Liberals: Who are your favorite republicans? Everyone: Who are some republicans out there doing some great work?

To be honest I always liked McCain before he sold his soul to win the Republican nomination.

Arlen Specter——intelligent, hardworking, well balanced in his approach to issues…...

Oh wait a minute, he just jumped ship and switched parties, didn’t he? Well I did say he was known for his intelligence.

Arlen Specter immediately comes to mind but he recently quit the GOP.

Colin Powell has always been a favorite of mine.

@Buttonstc…You have a slightly quicker trigger finger than I, but as they say, great minds….wtf

&whatthefluther. Great minds….....

Wow. We are really on the same wavelength tonight.

Gosh. This is harder than I thought it’d be.

Meghan McCain comes to mind. As does Colin Powell. Condi Rice pre-waterboarding scandal always had my respect.

And, of course – Micheal Steele. I like him just because he is a hilarious character, not because he’s good at what he does.

Also, Shepard Smith has been coming out of his shell as of late – his recent outburst has caught my eye. Here’s hoping he continues down that path on Fox; we all know they need an opposing voice.

Also – good question!

All kidding aside, I really like Mike Huckabee, an eminently decent ethical guy who seems so out of place in the cutthroat arena of national politics.

I guess it’s his sense of humor that keeps him from jumping off a bridge or something.

He gets bonus points for being a musician and the caliber of the talent he’s been able to tap for his show has been so cool.

No, I’m not referring to the Little Rockers but to the guests—- guys like Ray Price
and Willie Nelson both together on a recent show.

I second Colin Powell and I always respected McCain, and Joe Lieberman may be the closest Republican/Democrat I know and like.

I’m definitely with @Ivan and @MrMeltedCrayon.

Abraham Lincoln

I like Rudy Giuliani for entertainment value, does that count? I wish he were a character in a book that I created.

My favorite Republicans are all dead.

Don’t know much about him, but I just finished reading this article about Jason Chaffetz.

mccain i think was pretty middle-ish, which i can appreciate.

and if the dems didnt have such a great line up for presidential canidates this year, i would have gladly voted fr RON PAUL! HOLA! he is a smart dude, and, um, SANE! haha

Ron Paul. I know merely mentioning his name automatically gets you a one way ticket to the crazy bin, but he’s been the one to make the most sense to me in recent years. His basic message is closest to what I want for this country, but there are areas I don’t agree with him on. Namely, he’s anti-abortion because of his personal beliefs and his religion. That’s not objective enough for me, which is one reason I didn’t vote for him. The same with Obama saying he’d never vote for gay marriage because of he’s a Christian. But Paul is very “feet on the ground” when it comes to economics and foreign affairs. Unfortunately, the opposite of “feet on the ground” is what’s most commonly practiced these days, so it makes Paul seem like the unreasonable one because he’s in the minority. It’s easy to make someone the laughing stock when they’re one of the few who think a certain way.

Ron Paul’s campaign for liberty is some excellent work that he is doing post-campaign.

They’re not elected officials, but I have a lot of respect for Kathleen Parker and Chris Buckley of the National Review.

Is Chris Buckley stii with the mag? I seem to remember some sort of dustup when they got their noses out of joint because he dared voice his observation regarding Palin not really being ready for primetime, so to speak. He then resigned in protest, did he not?

Or did they all make nice afterward and I somehow missed that part?

@ubersiren. Well put me in the bin next to yours as I also like Paul for many reasons.

I guess I forgot him cuz the quest was about Republicans and he is much much closer to Libertarian in his positions (with the notable exception of the abortion issue) but he’s intelligent enough to realize that this is still a two party system and he wouldn’t get any traction in a Pres. race in a marginalized category.

He self defines as a Constitutionalist which I think is pretty accurate and reflected in his views on the economy and foreign entanglements.

I’m sure that he irks many Repubs on a regular basis. :)

Socrates.

I’m a liberal democrat (on the scale of liberal, 1 being hardcore conservative, 10 being hardcore liberal…. I’m probably a 6.5 or so) ..... BUT prior to this last election I’d have said John McCain was my favorite republican… But he sold out the aspects of him I liked during the campaign.

NOW, I might opt for Colin Powell, I know there’s at least one senator I like but I can’t remember his name right now….. I didn’t know much about him but I’ve heard good things about the guy Obama just appointed to be Chinese ambassador too.

Now as far as just hanging out with, there’s a laundry list of Republicans that I think are funny and would be fun to get a beer with. Gingrich, Bush, Huckabee, Steele, etc….

Mike Bloomberg, NYC Mayor (but he was a democrat for most of his life)

Olympia Snowe, Senator from Maine

The Republicans that are doing good work are too smart to want to be President.

I like Colin Powell, he isn’t fanatical and seems to be very logical on his approach.

Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah, and soon to be Ambassador to China.

And James Inhofe, though I tend to like him more for comedic value than anything he’s ever done or said.

@westy81585 true, true about mccain prior vs. during campaigning. i think that he thought he had a better chance to win by playing up conservative values because the far right wanted someone like bush, and mccain (prior to campaigning) was not like bush.

people will sell out and do anything for votes (i.e. power)... sad really.