Please, not now!!! There is a long way to go...
"The character . . . of the president cannot be underestimated."
Well, that statement was rewritten, of course, for clintoon who had NO character nor morals or ethics.
I am looking forward to your list quite eagerly.
From where I sit, 2006 is shaping up to be something of a disaster, and 2008 will be worse. The Democrats do not represent me at all, and their shrill-shrieking idiocy on the War on Terror has rendered them completely out of the question, in my eyes.
But the Republicans of late have been offering me nothing either.
On life issues, we had the Bush boys play Pontius Pilate on Terri Schiavo and the US Congress wash its hands of the matter and allow judges to disregard Congressional subpoenas and we've got Supreme Court kabuki theater going on.
On immigration the Republican Party isn't distinguishable from the Democrats: do nothing.
On overall government philosophy, we've got exploding debt and regulation and programs, and no sense at all that anything is going to be made better. The current Republican leadership has no intention of changing its course.
So I look at that, and I shake my head sadly and see that the Republican Party is leaving me.
I can't even think of anyone else.
So I'm looking forward to your list.
Exactly.
I do believe there are several main issues that conservative voters can judge a candidate on.
*supports a strong national defense/security
*supports limited govt
*fiscal conservative on spending
*fiscal conservative on tax reform
*supports conservative nominees to federal courts
*supports anti-illegal immigration reform
*supports pro-life/right to life issues
"The fact that the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservative, economic conservatives, gun rights supporters, property rights activists, and immigration reformers."
Add National Security. Properly applied, this issue trumps all those listed, as far as winning elections. This ommission disqualifies this author.
Why should the reader consider his opinion to disqualify seven potential candidates, when the author overlooks the SINGLE most important issue of the day?
Let's guess Adam.
You would'nt be holding Allan Keyes in the wings now ? would ya?
It not, then Who?
The ideal candidate has'nt surfaced. And all the runners don't seem to be finishers.
Jeb? No. No actors. No incumbents? No up and comers?
Meantime Adam, shave that beard,start hitting the gym and we look forward to a brand new You in '06.
I have this theory that "Republican fatigue" will set in and the Dem candidate will win in 2008. The seemingly youthful, vigorous "new broom" Democrat won in 1960 after eight years of Republican president Eisenhower. Sixteen years later, after the Nixon-Ford years left the country fatigued, another energetic "sweeper" breezed in. Sixteen years after that, the Reagan-Bush years wore on the public's attention, and yet another engaging rascal captured the White House. Sixteen years after that will be 2008 and the end of eight years of Republican George W. Bush.
If the pattern holds, it won't be Hillary who'll win in '08, but someone like John Edwards. And with qualifications as meager as Kennedy's, Carter's and Clinton's, he'll still win, if only because he will seem to present a change of pace and a sense of rejuvenation for the body politic.