interesting is called The Pact by Steven M. Gillon  .  It talks about the contrasts and the relationship between President Clinton, and then Speaker of The House Newt Gingrich.  It's a pretty good read.

 

Regarding Bernie Sanders, I used Hitler as an example of his speaking style.  Most of his speeches seem very "angry", "authoritarian" and "demanding".  I am in no way comparing Bernie Sanders and Hitler regarding political points of view, and I am not comparing socialism to nazism.  Regarding some of his political views, there are a couple of things that I actually agree with him on when it comes to identifying the issues.  I just don't like his solutions.

 

Regarding Jeb Bush - In all honesty, I haven't listen to him as much as some of the other candidates, and I don't have a "concrete" opinion of him just yet.  That being said though, I view him as an establishment candidate which is a huge red flag to me.  Establishment means "more of the same" whether it's a democrat or republican candidate.  I must say though, I think he did a very good job as Governor of Florida, and I think that he could do a good job as President.

 

Regarding Marco Rubio, at this point he is still my first choice, though I'm starting to perhaps reconsider him as my first choice.  I like that he seems to speak from the heart and really wants to do good.  That being said, I look at his history and read his autobiography and one thing that comes to mind regarding him, he has always had political aspirations (read career politician).  He is still not a member of the establishment, but I wonder if he could eventually go that way.

I'll have to check that book out. It's hard to place anyone on the same level as Reagan; the man did save the economy and hasten the end of the Soviet Union, after all. Clinton's not too far off, though, especially when you consider that his only real late-20th century competition were Presidents who either dragged the country into or perpetuated a catastrophic war, proved themselves clueless in economic policy or got themselves impeached.

 

I know you weren't comparing Sanders to Hitler philosophically, no worries there. As much as one side loves to demonize the other, comparing any modern US political figure in any branch of the federal government to Hitler isn't just stupid, it's an insult. I also have a few points that I agree with Sanders on, but he's so far to the left that I could never vote for him. Again, my highest hopes for him are that he drags votes away from Hillary and allows O'Malley to slide into the Democratic nomination. He's the only Democrat I'd consider voting for in the general election.

 

Maybe I'm selling Jeb short here, but I think that if one wants to see a general outline of what his policies would look like, they'd need to look no further back than his brother's Presidency. Despite the general contempt for G. W. Bush among the left, I actually don't think he was that bad a President. He was leaps and bounds better than his father, that's for sure. The interesting thing to watch with G. W. Bush was how many of his decisions were actually his. When he was pushing policies written by Dick Cheney and delivering canned speeches prepared by Cheney's staff, he appeared almost robotic at times. When he was cut free from the teleprompter, he was actually a pretty dynamic guy to watch, grammatical errors notwithstanding. The six months following 9/11 were maybe the greatest display of leadership from an American President since FDR, and Bush felt like a completely different person than he did when he was under Cheney's thumb.

 

I hate to drag up the immigration thing with Rubio again, because it does get blown out of proportion (as all things political do), but I think he became an establishment politician when he changed his public sentiments on it. That struck me as little more than him realizing that his views didn't fit the party line, and if he wanted to advance, he'd have to reshape his image a bit.

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