Texans: Who will you vote for?

[Doug.38PR]

Ron Paul
John McCain
Mike Huckabee
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama

[Texasdoc]

I don't know how much good it does, But I vote Ron Paul as I like his stand on the issues.

when it comes to Nov.I will have to pick the lessor of the two EVELS

[Kalrog]

In May I vote for myself - for school board.

For president? Ron Paul tomorrow and probably a third party in November. I can't vote for McCain - especially when Texas will almost certainly go R anyway. I'll protest.

[Doug.38PR]

I don't understand a Texas that votes for McCain. He is a neoconservative Republican, he is pro amnesty and I think he is even for some gun control. Huckabee...well he is a Christian (at least by name....which kind of raises a red flag the fact that he grandstands on it as Dubya did) so to some extent it's understandable. But even he is pro amnesty...or at least he is anti-doinganythingabout illegal invasion problem and is a liberal on a lot of things.
Paul is the one true conservative of the bunch. Some people are scared of him because he "doesn't ahve a chance" others are so blindly led by this "War on Terror" bull that they won't even give him a hearing and call him a "tin foil hat wearer" at best or a "liberal" at worst.

[frankie_the_yankee]

I'm gonna hold my nose and vote for McCain.

ButI have no problem with those voting for Huckabee, Paul, or whomever.

I think that in Nov. it comes down to this. If the race looks close in TX, then voting for anyone other than the Republican nominee is almost suicidal for gun owners. If it's not close, and if voting for a Slow Wheat candidate will reduce your BP and stomach acid level, then go for it.

But realistically, if it's close in TX it means that nationwide the Republican will be losing big.

Just make sure not to waste any votes on the down ballot offices - state or federal. Even if McCain wins the White House, we will need good people in Congress and the state legislatures to keep his worst impulses in check.

[Doug.38PR]

Frankee the Yankee,
Why not vote for Paul...or Huckabee now, and then if neither of them get picked THEN hold your nose and vote for McCain in November if that's how you feel about him?

For me, if Paul doesn't get it....you won't be seeing me in November at the voting place. I'm tired of the Republicans taking me for granted

[frankie_the_yankee]

Frankee the Yankee,
Why not vote for Paul...or Huckabee now, and then if neither of them get picked THEN hold your nose and vote for McCain in November if that's how you feel about him?

For me, if Paul doesn't get it....you won't be seeing me in November at the voting place. I'm tired of the Republicans taking me for granted

I won't vote for Paul because while I agree with him on guns I disagree with him in many other areas. Paul seems to think he has some kind of unique insight as to what the constitution says and/or what it means. So he blythely pronounces this or that law or proposal as being unconstitutional, even though everyone else in the government (all 3 branches) and those going back through the centuries do not agree.

There are 300 million of us. We can't all decide what the constitution really means for ourselves, and act on it. That would be anarchy.

All anyone, even a SCOTUS justice, can have about the constitution is an opinion as to what it means. It's only when a majority of the SCOTUS share the same opinion that they then issue a ruling as to how the constitution applies in a given case.

That's how we determine what the constitution means. Paul doesn't seem to get it. He doesn't have opinions as to what the constitution means. He knows. And he will tell you so. I regard that as a fundamental flaw. It makes me wonder why he went into politics. It seems to me he would have been more fulfilled to have become a lawyer and worked he way through the system to get himself appointed to the SCOTUS.

As for Huckabee, I'll admit that he deserves some consideration. I just think that he would do better to exit the race at this point so we have the best chance of keeping the Democrat out come November.

As for staying home in November, or voting for a Slow Wheat candidate, I hope you will re-consider, at least if TX is close. (If the Republicans are carrying TX by a safe margin then feel free to vent your spleen in the voting booth and vote for anyone you want.) But if the race is at all in doubt, then please consider that 4 years of Hillary or Obama would not only decimate our gun rights, but would most likely put the country on a path toward a Euro-Socialist future that would, in the end, destroy us (just as it is destroying Europe right now).

Of course, as I posted elsewhere, if TX is close it probably means that the Republican is getting slaughtered on a nationwide basis, so it might not matter all that much. But that's my take on it.

[Lumberjack98]

Well put Frankee.

[Doug.38PR]

I won't vote for Paul because while I agree with him on guns I disagree with him in many other areas. Paul seems to think he has some kind of unique insight as to what the constitution says and/or what it means. So he blythely pronounces this or that law or proposal as being unconstitutional, even though everyone else in the government (all 3 branches) and those going back through the centuries do not agree.

There are 300 million of us. We can't all decide what the constitution really means for ourselves, and act on it. That would be anarchy.

All anyone, even a SCOTUS justice, can have about the constitution is an opinion as to what it means. It's only when a majority of the SCOTUS share the same opinion that they then issue a ruling as to how the constitution applies in a given case.

That's how we determine what the constitution means. Paul doesn't seem to get it. He doesn't have opinions as to what the constitution means. He knows. And he will tell you so. I regard that as a fundamental flaw. It makes me wonder why he went into politics. It seems to me he would have been more fulfilled to have become a lawyer and worked he way through the system to get himself appointed to the SCOTUS.

Well, I know we've had this argument before, but that is basically saying that we have no Constitution. If the document means whatever you want it to mean from moment to moment then what is the point in having it. For that matter, why bother the RTKBA if the Second Amendment can, according to your line of thinking, apply to individuals one day and to the national guard the next. As a strict constructionist I say the Constitution does have one true meaning. It's not Ron Paul's meaning, it's not Doug.38PR's meaning, it's the meaning that the Founding Father's intended when they wrote it. You ALWAYS go back to the original intent of the writers. There are a lot of things that the three branches of government have done over the past 40 or even 150 years from Lincoln to Geo. W. Bush (maybe even a little before that) that they have declared "constitutional" to suite their political agenda. Doesn't mean that it is "constitutional." I don't need to tell you that the Founding Fathers would be up in arms again if they saw what the National goverment has done today.
I like paul because he is a true statesman, not a politician. Be better off if we had more like him.

[frankie_the_yankee]

Well, I know we've had this argument before, but that is basically saying that we have no Constitution. If the document means whatever you want it to mean from moment to moment then what is the point in having it. For that matter, why bother the RTKBA if the Second Amendment can, according to your line of thinking, apply to individuals one day and to the national guard the next. As a strict constructionist I say the Constitution does have one true meaning. It's not Ron Paul's meaning, it's not Doug.38PR's meaning, it's the meaning that the Founding Father's intended when they wrote it. You ALWAYS go back to the original intent of the writers.

Yes, but the distinction is that there are many cases where honest, well-meaning and reasonable will disagree as to what the original intent of the Founders was. So what do we do then? The answer is, obviously, take it to the courts, ultimately to the Supreme Court, who through a majority opinion will rule on what it means.

It doesn't mean that the meaning changes from moment to moment. It doesn't mean that it means whatever I want it to mean, or what you want it to mean, etc. We all agree to peacefully abide by what a majority of The Court says it means.

Of course sometimes The Court changes its mind. Most of us believe that Dred Scott and Plessey v Ferguson were badly decided, for instance. And it took a war and a century to correct those mis-steps. And there is no guarantee that The Court will not issue bad rulings in the future.

For instance, I happen to believe myself that McCain-Feingold was wrongly decided. In my view, The Court should have ruled the whole thing to be unconstitutional. ("Congress shall make no law.......") But they didn't.

Since then, the makeup of The Court has changed. So there is reason to believe that they will correct this mistake (IMO) over time.

And I'm sure we agree that it's the people who espouse the "living document" theory of constitutional law that are most prone to deviating from original intent. (This would be Breyer, Ginsberg, Stevens, and Souter on the current Court.) The Original Intent people at least try to rule according to the intended meaning.

The difference is that Paul thinks that he himself knows what the original intent was/is in a given case, when all he really can have, legitimately, is an opinion on it.

You can depend on the fact that Hillary/Obama would appoint living document justices to any vacancies that might occur. If so, we can kiss the 2A goodbye.

That's why it is important to make sure that whatever we do, we do not help either of those two get into the White House.

[Charles L. Cotton]

McCain is going to get the nomination, like it or not and I don't. So voting for someone other than McCain in the Texas primary doesn't hurt us in November. I don't want Huckabee to drop out, because every vote he gets sends a message, great or small, to McCain that conservatives are not happy with him leading the ticket. Yes, it diverts attention from attacking the Democrats, but not by much at this point. The Democratic primary is so close, that it may be a while yet before there is a defined enemy for McCain. There is no point taking a shotgun approach against both Clinton and Obama; it's very ineffective.

Ron Paul appeals primarily to Libertarians and the most conservative of Republicans. I like his voice in the mix as well for the same reason I want to see Huckabee stay in for a while. Paul has said he will not run as an independent and I take him at his word. We don't need another Ross Perot putting Obama or Clinton in the White House.

If McCain wins the Presidency, I suspect it will be yet another close race, unless something changes dramatically between now and November, and that's certainly possible. Every President is running for re-election during their first term, so a narrow victory in which conservatives put him in the White House could have an impact on what he does on our issue(s). The most dangerous time is during a President's first two years of his second term, when they are no longer running for re-election and they are not yet a lame duck President.

As for the U.S. Constitution, it isn't a hard document to read or understand and I am in the strict constructionist camp. It means precisely what the words say. So the real question isn't want does the Constitution mean; the question is whether it will be perverted yet again. The greatest example of perverting the Constitution is the absurd extreme to which the Commerce Clause has been used to justify federal action that is not sanctioned by the Constitution. A close second is the federal government doing by coercion that which it does not have the authority to do, such as withholding federal highway funds to states that don't set 21 as the minimum drinking age.

All this said about the Constitution, the reality is that 5 of 9 Supreme Court Justices can do whatever they want to do, so who is President and which party holds a majority in the Senate are critical. Presidents last for only 4 or 8 years; any given Supreme Court Justice can impact our lives for decades! Please consider this and recent history when deciding whether or not to sit this one out. Protest votes for Perot gave us 8 years of Clinton, the assault weapons ban, the early Brady Law with waiting periods, numerous federal judges including the federal district judge that ruled in favor of the petrochemical industry in the Oklahoma employer parking lot lawsuit, just to name a few "side effects." To be fair, this in turn led to the Republican majority in the U.S. House and Senate, but those majorities are now history and we have to rebuild the party. We did it before and we can do it again, but we can't do it sitting at home, regardless how understandable our inaction may be.

Chas.

[aardwolf]

Frankie convinced me. Instead of wasting my vote on Ron Paul, I cast my ballot for Barack Obama today.

[bwahahaha]

I cast a strategic vote for Hillary (apparently, I'm the only one here). I won't vote for her in the general, assuming she makes it, but she will probably lose to McCain in the general whereas Obama can win it. I don't care to help put him in a position to win it all in November. I see a vote for Obama as a vote against gun rights and the beginning of new restrictions, and have been a little puzzled by the Republicans (and gun owners who aren't Republicans) crossing over to vote for him. It'll be interesting to see where this thread goes as the day goes on.

[LarryH]

Thanks, Charles.

Your thoughts parallel mine, but you are much more eloquent in expressing them.

[KBCraig]

It's only when a majority of the SCOTUS share the same opinion that they then issue a ruling as to how the constitution applies in a given case.

SCOTUS only has that authority because they say they do.

Ron Paul doesn't say he has the final word on the Constitution -- he says the Constitution itself does.

When educated people disagree about Constitutionality, while both claiming the Constitution is on their side, one of them is either lying, or being willfully ignorant (not that there's much difference).

There's simply no honest disagreement about what the Constitution says.