[Legislurker]

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Don't run away with RP enthusiasm please. His campaign has a lot of other negatives. We need a higher profile mainstream candidate to endorse if we ever get to that place in the primaries. We should consistently lobby every major canddidate, even Romney. The last thing we need is to be lumped into the RP camp as just another band of whackjobs with the abolish the government and legalize pot crowd. Somewhere, somehow, a candidate will get desperate for a slice of the electorate. The Republicans more than Dems since single digit swings can mean the nomination on Feb 5th. Sit tight and try to be noticed.

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I try to do these ratings the same way as the NRA does, which is evaluating where the candidates appear to be on Internet gaming. I hope we can read this and gain more insight into where the candidates currently stand. Hopefully we can get more folks on our side.

Of "top tier" Republicans, hopefully we can pick one off. Giuliani or Thompson seem most likely. As for Romney, his state seems to strongly support our position, so maybe there's some hope there as well. He's one of the "open question" Republicans.

Still, it's something how six of the ten declared Republican candidates are clearly against us, three are question marks, and the one certainly with us is seen as outside the mainstream of the party (and is still polling in the low single digits). I hope we can start getting more Republicans with us, but it's sure been tough. The KY election should be where we at least start to change this, as we'll have data on how people really vote. It won't swing everything overnight, of course, but it will start things off. A thrashing of Republican in '08 should get them to reconsider their allegiance to big government nanny-staters.

Likewise, it's something that only one Democratic candidate is strongly against us. Our solution has to be bipartisan, but I think Internet poker will be far better off for now with Democrats chairing Congressional committees.

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Im not bashing your summary of him, just the gushing of love from other people who think he would be a poker hero. Maybe. But is poker the only issue? You can't see the negatives?

1. He wants to go back to the gold standard. Uhm, hello, we don't have a trillion in gold to hand to the Chinese who own almost that in paper. Put that together with leaving the WTO a 2nd Great Depression sounds fine and dandy.

2. He wants to run as a freedom candidate but he is anti-gay and has anti-gay elements in his campaign. The full on pro life stance is a bit hypocritical as well.

3. The last candidate who wanted to abolish all the federal institutions was Andy Jackson and his white trash ass almost totally [censored] the country up.

4. He has no foreign policy experience. Leave the war or don't leave the war, but I want to feel like youre not going to do something stupid to start WWIII. I don't trust RP on China, or to stand up for Taiwan. I don't trust him to watch Iran or North Korea.

Poker isn't the only issue. Im sure you all would like my poker stance in the White House, but you wouldn't vote for me. Why vote for a crazy loon from Texas just because he has a poker friendly plank. Im very Libertarian and yearn for the day we have a real, pragmatic Lib run for office with cred and standing. But RP isnt that candidate.