Posted on 01/21/2008 10:03:16 AM PST by gpapa
Patrick Ruffini is polling Fred Thompson supporters, asking who we’ll support if Fred drops out. It’s an awful prospect. Each of the other four is deeply flawed (although none quite so badly as Ron Paul). Blogger William Sjostrom recently took me to task for having a “take my ball and go home approach”:
I am tired of the approach that says some candidates just upset me and so I would rather stay home and be virtuous than face up to real choices.
Fair enough. Mason Colley quipped that “Victory brings obliviousness; defeat, attentiveness.” The GOP is broken. Badly. As I’ve argued repeatedly, George Bush not only has wasted the conservative moment, he has done the conservative movement grave harm:
Bush was blessed with the opportunity to effect many long-term conservative goals. For most of his presidency, the GOP controlled the White House and Congress, as well as having a solid critical mass in the courts. Despite these advantages, however, what has Bush really accomplished?
Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we set the stage for a durable conservative majority?
To be blunt, no.
But it’s not just Bush. The deeply corrupt K Street gang discredited the GOP Congressional leadership, who proved to be concerned solely with clinging to power for power’s own sake.
God made the people of Israel wander in the desert 40 years so as to remake the Israelis into a people fit for the tasks ahead. The GOP seriously needs a time out so that it can rethink its role in American democracy. There are a lot of legitimate questions facing the GOP. Do you adhere to the limited government principles of Reagan and Thatcher or do you follow the lead of UK Tory leader David Cameron? As the Economist recently opined, “it seems likely that the Republican Party, as a number of its members are already urging, will have to embrace environmentalism and cuddly economics as the Tories were forced to.”
Fred Thompson was a more than acceptable Reaganesque conservative who offered the GOP a chance to delay having to face those tough choices. Indeed, to borrow a football metaphor, a Thompson presidency offered the GOP a chance to reload rather than going through the painful process of rebuilding. The other 4 are all so deeply and irredeemably flawed that their presidency likely would be doomed to failure from the outset.
If the choice is between choosing the lesser of 4 evils and teeing up a process by which the GOP reinvents itself for the 21st Century, I’m inclined to opt for the latter. Coupled with losing Congress in 2006, losing the presidency in 2008 will provide a pair of defeats that surely will prompt “attentiveness” on the part of the GOP leadership and the intellectual base of think tanks and academics who helped lay the foundation for the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions. Just as the Israelis had to be punished for listening to the 10 fearful spies, the GOP needs to be punished for having been seduced by Bush and DeLay. Just as the Israelis came back stronger and fitter for the tasks ahead, so might a chastened GOP.
So that’s why my answer to Ruffini’s poll is: None of the above.
I doubt an honorable man like Hunter, having just ended his campaign, would go for a re-draft. I was extremely disappointed that he dropped out before the California primary, as he was my first choice early on. Fred is not perfect by any means, but he is far above the rest, and I have never heard him say anything negative about Duncan. Frankly, if Fred drops out, I am likely to sit this one out for the first time since 1964. All the others still in the hunt are pathetic. My vote out here in la-la land probably won’t mean much anyway.
I will still do what ever I can to get his son elected for Duncan’s current 52nd District seat in California.
As I mentioned in another post there were some interesting internals in the latest Florida Rasmussen poll. Asked who they thought was politically conservative, those who thought Thompson was conservative, 61%, Huckabee 45%, Romney 43%, McCain 21%, Giuliani 14%. This compares to the actual poll of who is currently favored to win in Florida; Romney 25%, McCain 20%, Giuliani 19%, Huckabee 13%, Thompson 12%. I guess Florida has taken a hard turn to the left since 2000 and 2004.
I think Hunter would, as long as there was some real money backing up the invitation, say on the order of ~$20M.
If Fred does not win this thing, I am voting 3rd Party, Wayne Allyn Root!
You neglected to include Stevens, O’Connor and Kennedy.
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