Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

GOP TICKET '08
polyester~monkey

Posted on 11/05/2004 6:58:30 PM PST by polyester~monkey

who will it be


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 2008; rudymccainfristjeb
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 201-220221-240241-260 ... 281-288 next last
To: Keyes2000mt
I do not accept Supreme Court judges as being infallible and there are many examples of decisions being overturned by later courts (especially in the area of copyright, originally an artist could record any sheet music to record and any radio station could play a record with no further payment; best govt. money can buy).

The right to same sex sodomy was recently established in spite of an earlier verdict. Roe v. Wade has little "permanency" even though "Roe" now stands in opposition to abortion.

Some see the "court" as others see the "pope". I am not Catholic and I do not bring up such matters as any sort of dig. I grew up going to Catholic schools and my dad is Catholic. Some certainly feel that there were periods when the "infallible" pope made some errors in judgment; whether that is the case or not is not the issue here. CERTAINLY the Supreme Court has made some bad calls over time. They are human, they are prone to error (the verdict is out on the pope). I am still Christian and would be the last to want to defend the politics of today's majority Presbyterian Church.

221 posted on 11/06/2004 1:54:41 AM PST by weegee (WE FOUGHT ZOGBYISM November 2, 2004 - 60 Million Voters versus 60 Minutes - BUSH WINS!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 219 | View Replies]

Comment #222 Removed by Moderator

To: polyester~monkey

Sanford/Tancredo


223 posted on 11/06/2004 4:44:24 AM PST by JesseHousman (Execute Mumia Abu-Jamal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: locochupacabra

No way!


224 posted on 11/06/2004 4:44:43 AM PST by JesseHousman (Execute Mumia Abu-Jamal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: polyester~monkey; Jim Robinson; Jeff Head

Robinson/Head


225 posted on 11/06/2004 4:45:35 AM PST by Jim Noble (FR Iraq policy debate begins 11/3/04. Pass the word.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Angry Republican
Does anyone here think Jeb Bush would win?

Yeah, lots of 'em do.

They're all wrong, though.

226 posted on 11/06/2004 4:46:34 AM PST by Jim Noble (FR Iraq policy debate begins 11/3/04. Pass the word.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: flashbunny

I like the way you think!


227 posted on 11/06/2004 4:46:42 AM PST by JesseHousman (Execute Mumia Abu-Jamal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: polyester~monkey

Condi, Jeb, Thune.


228 posted on 11/06/2004 5:22:29 AM PST by Reader of news
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dubya's fan

Right.. Frist/Condi or Frist/Jeb... Frist from the South.. Condi has extensive ties to the West Coast... Jeb can be an outstanding Pres.. I hope that he does not go back into private work in Miami.. but accepts a Cabinet level positon for the last two years of the Pres. tenure.. could be very interested.. by the way.. Frist does have executive experience....
The Fritzy from Florida


229 posted on 11/06/2004 5:31:12 AM PST by Fritzy (Fritzy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 228 | View Replies]

To: Fritzy

I don't think Bill Frist is a strong candidate.


230 posted on 11/06/2004 5:41:19 AM PST by Reader of news
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 229 | View Replies]

To: GOP-PeekaBoo

Agree. I really like Bill Owens
and I like Blackwell a lot, too (and it would help w the OH vote). I haven't heard him speak much (outside of this past week wrt the election, votes, etc.). As I mentioned, I was extremely impressed w Michael Steele's speech -- -thought he was terrific!


231 posted on 11/06/2004 7:00:30 AM PST by Seattle Conservative (Seattle Conservative)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 206 | View Replies]

To: polyester~monkey

The big question is who does W see as the person most likely to carry on his work and vision. I would look to see who gets moved to prominent positions in his administration or which legislators he involves most closely in White House meetings and photo ops.


232 posted on 11/06/2004 7:19:39 AM PST by PFC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: debboo
Peggy Noonan, however much I like her, is a speechwriter, like Pat Buchanan.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is pro-abortion. She was nearly denied a seat at the 1996 Convention by Texas conservatives upset with her pro-abortion stance.

She did, however, adopt a child within the last couple of years. (She's married.)

233 posted on 11/06/2004 9:17:02 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 196 | View Replies]

To: Fritzy
Right.. Frist/Condi or Frist/Jeb... Frist from the South.. Condi has extensive ties to the West Coast...

1. Bill Frist isn't ready to be a national candidate.

2. Condi Rice needs to get elective experience. She's been a university provost (Stanford) and a staffer to presidents. She needs to spend some time understudying with Ahnuld out in California to become his successor. Then, after a couple of terms as Governatrix (after the Governator), she'll be ready for the big show.

3. Too soon for Jeb in '08 -- the country will be tired of Bushes, and the adversary will be Hillary.

234 posted on 11/06/2004 9:23:17 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 229 | View Replies]

To: lentulusgracchus
Just read your thoughts... you may be right on target.. in that case.. who is in the line up.. while it may be early.. we must have a viable candidate or two and get behind them NOW.. it is imperative that the background/on the ground work begin as soon as possible... I value your thoughts... I am in Florida.. so will check in this PM
235 posted on 11/07/2004 6:17:16 AM PST by Fritzy (Fritzy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 234 | View Replies]

To: Fritzy
Just the usual possibilities. Governors are preferred as a rule, and vice-presidents, senators much less so, and cabinet officers are out, since people view them as high-caliber staff, but still staff not principals. The Bush family, btw, has always made this distinction with some social rigor in their own associations, as was documented by a 1988 or 1989 Atlantic Montly article about X41's first campaign in its early days, when he was at Kennebunkport, receiving magnates, powers, and hot-gun political consultants at Manor Bush and running around in his big motor-boat. The author drily noted, as a key to Bushness, that the more independent the operator, the better treatment he got according to a finely-sliced gradus of hospitality, whereas 41's hard-working staff slept in a cheap motel down the road and got box lunch in a nook under the stairs.

Probably the most attractive people in the GOP right now are Rudy Giuliani (but notice his urban liberal leanings), Condi Rice (ditto, she's been contaminated by Stanford), and Colin Powell, who out of respect for his wife's needs won't run for public office. The only way I see Powell being elected is if he were appointed vice-president to fill a vacancy (say Cheney resigned for reasons of health) and then Al-Q'aeda bagged a president; or by order of succession if someone bagged both the President and VP while Powell was out of the country -- that would practically take a nuclear weapon, but you never know. It could happen. But Powell won't run for national office while his wife needs him, so it won't happen. You might say it's a case of, the better the man, the more unavailable he is.

There is another way Powell could be elected, but it's such a long shot, and the events required to bring it about would necessarily be so catastrophic, that it's hardly worth thinking about. It would require the removal from the scene of all the top contenders for public office -- the pushy types who want to be President and will do anything to get it -- and the removal, as well, of all the kingmaker-wannabe talking heads in the press. Scenarize any sort of major disaster that took most of the top political talent off the board, and what would the talking heads do? They'd immediately start handicapping the survivors and talking up different personalities for the top job -- kingmaking on Page One, call it, or nomination by ink. To forestall that, all the network studios in New York and DC would have to disappear as well, so now you are talking about a major disaster.

But to come to my point, what it would take to make Colin Powell President of the United States (or what was left of it) would be a session of an uncommitted Electoral College, who would sit without ulterior agenda and without prior commitments, to select a President based only on talent and capability -- which is exactly what the Framers intended. What a thought.

As for Powell's political center, if he were President I think he'd be a lot closer to X41, without the snobbery, than to Dubya. I don't think he's a conservative.

Right now I can't think of a conservative who could get the nomination, much less election. Even Ronnie had to give X41 the second place on the ticket and a ton of patronage, to keep the Brahmin b@stards from sabotaging the ticket the way they did in 1964.

And X41 did a lot of damage with the patronage he had -- that "pigs at the trough" stuff, IMHO, was all his doing: President Reagan's staff was run by Jim Baker (better if it had been 41 himself, he'd have been less effective and so done less damage), who immediately formed the "Tuesday morning" group to filter Ronnie's options and attempt to control him. The only Reagan loyalist in that group was Ed Meese, who was intellectually outgunned by Baker, "Tricky Dicky" Darman (or Baker II, if you will), and Stockman, who was the pick of the litter of GOP congressional staffers and therefore an establishment creature as much as Darman and Baker.

Reagan IMHO would have been a much better president, and his presidency would have been much less marked by corporate-welfarist humbug, had he not had the Bushmen on board. You will notice contrariwise, that neither Bush has had any nominees of a powerful, conservative eminence grise on his personal staff, as X41 insisted on when he negotiated his way onto the ticket, and so it eventuates that neither Bush has any really conservative voices on his staff (not in the Cabinet -- that isn't where the decisions are made), and so the street is distinctly one-way from New York and New England (and Crawford) downhill to us conservative peons in the back of the bus, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor.

Both Bushes have suppressed conservative political talent and ideas in their Administrations, refusing to engage conservatives except when it suited them and shutting them out of policy. That's the bottom line. Ashcroft was a sop, and he's completely under control. Even the Emerson RKBA brief was hedged -- Ashcroft, I don't think, would have done that without Dubya's instructions. Likewise, the down-ballot "values" initiatives that carried Dubya over the top last week were a Karl Rove device -- and you will notice that Bush has no liability or indebtedness on their account. They were completely deniable devices that import no obligation to the Administration. And sure enough, when Dubya appeared for the victory celebration with all the Bushes and Cheneys, there was Mary Cheney with her bedmate, right up there on the stage with everyone else. And yes, that was a signal.

What it would take to change the steady and relentless discounting of conservative input and Bush-backed RiNO primary challenges to conservative incumbents, which is the prerequisite to developing national-level conservative political talent, is for conservatives to take charge of the GOP first, and put the money boys in the back of the bus instead. Any ideas how to do that?

236 posted on 11/07/2004 8:01:41 AM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 235 | View Replies]

To: lentulusgracchus

Peggy Noonan, however much I like her, is a speechwriter, like Pat Buchanan.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is pro-abortion.

I know, I was being facitious.


237 posted on 11/07/2004 8:45:46 AM PST by debboo (Stop socialism, vote conservative)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 233 | View Replies]

To: lentulusgracchus
WOW.. I am SO impressed with your thinking process... I have printed your note to really think about it over a cup of coffee... as a professional who works in DC and the Middle East - lives in Florida... I absolutely agree with your process.. have worked with Powell - very impressive, great capacity to listen and act.. Mayor G. is also a fine person, but a little too liberal for me.. someone mentioned Elizabeth Dole - give me a break.. she is shallow with a huge ego..and running the Red Cross is not a big deal.. as a matter of fact, she was almost fired and most of her staff refused to work with her.. it was really quite awful.. this I know personally.. we need to find someone with deep convictions, ability to listen to the people and then establish their position as a vibrant, productive knowledgeable leader.. tall order.. I guess I have been inside the beltway too long.. most of our leaders are facades.. when you actually get to work with them behind closed doors they are mostly ego maniacs..with hired staff that feed their egos. I do like Senator Lieberman.. Senator Frist.. Senator Lindsey Graham (SC).. and of course - Arnold (who also has a huge ego, but plays it with hiring an intelligent staff to support him).. I will take a few hours tonight to think upon your note and get back to you..I am thinking about Talent first... powerful talent and skills.. thanks for the response.. your opinions are truly worthy..
238 posted on 11/07/2004 12:52:31 PM PST by Fritzy (Fritzy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 236 | View Replies]

To: Fritzy
someone mentioned Elizabeth Dole - give me a break.. she is shallow with a huge ego..and running the Red Cross is not a big deal.. as a matter of fact, she was almost fired and most of her staff refused to work with her.. it was really quite awful..

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm somewhat familiar with the phenomenon. Ten years ago I went through a personnel-development seminar with an HR hired gun who had formerly been the top personnel guy at Diamond Shamrock 25 years ago now. During breaks, or as comments sprinkled throughout his presentation (which was better than the usual "getting to know my navel" stuff some people -- like, infamously, Royal Dutch Shell -- have indulged in), he regaled us with some stories about trying to do HR consulting and staff development in the District of Columbia. He had been brought in after the Anne Burford Gorsuch brouhaha during the Reagan Administration to straighten some things out that were obviously broken.

He said he had never before (or since) seen personalities with such incredible power drives -- these people's eyes practically glowed in the dark with their need to get, and wield, power. He told of guys with master's degrees from Yale taking $25,000/year jobs on some obscure Congressional or departmental staff, just so they could get their hands on policy -- any policy, some policy, big or little policy. He didn't say so, but I got the distinct impression that he was trying to warn us that places like Washington (and the executive suite) were overrun with diseased personalities flailing around to get more power to solve whatever major malfunction it was that drove them.

He said it was his common experience that people he was told to interview wouldn't see him on the Interior Department premises, but would insist on another venue, over lunch, and then they would try to lay a marker. They would imply very strongly that they were doing this consultant a favor which they expected would be repaid if the consultant ever got into a position to do so (such as a plummy appointment with hiring authority). They were allergic to being seen with him at all.

He may have made a few other comments, but that was the burden of it, that Washington was awash in powerful, talented, strongly mismotivated personalities.

Your comments about Elizabeth Dole sound familiar, if not from things I've read about her (Southern belle, society doyenne, exclusive education, married for power -- certainly it can't have been for Bob's little blue pills), then from things I've read about other women similarly situated. I've heard very similar things about a former mayor of Houston, Kathryn Whitmire, who is supposed to be a whirlwind of tempestuous self-consequence and a force for upheaval within her extended family (her brother is a prominent Democratic state senator). She truncated her own political future by having an ill-advised affair with a very married black city councilman that state Republicans found out about, and about which said Republicans are rumored to have been very quick to let her know, when she momentarily set her sights on the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Kay Bailey Hutchison (who herself once swatted Big John Connally's daughter over the head with a notebook in her offices -- Big John's daughter was on Kay's staff, back in the day, when Kay was still a state officer).

Just as someone once said that the rich really are not at all like you and me, it is equally true that people who are driven by the appetite for power are likewise unlike the mass of humanity, a mark of distinction which does not, despite what their egos doubtless tell them, work in their favor. It was for people like them that the Framers wrote the Constitution, to turn them against one another, to cause them to butt heads at every turn, and to be able to cooperate only "diodically", i.e. with a bias in the general direction of the People's best interest.

I set against that something I once saw in the faces of candidates for Congress who were undergoing a "school for candidates" then run by Michigan Representative Guy van der Jagdt, a leathery, cynical pol of the old school who carried in his face the marks of liberal Democratic victory after liberal Democratic victory from the 1960's and 70's, when the Democrats were drunk with power and BATF-confiscated booze that they had wheeled in on dollies onto the Senate floor in case lots, on days when Congress was about to adjourn for the holidays.

But there was none of that in the faces of the new candidates, but rather a candid openness and a manifest desire to help and serve that gave me the strong impression, however erroneous it may have been, that these were the very best people in the world.

That was years and years ago, and I suppose many of the successful candidates from that class have reached the ends of their public careers by now -- a dozen or 15 years is pretty common. But what the country has accomplished in the meantime has been extraordinary, from the overthrow of international Communism to the impeachment of Bill Clinton for misconduct that was common in the 1960's (remember Wayne Hays and Wilbur Mills?) to the abolition of the welfare trap. It's been an interesting few decades.

239 posted on 11/07/2004 2:22:10 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 238 | View Replies]

To: polyester~monkey

Marc Racicot.


240 posted on 11/07/2004 2:28:50 PM PST by TexasNative2000 (When it's all said and done, someone starts another conversation.......)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 201-220221-240241-260 ... 281-288 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson