Who is running for the GOP ticket? Come Meet: Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Tom Tancredo, and Ron Paul.

It is hard to say if anyone was left out since they all look like cardboard cutouts when they line up for one of those hilarious debates where they mainly disagree on who is the more conservative, who loves God more, and who is most like Ronald Reagan. Outside of that, for the most part they are mostly against illegal immigration, for lower taxes, against abortion, for continuing the War in Iraq, against gay marriage, dubious about stem cell research and, much in favor of God.

There are a couple of notable position differences with one being from far out candidate, Tom Tancredo, who unfortunately believes that anyone can run for president and actually thinks America should buy the great wall of China and resurrect it on the Tex-Mex border. Then there is the warmonger, John McCain, who seems to love the war as much as George Bush.

My favorite, however, is Texas Representative, Ron Paul who bravely proclaimed that the 9/11 attacks were possibly blowback for our previous bombing and occupation of the Middle East (which supports the viewpoint of Chalmers Johnson’s book, Blowback). Then when challenged Paul took it a step further by stating, “They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there.” After that statement one shouldn’t be surprised that the other candidates, particularly Rudy Giuliani attacked him because there are few things more unpatriotic in wartime than telling the truth.

However, not to be forgotten was Romney’s answer to what he dislikes about America which was to intone how much he loves America as the greatest place on earth and the American people are the greatest people in the world. That gave me considerable pause as if I am not mistaken we jail a higher percentage of our population than any other country and stand fourth in the number of executions (behind China, Iran and Saudi Arabia). Moreover, our citizenry has so little hope that their vote matters that we rank 139^th out of 172 countries in the number of registered voters who actually take the time to vote.

Additionally, medically speaking America is in terrible shape with many American’s being unable to afford health insurance and others, including those with insurance, being forced to wait for hours to receive treatment from understaffed emergency rooms. To top that off America has a higher infant mortality rate than thirty-three other countries, including Cuba.

Lastly, what can be said about a country that holds their children to be of such little intrinsic value that they mortgage their futures by running up the national debt to a level that makes it impossible to provide public schools the funds needed to provide adequate leaning opportunities making them inferior to those in Europe and Asia? If that makes us the greatest nation on earth I can’t help but question who is second, Bulgaria?

Those of you who have become familiar with my concerns and ideals no doubt know that I am neither a Republican nor a liberal but rather a moderate with an open mind and my own opinions. That said, if I had to choose one of these candidates, I would give my support to Ron Paul because he at least had the gumption to stand up and speak the truth and not just parrot the party platform.

Tags: bush policy, gop nominees, gop candidates, 2008 nominees, rudy giuliani, ron paul, mitt romney, john mccain, tom tancredo, stand on war in iraq, stand on immigration, stand on abortion, republican ticket, blowback, chalmers johnson