Posted on 03/05/2007 1:11:47 PM PST by meg88
Today I have seen the future and that future is President Rudy.
It's not that I'm voting for Rudy, but the vacuum to be filled has been filled.
Consider this:
Rudy Giuliani and Tony Snow are the only guys who have had to have fire marshals bar people from entering due to overcapacity in a very big room.
In the green room, Giuliani's speech was the only one to cause everyone to sit down, shut up and watch.
More and more, the conservatives at CPAC are realigning. You have the Brownback folks, the Mitt folks, and the people who are headed quickly to Rudy. And you know what? They are more or less cheerful in doing it.
They've found the guy who knows he needs them to get in the door. They know the calculus Rudy has made -- the conservatives aren't selling out their principles; Rudy is telling them he won't impose his social view on them, but he'll keep them safe.
After all, abortion is not an issue when a terrorist has killed you.
Look for all guns to turn on Rudy now. He's been the frontrunner all along and now the rest of the pack realizes it.
The reception he got at CPAC should worry them.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
Most people know what this candidate is about, and yet they continue to be drawn to him.
Maybe voters aren't overly concerned with social conservatism, then.
"If the GOP nominates someone who has shown they support that filth, they can kiss their a** goodbye."
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
So it would seem. And for very similar reasons.
An interesting development, and one that is going largely unnoticed. If you think about it, it's quite common for voters to say, "I'm fiscally conservative, and socially liberal." (You rarely would see anyone outside the Oval Office hold the opposite views.)
Republicans seem to be mutating into a different animal, along those lines. One that is pro-military, pro-tax cuts, but very moderate in their social views. Overall, that's a very shrewd strategy, as most Americans indentify with these positions. The only real problem could be on the 2nd Amendment. Still, with the new iteration of Democrats realizing how popular gun ownership is, Republicans aren't going to get too far off the reservation over it.
The fringe right will panic as hard as the fringe left is, which will prove to be equally counterproductive. The only thing the angry spasms of fringe left is doing is cutting themselves off at the kneecap. They are in horror over what is happening to the DNC. The fringe right, if they go the same route, will find themselves equally marginalized.
Politicians, as a rule, go towards votes, and away from crazy. (Unless they have a crazy constituency, like in the SF bay area) If you act like a large, serious voter block, they'll hump your leg like the dogs they are. Act crazy, and they won't even return your phone calls. The hard left is learning this the hard way, as will the hard right.
You will be shown to the door is more likely...
A conservative third party candidate will probably do at least as well in 2008 if a RINO wins the nomination for the Presidency. In the 1960s, public outcry against rapidly increasing street crime, the hippie movement, and a protracted no-win war led to George Wallace winning 13% of the national Presidential vote in 1968 and carrying several states. Many of his votes were disaffected white Southerners and white Catholics whose families had been Democrats for decades, if not generations. This seismic shift in sentiment led to Nixon's 49 state sweep in 1972 and Reagan's election in 1980, the latter in part from those Reagan Democrats who had been Wallace supporters. The issues of illegal immigration (both parties are soft on illegals now as they were soft on crime then), cultural degeneracy (the former hippies are now 50 and 60-something college deans and entertainment kingpins), and a protracted no win war, this time in Southwest, not Southeast, Asia, may lead to a similar political landscape in 2008 as in 1968.
I think that it's actually more likely that this split would occur on the left, if no anti-war candidate appears. Hillary simply isn't credibly anti-war, although Obama is. If Hillary gets the nomination, there is simply too much untapped anti-war sentiment in the country now to leave that vacuum unfilled.
Could it happen on the right, too? I could see it, in the event that three things happen. A too-liberal candidate is fielded, without a good conservative counterweight VP, and insufficient assurances are given to 2nd Amendment supporters. Social conservatives may be upset over gay rights and abortion, but they're not going anywhere over that. They may over guns.
Here's where I see the difference. The RNC can take stopgap measures to defeat a mutiny. They have options, and I'm sure the number crunchers looking at Rudy won't make the obvious, suicidal mistakes I mentioned above. Rudy can disarm every real threat to his victory by picking a conservative VP, and making a public pledge on the 2nd Amendment.
The DNC does not have such options. There is no way to spin being anti-war. There is simply no wiggle room, and a balanced ticket won't cut it. I'm sure their number crunchers are very sad men, because there is no easy answer to sell their clients on and promise them victory. Sometimes there is no path between Scylla and Charybdis, and it would seem that now is such a time.
Anyone who thinks Mrs. Clinton is the be all, end all of the election has already conceded defeat...
Giuliani, McCain, or Romney will have to sound like Rush Limbaugh clones to hold conservative support. However, doing so will hurt their appeal to moderates and moderate liberals, a particular threat to Giuliani, whose strong point is his political appeal in the Northeast, which is becoming as solidly Democratic as the South was before 1960.
According to the National Taxpayers' Union, Duncan Hunter has earned an "A" only once and the year he signed the Contract with America. As the years have passed, his grade has slipped to a "B" and then from 2002 until 2006, he earned a "C+" twice and a "C" twice. In 2006, he earned a "B," but I suspect that has more to do with his eye on higher office than a sudden distaste for what you sugarcoat as "earmarks."
http://www.ntu.org/main/components/ratescongress/details_all_years.php3?house_id=68
Military earmarks are still pork and just because the Congressman attaches the word "defense" or "military" to the expenditure doesn't mean the money is well spent.
http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/fy05defense/
Also: http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2006/07/435_districts_435_blogs_agains.php http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2006/07/the_2005_congressional_scoreca_2.php
And once again, Hunter makes his earmarks public - and there were not too many of them. I looked at them and most seemed legit.
If he makes his pork allocations public, then why did I have so much trouble finding a specific list on the Internet? Also, if he is so open about how he spends our money, then why has he opposed the efforts of Congressman Flake to open the books on pork and reform the way that our money is spent? Seems to me that Hunter is part of the problem in Congress, not the solution.
It was linked in an article about Hunter. He's the only member of Congress to publicly state what his earmarks are. The largest was a contract to find ways to counter IEDs. I don't consider that pork.
Easy. If Rudy wins the nomination, we (conservatives) don't have a say the GOP anymore - we'll be told to lie there and take it and be glad its not worse.
Pork is often defined as any expenditure/allocation that (a) directs tax dollars back to the sponsor's home district: and (b) couldn't get passed if it had to stand on its own. I don't know the details of this particular piece of bacon, but I suspect that DH has spun this as the most important piece of legislation in generations.
I do not care one wit what a pro open border fro free traitor organizeation like the Club for Growth says. Infact if they are against Hunter then I view that as a mark for him.
Also, please give me a link to where I can find HD's public disclosure of his pork allocations.
He did not.
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