Do Vanity Candidates Really Have a Chance? (Michael Medved)

Michael Medved's Townhall Blog ^ | February 8, 2007 | Michael Medved

[EveningStar]

Two days ago, in blogging about the abortion records of the serious GOP Presidential prospects (McCain, Giuliani, Romney), I provoked a great deal of anger by writing off the other current contenders (Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, Ron Paul, Gilmore, Thompson, Duncan Hunter) as "lesser" candidates who stand no realistic chance of winning primaries or grabbing the nomination. No matter how much you may admire these people, their candidacies are irrelevant – more a bid for attention, or a preparation for future races, than a realistic bid for power...

When, in the last 60 years of Presidential politics, did any obscure underdog manage to defy the odds and win the nomination of the Republican Party?...

[Junior_G]

And Hunter's conservativism is exaggerated, i.e. he's anti-free-trade.

Unfettered globalist free trade may be a Republican ideal (and a Democrat ideal), but it certainly is not a conservative one

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Those are rather eleborate projections, don't you think? Since you have no real way to prove your statistics simply because they don't yet exist. Now, if you take the data from current polling surveys, your hypothesis is way off the mark.

[AmishDude]

No, I could get in on all of that pointless, but well-funded ag research, but the bio people don't like you walking into their offices saying, "So, waddaya wanna know?"

[Torie]

Property tax rates in Iowa by the way are quite high for homes. For farms, well, that is another subsidy as it were! The house in Winterset has a property tax bill that is about equal to the farm 2 miles south, even though it is worth at most about a fifth as much.

[AmishDude]

Reagan? Pro- or anti- free trade?

Friedman? Pro- or anti- free trade?

Buckley? Pro- or anti- free trade?

In fact, I can't think of any conservative figure with an IQ higher than the current outdoor temperature who is anti-free trade. Can you?

[zbigreddogz]

Pat Buchannan, is that you?

[Torie]

Much better.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

No, the last election showed that Independent/swing voters can come out of the woodwork and vote the way the Media tells them in a blink of an eye.

As far as Conservatives versus Democrats, both parties showed up in their usual numbers. In fact, Republicans had their usual edge over the Dems. (Check the facts at Pew Research.com.)

[AmishDude]

Maybe I should turn my flowers bed into a tomato garden and get a farm subsidy!

Winterset is close-ish to Des Moines. It's also at the junction of 2 highways. Primo real estate. 2 miles south and it's the middle of nowhere.

[zbigreddogz]

Ah, but you see, isolationism and protectionism is a bedrock conservative issue, don't you know, it's just been abandoned by all the RINO's since Robert Taft.

I've had a Ron Paul supporter actually say essentially this to me.

[AmishDude]

I think that if all Republicans since Robert Taft held the same view, that would make everybody else the RINO.

[Junior_G]

In fact, I can't think of any conservative figure with an IQ higher than the current outdoor temperature who is anti-free trade.

Either you are very ill-informed, or you have a strange definition of I.Q.

[staytrue]

It surprises me that Hunter and McCain get the exact same rating over their 25+ year careers. And I can't stand McCain! What am I missing?

whenever mccain disagrees with bush, the media gives him a ton of tv exposure, when hunter does it, you don't see it.

[Junior_G]

Pat Buchannan, is that you?

As if it's not bad enough that you chose that very unflattering picture to post, you can't even spell my name right.

[AmishDude]

You didn't answer my question. What are ya, some kind of patsie?

[zbigreddogz]

Please, enlighten us to these conservative heros! I'm very curious.

[Torie]

Actaully, per my little google earth surveys, Madison County, even the part kitty corner to Polk County, does not have one friggin little Des Moines sprawl subdivision yet, and I find that very annoying. My mother's farm has been the first substantial farm one hits south of Winterset since great grandfather bought it in 1872. Winterset's population has not changed much since then either.

[zbigreddogz]

I apologize for the finger slip that added an extra "N" to your name.

It was a freuidian slip, I added the extra "N" to stand for "Nazi sympathizer."

[pollyannaish]

are ashamed to say who they are for and can't take the heat

And this is NOT ripping other republicans by what definition? You suggested that if we do not commit right here, right now we are uninformed cowards. Believe what you want, but I would say that there are very good reasons not to commit yet.

[AmishDude]

Well, unlike in SoCal, closeish doesn't have to be a suburb. The morning traffic report is blissfully short. I've gone to a couple of 5Ks in Winterset over the years. It's not that far. It's closer to the airport than Ames.