The Occasional Observer

From the "something to do while you're bored at work" file, let's play: "YOU GUESS THE CANDIDATE"! Can you spot a dime's worth of difference?

Below are the unlabeled opinions of Huck, Rudy, McCain, Fred & Mitt, taken directly from the issues pages of their respective campaign websites. First, let's see if you can identify who is who (not sure if I could have). Then, let me know who makes the most sense to you, or if they're all exactly the same.

Quote #1:

...America faces a dedicated, focused, and intelligent foe in the war on terrorism. This enemy will probe to find America's weaknesses and strike against them. The United States cannot afford to be complacent about the threat, naive about terrorist intentions, unrealistic about their capabilities, or ignorant to our national vulnerabilities...

...As President, Candidate1 will ensure that America has the quality intelligence necessary to uncover plots before they take root, the resources to protect critical infrastructure and our borders against attack, and the capability to respond and recover from a terrorist incident swiftly.

He will ensure that the war against terrorists is fought intelligently, with patience and resolve, using all instruments of national power. Moreover, he will lead this fight with the understanding that to impinge on the rights of our own citizens or restrict the freedoms for which our nation stands would be to give terrorists the victory they seek.

Candidate1 believes that just as America must be prepared to meet and prevail against any adversary on the field of battle, we must engage and prevail against them on the battleground of ideas. In so doing, we can and must deprive terrorists of the converts they seek and teach the doctrine of hatred and despair.

As President, Candidate1 will take it as his most sacred responsibility to keep America free, safe, and strong - an abiding beacon of freedom and hope to the world.

Quote 2:

Candidate2 believes winning the war on terror is the great responsibility of our generation. America cannot afford to go back to the days of playing defense, with inconsistent responses to terrorist attacks, because weakness only encourages aggression. Americans want peace. We’re at war not because we want to be, but because the terrorists declared war on us—well before the attacks of September 11th. Candidate2 understands that freedom is going to win this war of ideas. America will win the war on terror.

Quote 3:

I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life... I will fight the war on terror with the intensity and single-mindedness that it deserves.

The top priority of the president as Commander in Chief is first and foremost protecting our own citizens...

While I prefer America to be safe and secure within her own borders rather than loved and appreciated abroad, I believe we can accomplish both goals...

...As president, I will fight this war hard, but I will also fight it smart, using all our political, economic, diplomatic, and intelligence weapons as well as our military might...

...It's an enemy conducive to being tracked down and eliminated by using the CIA and the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. We can accomplish a great deal, we can achieve tremendous bang for the buck, with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units, working with friendly governments, as we've done with the Ethiopians in Somalia. These operations are impossible without first-rate intelligence. When the Cold War ended, we cut back on our human intelligence, just as we cut back on our armed forces, and both have come back to haunt us. As President, I will beef up our human intelligence capacity, both the operatives who gather information and the analysts who figure out what it means...

...The long-term solution to terror is to empower moderates in the region. My goal in the Middle and Near East is to correctly calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy... First, we have to destroy the terrorists who already exist, then we have to attack the underlying conditions that breed terror, by creating schools that offer an alternative to the extremist madrassas that take impressionable children and turn them into killers, by creating jobs and opportunity and hope, by encouraging a free press and other institutions that promote democracy...

...If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force...

Our current armed forces aren't large enough...

Quote 4:

The first responsibility of government is to protect the American people, the homeland, and our way of life. Today we face the urgent threat of radical Islamic terrorists. Al Qaeda is committed to attacking us here at home, and wants to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to kill millions. We must never give them that opportunity. We must defeat the terrorists abroad, and that begins in Iraq and Afghanistan—the central fronts in this global war. We must show the world we have the will to fight and win. A weakened America - or an America that appears weaker - will only encourage further attacks. We must persevere. As Commander-in-Chief, the president must ensure the United States has the means to achieve victory. Presidential leadership requires talking to the American people about these stakes, mapping out a clear vision for success, and devising a comprehensive strategy for achieving it. I am committed to:

-A larger, more capable, and more modern military that can defeat terrorists, deter adversaries, and defend the U.S. and our interests...
-An enhanced intelligence community, with robust human-intelligence capabilities, focused on terrorism and proliferation.
-A robust approach to homeland security that will protect our nation from terrorists and WMD, regardless of where they come from.
-A strengthened system of global alliances to better combat terrorists, proliferators, and traditional threats to our interests.
-A judicial system that deals with the realities of terrorists and unlawful enemy combatants.

Quote 5:

Radical Islam has one goal: to replace all modern Islamic states with a worldwide caliphate while destroying the United States and converting all nonbelievers, forcibly if necessary, to a fundamentalist form of Islam.

Merely closing our eyes and hoping that Jihadism will go away is not an acceptable solution. U.S. military action alone cannot change the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims. In the end, only Muslims themselves can defeat the violent radicals. But we must work with them. The consequences of ignoring this threat – such as a radicalized Islamic actor possessing nuclear weapons – are simply unacceptable.

To meet today's challenges, we must mobilize and integrate all elements of national power in unstable areas where traditional civilian agencies cannot operate effectively and traditional military power alone cannot succeed.

Create A Special Partnership Force (SPF). The SPF will integrate all elements of national power under a new force with leadership drawn from a core group of our Army Special Forces trained to work with civilian governments and intelligence personnel to form a new capability that is:

-Focused on locally-targeted efforts to win support in the community while identifying, isolating and eliminating terrorist elements.
-Highly integrated and able to mobilize all elements of national power, including humanitarian and development assistance and rule of law capacity building.
-Closely coordinated in partnership with local governments.
-Intelligence driven.
-Agile and flexible in its operations.
-A sustainable effort in contested areas and sanctuaries of Jihadist groups.

Launch A New Type Of Marshall Plan Unifying Nonmilitary Sources Of Power To Support Moderate Muslims. As President, Governor Romney will call together our Middle East allies and the major nations of the developed world to establish a "Partnership for Progress and Prosperity."

This Partnership will assemble the resources of all developed nations to assure that threatened Islamic states have public schools, micro-credit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and competitive economic policies. Resources would be drawn from public and private institutions, and from volunteers and NGOs.

Strengthen Global Alliances. The failure of efforts such as the United Nations Human Rights Council has given multilateralism a bad name. America’s strength is amplified when it is combined with the strength of other nations.

Finally, from Ron Paul (you'd have guessed it anyway):

The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again.

Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women.

We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing America and bring the troops home. No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.

Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.

Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we become despised. Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden. We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price.

At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

Hyperlinks (don't look till you've logged your guesses):

Candidate1
Candidate2
Candidate3
Candidate4
Candidate5