Vail Daily letter: Still trying to vote Republican
I am still trying to figure out how I can vote for a Republican presidential candidate in 2016 — coming from a long family line of unyielding Republican support going back to 1920 (first year women could vote).
I’m struggling to find candidates with pragmatics in four areas:
• Wars.
• Climate change.
• Basic social rights and opportunities.
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• Enabling trade and commerce.
To peel the onion of my dilemma, I’ll pick on two people, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump.
First, I like Jeb Bush, but for three areas:
• Wars: Apparently he has the same neo-cons that advised George W. Bush? For me, I’m struggling to find pragmatic thoughtfulness regarding blood and treasure that is frequently missing. Hence Jeb Bush needs to say more than he is not his brother!
• Climate change: He has stated the science showing human causation is “convoluted” science. Ironically many of these strange-looking, “convoluted” scientists reside at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder. For me, it doesn’t take a scientist to realize years of putting all those chemicals and particulates in our razor-thin atmosphere is overwhelming the earth’s ability to repair itself. Hence, Jeb Bush needs to make a statement regarding climate change with thought-out pragmatics of risk and rewards!
• Basic social rights and opportunities regarding marriage, race, religion, human reproduction, immigration, healthcare, jobs and advancement, etc. Let’s look at the same-sex marriage decision where he would have preferred individual states go their own way. How the heck will this work out pragmatically with our mobile, moving from state to state population? For me it’s either legal or illegal across the land. Jeb Bush needs to call for moving on, noting the Supreme Court ruling does not require any ideological opponent to marry another person of the same gender!
Lastly, Donald Trump has my respect in one area:
• Enabling trade and commerce: The greatest human invention is trade and commerce — capitalism in action. Trump is an audacious, self-made entrepreneur and capitalist. But he is also one of the shrewdest negotiators around who openly talks about the ineptness of our trade pact negotiators as political hacks. For me, in addition to stopping insulting other people, I am anxious to hear his views on government’s role for setting pragmatic limits and creating level playing fields so three aspects can work in harmony and balance — capitalism’s profit motivation, a fair deal for the workers and the environment. Hence, as a front-runner businessman GOP candidate, his outspokenness regarding trade will force others to stop waffling!
My theme here is pragmatism and being grown-ups. If we are to survive in the global economy and be safe from those who would harm us, we must tilt the scale towards being more pragmatic, while still maintaining true, non-ideological, core values. For perspective, during World War II none of our current ideologically driven social issues would have come to the forefront as our country had “a job to do.” Today, we have “a job to do” to survive in a challenging and dangerous world. In summary, to get my vote a Republican candidate needs to make sense in each of my four core focus areas. And you don’t have to mention the Democrats to do this.
Paul Rondeau
Vail