Before more abominable people drop out, making this even less interesting:
| Approval | Range | Preferential | First | Candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Y | 99 | 1 | Johnson | |
| Y | 70 | 2 | Paul | |
| Y | 60 | 3 | X | Huntsman |
| 20 | Gingrich | |||
| 10 | Romney | |||
| 2 | Perry | |||
| 1 | Bachmann | |||
| 0 | Santorum |
Notes:
- My preference for voting systems expressed left to right, for GOP nomination candidates, top to bottom.
- A preferential system could involve ranking all candidates, but it seems the most common implementation has voters rank their top 3.
- I prefer random selection and/or futarchy to any of the listed methods in many democratic contexts, but will consider them beyond the pale for just this post.
- Candidate preference largely based on impression (I haven’t studied any of them closely) of “foreign policy” because that’s where the U.S. President can make a huge impact. I’d be happy to also consider positions on executive power, though I have even less data on that, and have no hope, considering that Obama and Biden had some of the better positions on that in 2008 and their administration’s record is abominable.
- I liked a former New Mexico governor in 2008 as well. What are the chances the current NM governor will turn out not to be an imperialist torturer and run in 2016?
- Paul is embarrassing, which shows just how bad the field is.
- Huntsman is the only acceptable candidate that is in theory electable.
- The rest advocate torture and are clearly militarists and nationalists who put the world in grave danger.
- I prefer Gingrich to the other torturers because his administration would be wracked by scandal, hopefully enough to damage the imperial presidency.
- I prefer Romney to the theocrats because as a religious minority, he isn’t likely to be one.