An Introvert's Thoughts About Valentines

Yeah, time of the year again, when thoughts turn to love and single people look out at the world surrounded by couples hooking up and saying all "what the hell are we doing wrong?"

It's not sitting here whining about the unfairness of the day.  It's not anyone else's fault - well other than the kids who inflicted the emotional scars of getting publicly humiliated throughout middle school and high school - that I ended up here in my mid-40s lacking the needed social skills to go out and date.

It's just not knowing what the hell to do to learn those social skills.

I'm surrounded by books in the library about "oh do this, do that, do this other thing" about dating advice, social advice, etc.  But book learning doesn't help.  There is something intuitive, something gained from experience and insight (like wisdom), about being sociable.

There is a nature, not a trained skill, towards being extroverted.  There is a confidence within the soul and the heart.

To me, I dread "faking" confidence because it feels like a lie, like being arrogant or foolhardy.

A lot of this ties back into my not being good at making friends or keeping them.  I am a geek, then and now.  Never fit in well with the other kids growing up.  I tried being noisy and clownish and eager and angry and foolish.  Still didn't figure it out.  Tried being friendly and polite and quiet and helpful.  Don't think I did well.

I tried dating here and there in high school.  There were girls I liked, but it never worked out, they never liked me that way.  I started failing at picking up on other people's vibes.  There's all this stuff about body language, being in sync with people, picking up on cues in conversations.  I found out - sometimes in the worst ways - that I wasn't picking up on them.  I fell out of sync with everybody else.

I developed the fear of doing something wrong.  I know fear is irrational.  I still feel it, an unwarranted guilt that I've done, am about to do, something that will (not might) make things worse...

Looking back now, I screwed up big time in college.  Never joined much of anything.  I was terrified of joining any frat because I didn't want to go through another round of hazing rituals like the crap I endured in high school.  The problem was the frats were the social centers of the campus 'verse.  Basically knee-capped myself right there.  Rarely went out at night.  Didn't make many social acquaintances, not even really socializing much with my college roommate (nice guy, he had a social life compared to me, ended up normal).  I put myself in a corner, did my studies, and ended up the way I am now.  Lacking the social skills to connect with anybody else.

So here I am, Valentines Day yet again.  Struggling once in awhile to force myself (yeah, saying that sounds so wrong) to using dating services, speed dating, singles groups, etc.  I go to these gatherings and immediately find myself unable to socialize, unable to start up a conversation or join one in progress, the awkwardness starting up and sending myself off to the side somewhere to stay out of the way.  Kicking myself afterwards on the drive home wondering why I spent 50 bucks to go to a night club where I don't drink and can't dance and won't fit in.

I'd like to develop a social life, but I honestly don't know how.  It's not the brain knowing (my awareness that I am missing something that matters), it's not the heart knowing (I can feel the pain of the void), it's the soul not knowing that hurts the most.

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The Fall of Journalism As a Principled Profession

While there's a sizable amount of schadenfreude involved, there is a sadness to the scandal surrounding NBC News anchor Brian Williams' fall from grace.

A lot of it has to do with the part of the scandal few are talking about: the failure of ethical behavior among the media profession.  The lack of quality control within what is a billion-dollar industry, with regards to offering a product - news - that ought to be factual and trustworthy.

The fact that NBC News was warned as far back as 2003 - during the Iraq War - that Brian Williams was "embellishing" the story about his being under fire highlights the problems within an industry that barely polices its own and ignores warning signs in the pursuit of "the hot story" and the Eternal-Loving Almighty Salacious Scoop.

It's worse than wanting to be the next Woodward and Bernstein (who at least vetted their reporting efforts even as they pursued the "hot" story of Watergate, which wasn't that hot until another year into their investigating).  It's wanting to be the next Drudge (who lived, still lives, for the rumor and innuendo of political sniping), and working a story to look credible enough to anchor a nightly news channel.

The paradox of modern journalism is how "personality" and "celebrity" - being the cool guy of the moment - has to blend with the credibility of being an "accurate" and "fair/balanced" reporter of the facts.  In theory there shouldn't be any conflict between those two sides of journalism.  In practice, the desire for the fame (celebrity) keeps trumping the professional and ethical requirement of being a reporter (accuracy).

The pursuit of celebrity makes someone like Brian Williams work harder at the image - such as making himself look like a fearless, hard-nosed war-front reporter surviving the risks of a rocket attack on a helicopter convoy that didn't really happen to him - to where the need to keep telling the story grows, with the story growing with it.  Up until the point the Truth - not just the spiritual or relative truth, but the factual truth - turns out to be not what he was telling at all.  What's incredible here is that it took over 11 years for the accountability surrounding all this to catch up to him and to the news channel paying him $50 million for his celebrity and not his reporting...

I highlighted this point before: there is no accountability for being wrong.  Well, there may be some accountability now for Williams at least.  In most respects, Williams isn't getting punished for mishandling a news report, or issuing ill-informed opinions on political issues.  Williams is getting punished for aggrandizement, for promoting himself falsely as a courageous newsman therefore deserving of respect or trust.  While there's no evidence (yet) that Williams has committed the mortal sins of mis-reporting or lying - attempts to discredit his stories about seeing bodies floating during the Katrina disaster haven't gone anywhere yet - he's committed the mortal sin of Doubt.  Because we can't trust him when he talks about his personal actions, we can't trust him when he tries to tell us about the economy or a government scandal or even the weather.

As I wrote earlier, your plumber is better vetted than your news host.  This debacle with Williams is just one more proof of that.

What is happening now, the real scandal here, is the lack of accountability for the entire media/journalism profession.  The news channels that failed to vet their staff... the editors that failed to rein in egos and stick to the reports... fellow reporters and media celebrities who kept up with the embellishments and enabled Williams - and themselves - to keep selling each other as people they weren't...

From my years studying for journalism as a college degree, one of the things debated was the importance of retaining trust in the readership and the audience.  Whenever a story was mis-reported it was vital to get a correction printed or stated as soon as possible.  Journalists were liable in matters of defamation and libel if we got "facts" about people wrong.  Any irresponsible report from us could have hurt or killed people.  If we lost the audience's faith in the facts we try to present, they won't believe us the next time when the reporting was accurate and important.  These were serious matters.

Nowadays, I don't see much interest or focus in accuracy AND honesty.  The cable news channels bring on talking head guests who are not experts on the topics discussed.  There's a rush to report something scandalous only to find out hours later the reports were wrong... only for the reporters to either ignore the facts to report the rumor, or worse double down on the rumor to make the story even more scandalous.  The quality of reporting, of journalism, has slipped.  The quality of journalists has slipped as well.

There's been a push towards inserting the reporter into the narrative: a means to personalize a report, but fraught with the risks of bias and conjecture and the same embellishments that Brian Williams deployed.  The reporter becomes the story - in part or in full - rather than an impartial witness.  Losing that impartiality makes it harder for the reporter - and the media institution backing that reporter - to step back when the story proves false or wrong.  It's been one of the key reasons the Stephen Glass scandal was so huge... and it's been so horrifying how the journalism industry quickly ignored the lessons of that.

Journalism was, ought to be, an honorable profession: it's supposed to keep the public informed and forewarned.  It's supposed to check against the lies of those in power - the leaders of government or a corporation or a church or any institution threatened by corruption - with cold hard facts.  It's not like that now.  Because it lacks accountability, in a timely and just and appropriate manner.

We've got professions that require certification and has authority to punish misconduct.  Lawyers and doctors have ethics boards (and can get disbarred / lose their licenses), teachers have certification boards, plumbers have associations and unions (and government regs where they haven't been gutted yet).  Journalists need the same thing.  There ought to be standards, a code of behavior, something to ensure the public can keep the faith with us when it comes to the facts.

P.S. It does not help that the most trusted person reporting the news is a comedian anchoring a satirical news review show.  And it does not help that today Jon Stewart announced that he's leaving The Daily Show by year's end.  AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHhhhhhhhhh...

P.S.S. We will not get to hear Brian Williams rap to Ludacris after all.

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Blame Gaming, Lying, Hypocrisy: The Republicans' Weapons Of Choice

When confronted with uncomfortable truths - for example the benefits of preventative health care, or the reality that most illegal immigrants are NOT a threat to the United States - the Republican establishment has usually gone for this tactic: lie their damn asses off.

For example: the current news trend of a measles epidemic sweeping the United States.  After decades of effective vaccination efforts to reduce the risk of a highly contagious - and lethal-to-kids - illness, we're getting hit with a major outbreak.  While 102 current cases of measles doesn't sound like much, when you consider that's in one month so far where previous annual counts were half that... we're looking at 2015 as a year with measles reaching thousands of victims.

from that Forbes link. Morbidity means infectiousness (Mortality is when it's deadly)

So into this come the anti-vaccination movement - an oddly bipartisan collection of concerned parents, uninformed media celebrities and a handful of quacks - defending their arguments as the nation faces a serious preventable epidemic.  And because this is all news, this topic gets into the political discussions as the cable channels and politicians weigh in.

Where the major Democratic leaders - Obama, Hillary Clinton - are weighing in firmly on the matter to vaccinate, the Republicans are a bit divided.  Ben Carson, an actual physician, went in pro-vaccination, as did Jeb Bush.  Presidential hopefuls Chris Christie and Rand Paul, however, both went for the "let's make it voluntary" waffling, with Paul jumping out with dire "tragedies" about vaccines before walking those comments back.

What's worse for the Republicans have been how some of the fear-mongering members of the party jumped in with a horrifying accusation that the measles epidemic is due to illegal immigrants.  Say hello to Alabama's Mo Brooks, who's been documented as an immigration denier before this, using the measles outbreak as another reason to go hating again.

And then there's Rush Limbaugh.  Ah, Rush, ill-informed blowhard that you are, let us have Politifact trout-slap you for your sins:

...The common thread in these statements is the idea that these children were never examined, that they had measles, and Washington took no precautions before allowing them to stay.

None of that holds up, however.

In fiscal year 2014, over 68,000 unaccompanied minors presented themselves at the border. The crisis spurred a flurry of activity, largely by two government agencies, the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. Homeland Security set up new processing centers and HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement looked after the children until their fates were resolved.

Contrary to Limbaugh’s assertion, the federal government did examine these kids. The protocol, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, was to provide "vaccinations to all children who do not have documentation of previous valid doses of vaccine."

Limbaugh also claimed that these children were never quarantined if they had a disease. The reverse is true.

"Children receive additional, more thorough medical screening and vaccinations at ORR shelter facilities," according to the refugee resettlement Web page. "If children are found to have certain communicable diseases, they are separated from other children and treated as needed..."

...Further undermining Limbaugh’s case (we reached out to his show and did not hear back) are the vaccination rates for the key countries involved in the influx of unaccompanied minors -- El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

The latest data from the World Health Organization runs through 2013. As this table shows, over the past four years, the vaccination rates among those countries are on par or exceed the rate in the United States...

What is really happening here: the fear-mongers in the media and in Congress are using a current news trend to attack their preferred targets - immigrants, Obama, libruls, Obama, women, Obama, and Obama - instead of presenting solutions or helpful alternatives.  It's all about the attack, it's all about winning the ratings wars, it's all about the money they make shilling this crap.

And it's hypocritical as hell.  These are the same bastards screaming about Ebola before the election back in November, that it was gonna kill us all, that we gotta quarantine everybody, when in fact Ebola is hard to catch (it's still a scary disease to get).  Meanwhile, we've got an easily communicable disease like measles floating around and half the GOP establishment is talking about "keeping it voluntary" or worse buying into the anti-vaxxers arguments that the vaccines are not worth it (we've even got a Senator talking about basic hand sanitation being voluntary: he needs to have Typhoid Mary cook for him someday).  These vaccines-choicers - promoting a serious health risk that can kill children - tend to be the same SOBs denying choice for women on birth control and abortion.

This is all the Republicans have.  They can't lead on these issues, only attack others over them.  To them it's all about winning the game, not keeping the nation healthy or informed or improving.

If you want solutions, getting families to vaccinate their kids against the lethal and easily-contagious diseases is a first step.  Make it easy, make it informed, make it work.  The next step is to take health care serious, take science and medicine serious, and do your damn jobs Congress...  Third step is chicken soup, hot tea, and lots of rest.

Doubt the Republicans will even follow through on the no-brainer about chicken soup... sigh.

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The Eternal Constant of a Negative Platform

If you're wondering why I keep viewing the Presidential Republican candidates as a massive field of wannabe Active-Negatives, let me make a few notes:

• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base economic platform is mass deregulation of everything, including safety regulations, education guidelines, health standards.  Even though there's been consistent evidence that mass deregulation doesn't help and in fact hurts most Americans.  As well as evidence that deregulation of education is rife with fraud and cheating.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base government budget platform is tax cuts for corporations and spending cuts for Medicare, welfare, food stamps, and Social Security.  Even though there's been consistent evidence that tax cuts don't work and that cutting social aid doesn't force Americans to "shape up".
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base foreign policy platform is bomb anyone with a hijab and mock the French for surrendering to Germany one too many times.  And to not say much of anything about a torture regime that violated a ton of American laws and treaties.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose immigration policy is publicly "voluntary deportations" where we're expecting migrant workers to happily turn about and drive back to Central America where the jobs are bad and the streets are (more) violent, and where the unspoken policy is to deport everyone who's not Anglo-Saxon via two out of four grandparents.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose religious platform is to denounce Sharia law while insisting public schools teach Creationism and faith-based history, both of which imposes one Christian church's beliefs on everyone else (and not every Christian wants that crap taught).
• We're talking about a Republican Party that would punish women over private decisions on birth control and abortion, yet claim the national health care risks caused by anti-vaccination families (pushed by fraudulent/dubious science) is a "choice".
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose governance methods don't involve deal-making via compromise or shared sacrifices, but through domination, obstruction, and refusal even consider valid arguments against their positions.

It may look like I'm being flippant, but I'm not.  That IS what the modern Republican Party stands for.  And this is a crusade for them: the Far Right is utterly convinced - through a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and fear - that their way, their ideology is the one pure truth.  Over which they lie, fake, and cheat to defend.

It doesn't matter the temperament - Active or Passive, Positive or Negative - of whoever gets tabbed for the 2016 nomination.  A majority of Republican leaders buy into each part of that list - admittedly more on one topic than another - with no qualms about any of it.  Both because their voting base of Far Right wingnuts insist on it, and because their financial billionaire backers insist on it.

And the danger gets worse.  Because we're stuck with a two-party electoral system, with a 50-50 chance the winner in 2016 can be the Republican nominee.  Even with a platform as Negative as what the Republicans are pushing, they can still trick - there will be no other word to describe it - enough voters into backing their candidate.  God help us.

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The Primaries GOP Song Remains The Same

Some of the updated news this weekend about the ongoing march towards the 2016 Presidential Election:

• Mitt Romney decided not to run for a third try.  He may have noted two things against him: the establishment wing of the Republicans had their boy Jeb Bush already, and the social conservative wing had their boy Huckabee (who could have pummeled Mitt as THE Not-Mitt candidate in 2012).
• Lindsey Graham decided to put his name out there.  Which elicited about three mild "yays" from his Beltway fanbase and a shrug from everyone else out there.

I was wondering when a politician like Graham was going to make the gesture.  The primary field for the Republicans right now skews to two types of candidate: the economic-minded and the evangelical/social-minded.  Until Graham popped up, they really didn't have anybody covering the third: foreign policy issues.

While the Republican Party as a whole is social conservative, some candidates are more dedicated than others.  Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister, for God's sake.  Santorum campaigns hard on an anti-gay, pro-fetus platform.  Carson pretty much only has his public devotions/social agenda to back his campaign.  Of the remaining professional elected officials, Jindal leans more on the God's Party ideology than on their economic or managerial work as governor.

And while the Republican Party as a whole is totally dedicated to cutting corporate taxes for the uber-rich and deregulating everything into privatized markets, some are more tax-cut and spending-cut than others.  This is where the "establishment" type candidates harken, such as Jeb and Christie and Rand Paul and Perry and Walker.  This is where the likes of Carly Fiorina would run their campaigns, as business-savvy leaders of industry and masters of finance (which, all things considered, they are not).

That leaves out the other foundation of the modern GOP, the foreign policy wonkery.  Ever since the Cold War, there's been a faction of the Republicans obsessed more with international relations (do as we say) and handling foreign threats (nuke 'em from orbit) than with domestic issues.  Ever since Nixon in 1968, there's been at least one candidate who presented themselves as "the serious adult" in the room when it came time to deal with Soviet Russia.  That was Bush the Elder in both 1980 (losing to Reagan's more social-conservative platform) and 1988 (beating out Dukakis who couldn't pull off that idiotic look of him driving a tank) and 1992 (losing to Clinton who ran on the economy).  In 1996, there was Richard Lugar, who lost out to Dole who still commanded some foreign policy cred as a long-standing Senate leader: this was against a field of Social candidates (Buchanan, Dornan) and Economic (Alexander, Gramm, Forbes).  In 2000, Dubya was clearly running on social ("compassionate conservatism") and economic platforms alongside Keyes (he may have been an ambassador as a career but his topics were clearly about God, God, and more God) and Forbes (tax cuts, obviously), leaving the foreign policy issues mostly to McCain.

By 2008, the Republicans had lost their reputation on foreign policy dealings having alienated our allies and wasted lives and money on two unfunded and unpopular wars.  Yet McCain was one of the front-runners that open season exactly because of his foreign policy creds.  Everyone else was either social con (Huckabee, Keyes, Hunter) or the tax-cut business con (Romney, Ron Paul).  Giuliani might have counted as a foreign policy candidate except his experience stopped at being mayor of New York, which left him with domestic policy (law and order) and tax-cutting stances: his only foreign policy stance was "9/11".

To note, 2012 was a screwy election cycle: the real platform for the Republicans that year was "Who was more Anti-Obama"?  That primary was out-of-whack in that nobody could really step up as a foreign policy candidate: nearly everybody tripped over themselves trying to present themselves as the uber-religious candidate (Santorum and Bachmann in particular) or the uber-tax-cut candidate (Romney, Paul, Perry, Cain, Johnson).  The only candidate with any serious foreign creds was Hunstman, and he didn't last long or gained much support.

Lindsey Graham is going to find the same problem.  After the disastrous Bush the Lesser presidency where the dark day of 9/11 led to a prolonged invasion/occupation of Afghanistan and an unnecessary and wasteful invasion/occupation of Iraq, the entire nation seems burned out when it comes to foreign affairs.  Obama's handling of Libya, Syria, Egypt and the rest of the Middle East is a prime example: he's avoided commitment of ground troops or peacekeeper efforts, using diplomatic efforts to try and minimize the ongoing bloodshed of the civil wars dotting that region and relying on local military forces - the Kurds against ISIL, local allies elsewhere - to avoid further entanglements.  It hasn't been pretty - the Syrian war in particular has become a nightmare of refugees, extremist strife, and unending terror - but there's little else the American public will support.

The Republican candidates running on foreign policy as a primary topic will confront the same disconnect from voters.  Most of the party's base is angered up on more localized matters: immigration, abortion, taxes, gutting Obamacare, guns, and hating Obama forever and ever.  Mostly the same agenda the GOP supported in 2012.  If there's any foreign policy issue they'll discuss, it's BENGHAZIGATE, which after three separate congressional investigations is still the same non-scandal it's been since 2012.  Worrying about wars overseas means little to a GOP Tea Party base that wants Obamacare nuked and the Mexican border turned into the barbed-wire trenches of WWI.

Graham's not going to go very far if he thinks he can win on foreign policy.  This isn't 2008 when the legacy of the Bush/Cheney wars was on the line, or 1988 when warming up relations between the US and USSR was a really big deal.  This is 2016, same as 2012 and pretty much the same as 2008 and 2000 and 1996: the primaries platform is Hate Clinton Obama (which in 2016 may well be Hate Clinton again).

If I had to do a brief bio on Graham it'd be this:

Lindsey Graham - Senator, South Carolina
Positives: One of the leaders of the Senate for the Republicans for a long time.  Won in a hard-core conservative state on a regular basis despite the reputation of being a RINO, which proves decent campaign skill.  Has name recognition.  Resides in a key early primary state (South Carolina)
Negatives: He's not considered as far right on a lot of issues as the party base would like.  Has no national warchest to fund a major campaign (unlike Jeb, who's probably getting the keys to the Koch Brothers' billionaire storage closet as I type this).  He's been unusually bipartisan working in the Senate with Democrats, which really angers up the Tea Party base (this would be a Positive under normal circumstances but it's a huge Negative in these partisan primaries).  And just type in a Google search on "Lindsey Graham rumors": anybody who gets to be over 50 without getting married (or even having one questionable child out of wedlock) is gonna get labeled as "gay" whether they are or not.
Chances: Slim. If he's smart he's using this as an opportunity to put him out there as a Veep ticket balancer with the "foreign policy creds" to a candidate who's most likely winning on a social or domestic economic reputation.  As for his personal life - or lack of one - it's going to get investigated in a big way if he heads to a national stage.  Even if the rumors are wrong - it's entirely possible Graham is asexual or disinterested, or else very discreet with the whole hooker/mistress thing - he's not Mr. Popular with the Tea Partiers.
Character Chart: The thing that throws me is Graham's reputation for bipartisan work.  While he's coming to the table with clearly Republican (i.e., bad) positions he's at least trying to get Democrats to bring their ideas (i.e., weak) into the bills (that end up going nowhere).  He's not as pure an Active-Positive as possible - because his foreign policy aims still lean towards aggressive bombing and pray for divine intervention - but in this field of Active-Negatives in the GOP he's the closest they got.
And the voting base doesn't want Active-Positive...

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Personal Note: Getting My Writings Published

Just to note that a new anthology History and Mystery Oh My! is out on the market for ebooks.

Amazon has it listed for their Kindle.  Barnes and Noble has it for their Nook and anyone with an EPUB reader can get it via Smashwords.

My story "Dread Secret of the Battle of Los Angeles" is about the real-life event in 1942 when the West Coast was rattled by the post-Pearl Harbor fears of more Japanese attacks.  I make a few guesses, put in a few sarcastic remarks about Hollywood, and add a few references to Star Wars, Flash Gordon and the Rocketeer to boot.  Hope you like it!

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Only Two Things Come From Iowa: Corn and Political Pandering

A large number of potential 2016 primary candidates were in Iowa today to suck up to the Far Right crowd, some of them more obvious than others in their pandering.  A lot of cringe-worthy moments to worry about.  I'm still horrified by how our Presidential campaigning system is so bent that a single small state like Iowa can twist and pervert the national discourse like this.

From the Des Moines Register article, the main attraction names - plus a few late arrivals to the campaign start-ups - give us a good idea who the primary primarying Republicans are.  I can give you a brief summation of the candidates, and their chances this upcoming cycle, and even a quick guess at their Barber-graded Characters.  And so, welcome to the horror show:

Ben Carson - Surgeon, maybe Maryland (I am not certain which state he will represent)
Positives: Among Republicans, he's viewed as a credible anti-Obamacare critic, best-selling Christian spiritual author, anti-gay spokesperson.
Negatives: Has no elected or governing experience to speak of.  While the Constitution doesn't require such experience, any previous elective campaigning would at least provide the needed mindset and endurance to handle a rigorous national campaign.
Chances: His popularity among the Tea Party base is pretty strong.  He hasn't officially announced but there's been a few "Draft Carson" efforts going out there.  He's the "Outsider" candidate who can claim he's not corrupt as the "Insider" candidates on the list.  It all depends on if he can find enough financial deep pockets and how he handles himself in debates.
Character Chart: He's the most difficult to pin down as he doesn't have a track record in office to measure his style.  His world-view is akin to a Far Right religious conservative, and his anti-ACA positions show a hatred for government health-care controls.  He presents himself as a Passive-Positive (he may even harbor Passive-Negative habits) but his statements and actions lean Active-Negative.

Chris Christie - Governor, New Jersey
Positives: Presents himself as a populist elected official as a Republican who won in a heavily-Democratic state.  Can govern.  Can campaign as hard as needed.  Has a high public profile already.
Negatives: Simply put: he's Nixon without the subtlety or charm.  The guy has two modes: Bully and bullying.  While it's part of his appeal to the Far Right that he's such a bully towards "libruls" and critics, it's an abrasive leadership style that alienates real quick.  He's also the focus of an ongoing federal investigation into BridgeGate.  Even if Christie is cleared of direct involvement, his office clearly was behind a vindictive act that hurt the public: a form of "ratf-cking" on par with Nixon-like retributions back in the day.  These are not good signs.
Chances: Once popular, the stigma of BridgeGate and a crowded campaign field of competing "populist" figures has dropped Christie to the middle of the pack.
Character Chart: He's as close to the poster-child model of Active-Negative traits - aggressive, uncompromising, vindictive - any modern candidate can display.

Ted Cruz - Senator, Texas
Positives: Nobody can pander to the Tea Party base like Gatson uh Cruz.
Negatives: Spends much of his political capital showboating in Congress and sabotaging US House legislation, a breach of etiquette having a Senator undercut the House Speaker on a regular basis.  He may be (college-level) intelligent but he's not (street) smart.  The talk has it that he does not play well with others.  His personal hypocrisy - a Latino minority born outside the United States (he's CANADIAN, people!) who attacks Hawaiian-born Obama as illegitimate - makes him something of a joke candidate.  Except he's deadly serious.
Chances: As well as anyone who can pander to the primary voters with the meaty stuff of attacking Obama and Obamacare on a regular basis.  Campaigning and debating on the national stage are different matters, though.  The real GOP power-brokers - the CEOs and SuperPAC controllers - may prefer one of their own (Jeb Bush).
Character Chart: His public and political recklessness makes it hard to view him as an Active-Negative, but his ambitions and uncompromising habits are clearly in that mode.

Carly Fiorina - CEO, California
Positives: One of a handful of women candidates who can broaden the "appeal" of the Republican platform.  Can claim executive experience as a business leader.  She's not as batsh-t crazy as the other prominent woman candidate on the GOP ticket (more on her later).
Negatives: No elective office or political experience.  She ran a poorly managed Senatorial campaign that ended in a bad loss.  Her track record as CEO - the only real thing she's got - isn't good (was forced out at Hewlett-Packard).
Chances: Slim.  She might run on a platform of "we need a CEO as President", but Romney tried that and didn't win over voters.
Character Chart: There's little on her political resume to confirm a style or world-view, but previous experience with CEO Presidents - Hoover, Bush the Lesser - points to either a person with uncompromising (Hoover) habits or a hands-off administrative style (Bush II).  Considering Fiorina's more aggressive management styles, she leans towards Hoover.  That puts her in the Active-Negative camp.

Mike Huckabee - Governor, Arkansas
Positives: Populist political figure from a strongly conservative political region (Southeast).  Can govern.  Knows how to campaign in a congenial style.  Remained a well-known figure on the national stage - by being on Fox Not-News as a pundit - after his failed primary campaigning in 2008.  He polled well as a possible candidate in 2012 (and showed enough awareness to tell it wasn't going to be a good election cycle for Republicans and stayed out of it).  Has legitimate religious conservative cred (ordained Baptist minister).  Can not only pander to the Tea Party base, he can do so without looking like it.
Negatives: Not exactly trusted by the anti-tax crowds still dominant in the backrooms of the GOP leadership (which is ridiculous as GOP dogma is too firmly obsessed with tax-cutting for anyone to violate that rule).  Has been away from elected office long enough for people to forget any good stuff he'd done as governor.  His time as a fear-monger on Fox Not-News will turn away moderate voters.  His early campaigning comments - going after "family values" issues and insulting Beyonce (?!) - are not exactly endearing him to any younger voters.  And that's not even going into legitimate scandals - granting clemencies to violent offenders who promptly killed (again), a son who killed a stray dog under obscure circumstances - that can become millstones in a national campaign.  Worst of all, Huckabee's advocacy of his religious beliefs - his failure to even respect the No Religious Test requirement IN THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF - threatens the sanctity of Separation of Church and State.
Chances: While he won't get the deep-pocket backers the way Jeb Bush (or even Mitt if Romney decides to make one more try) will, Huckabee has a high chance to use his charm and campaign skills to make a serious go at the nomination.
Character Chart: I stated earlier how the Republican Party is dominated by Active-Negatives and has an Active-Negative platform, yet needs a Passive-Positive candidate to appeal to regular voters.  Huckabee can present himself as a Passive-Positive better than any other candidate... but he's so Active-Negative with his strict religious convictions that he'll likely lean that way.

Sarah Palin - Mayor, Alaska (I refuse to list her brief term as Governor: SHE QUIT THE JOB AND NEVER FINISHED IT)
Positives: I'd like to think I'm not being biased against her, but I honestly cannot see anything about her that can be listed as a positive thing.  Maybe the fact she can present herself as a populist figure... except that she's really not that popular anymore.
Negatives: The phrase "batsh-t crazy" applies to Palin.  Has burned so many bridges in public and in private to the point where most of her Republican media fans from 2008 don't seem to want to talk about her eight years later.  She's currently polling near the bottom of the candidate list.  Her track record in elected office hasn't impressed.  The more people got a look at her (lack) of political skills the more they recoiled.
Chances: Next to nil.  She's putting her name out there as a mixture of pride and self-promotion: after all, her political posturing is how she makes her money.
Character Chart: Much of her political career and personal traits lean towards an aggressive, self-serving pattern.  She'd be a good fit in the Active-Negative category, with the only difference between her and previous A-N types is a lack of intelligence or skill (the closest equivalent would be Andrew Johnson... shudder).

Rick Perry - Governor, Texas
Positives: Long-serving governor of a major state.  Can govern.  Can campaign at the state level at least.  Made massive revisions to how the governor's office ran and how the state government functioned.  At least kept Texas voters - which is a sizable voter base - happy.
Negatives: Has a mixed record as governor, including current indictments for extortion and abuse of office.  Hasn't won over Hispanic voters with his very meager pro-immigrant moves as he still campaigns publicly on harsher anti-immigration policies.  The 2012 primary campaign was such a public disaster - he had a brain fart during a debate that was so painful even his opponents tried to help him - that he's got a long way to show he can genuinely campaign at a national level.
Chances: In this crowded primary, he's bumping against better public speakers (Christie) and populist figures (Huckabee) that can steal his thunder.  He may garner some deep pockets from the rich state of Texas but he's competing against the backroom reach of the Bush clan for that as well.
Character Chart: His track record as governor - hard on veto usage, rare to compromise, sticking to the Far Right political dogma on most issues - has him as an Active-Negative.

Rick Santorum - Senator, Pennsylvania
Positives: Actually ran a competitive campaign in the 2012 primaries, coming closest to being the Not-Mitt Romney candidate.  Is consistent on backing major issues dear to the GOP voting base.  Can be the only candidate to seriously challenge Huckabee's religious creds.  Under normal conditions for the Republican primaries, he'd be a front-runner and near-lock.
Negatives: Is a national punchline to a sick joke (do NOT Google his name).  Hasn't held elective office since 2007 (which is actually a serious problem for other front-runner types like Jeb Bush, but it hurts Santorum more as he lacks the broad power base Jeb maintains).  While he's a hard campaigner on social issues - anti-gay, anti-immigration, pro-fetus - his economic/tax stances aren't as well-known.
Chances: Still has some support in Iowa (due to the high count of social conservatives in-state) which can translate to early primary/caucus wins.  But he doesn't have the deep-pocket support the other big name candidates have.
Character Chart: His consistent social conservative stance points to an uncompromising world-view, again this points to an Active-Negative trait.

Scott Walker - Governor, Wisconsin
Positives: Won election in a relatively progressive state, and survived multiple attempts at ousting him from office (including a serious recall effort within his first term), which shows serious campaign skills.  Has imposed a hard governing style on issues, and has supported conservative platform "reforms" popular with the Tea Party base.  While it's bad for the rest of us, it's a positive for Walker in that he's in tight with the powerful and wealthy Koch Brothers.
Negatives: For all his election wins remains one of the more divisive political figures in the Midwest.  Hasn't polled well even in Iowa.  Hasn't officially put his name in, although his ambition for the Presidency is known.  He's currently the focus of a "John Doe" criminal investigation, which may not end any time soon (despite every effort by the GOP powers to kill it).
Chances: While he hasn't made it official, it's merely a question of when at this point.  His polling doesn't look good, but his backing - the Kochs - puts him in play.
Character Chart: Has an aggressive governing style that definitely puts him in the Active column.  His uncompromising stances on most issues makes him a clear Active-Negative type.

Missing from this list: Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio. Either they aren't at Iowa or haven't informally announced (despite signs and statements of interest).  There's a couple of others I haven't even named, but until I see official confirmation they've put in for the effort I won't name them.

Jeb Bush is not listed as a speaker but I've already reviewed him as an Active-Negative.

In recent weeks, Mitt Romney has expressed an interest in running yet again.  Even after the loss to Obama in 2012.  He's either delusional, thinks the current field isn't better than he is, or thinks that in 2016 the Democratic candidate (right now that's Hillary) will be easier to beat.  While this doesn't look like a Passive-Negative trait for Mitt to keep seeking the White House, it does fit if you look at his persistence as a form of Duty to his personal beliefs (also, the Barber charting method is not absolute: Characters can fall right on the line between Active/Passive and Positive/Negative, meaning Mitt can harbor Active-Negative as well as Passive-Negative traits).

It's horrifying to document so many A-N types running for the Presidency: that's because I can't find evidence right now any of the major Republican candidates showing the primary traits of an Active-Positive.  I don't see many candidates who view compromise and deal-making as legitimate power tools (which are part of the Adaptive trait of A-P types) or any candidates who will approach the Presidency with an affirmative, We-Can-Do-This world-view.  Worse, I can't see any Passive-Positives: those with genuine Congenial traits that make them personable and easy-to-work with even political opponents (Huckabee comes closest, but his God-In-Government stance is a key sign he's not).

I'm not about to say which candidate has the best chance.  Personally, I'm terrified any of them have a serious shot at the White House.  None of them (Active-Negatives) are what we need right now - pushing a harsh GOP platform opposed to basic human decency over immigration or gay rights, pushing a harsh tax-cut and social-benefits-cuts platform doomed to cause more deficits and financial hardships - to lead the nation past 2016.

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