How Did We Get Here? 8: Candidate twofer, Pataki and Graham

There are a lot of these fuckers to cover and not a ton of time to do it in, so today we have a double consisting of my favorite Republican presidential candidate, and one who I totally forgot existed, we'll take them in order with:

George Pataki

Position: Governor of New York, 1995-2006, assorted projects and appointments since

Announcement Date: May 28, 2015

Withdrew: Dec 29, 2015

Accomplishments: Named the Freedom Tower I guess? Dropped out pretty early in the race so we didn't have to think about him.
  
Who are we talking about again? I don't recall, some guy I guess

George Pataki is a fiscal conservative and proponent of small government, which makes him basically a Reagan Republican, he is supportive of equal rights legislation at the state level at least and pushed for the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York, however is opposed to gay marriage I assume on religious grounds. He is pro choice and expanded healthcare access for low income communities during his tenure as governor. He also is something of an environmentalist and worked to clean the Hudson River. However he is pro death penalty and also worked to undermine educational funding in the state.

Honestly he might have been the least harmful Republican candidate and might even have been able to do some objective good with the presidency, but he never gained traction with the electorate, polling consistently in the neighborhood of 1%. His liberal friendly positions and history of experience in government didn't serve him well in the Tea Party era of hardcore religious conservatism and establishment distrust, he dropped out and went on to endorse Donald Trump anyway so fuck him and let's move on.


This guy is my favorite candidate, I mean he is a terrible person and his beliefs would be bad for the nation, but he was perhaps the only one in the campaign who seemed to be enjoying himself and his refusal to bend the knee to Trump afterwards gives me some respect, also he and John McCain decided to Statler and Waldorf one of the primary debates and that was pretty cool

Lindsey Graham

Position: Senator from South Carolina, 2003-present

Announcement Date: June 1, 2015

Withdrew: Dec 21, 2015

Accomplishments: One of the very few Republicans willing to work across the aisle during the Tea Party era.
  
Lust for Muslim death? Absolutely.

Lindsey Graham is an interventionist and warhawk who is willing to sacrifice any number of civil right in the name of stopping terrorism. Socially his positions are generic modern conservative republican, but he has shown history of being willing to compromise on those at least when pursuing legislation.
It might be his attitude I like, he has a very stereotypical laid back southern gentleman style about him and he is not shy about expressing disagreement in a barbed style that I appreciate seeing. In an era where many of the politicians on the national stage are picking their beliefs to appeal to the extremists and crazies, he has shown little to no interest in doing so himself, mind you, he already holds many beliefs those factions would agree with whole heartedly, but it appears he comes by them honestly, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at lest it's an ethos.

He polled terribly in most areas because of his beliefs, but he bowed out with a sense of dignity and devoted himself to making fun of the remaining candidates and I assume drinking heavily and to this day has not wavered in his opposition of Donald Trump. So there's that.