To my mind, this opinion piece represents the worst sort of political spin.
Rudy has not been "anointed" by anyone.
Rudy is a high-profile candidate.
Rudy is known throughout the country only as "America's Mayor", and a hero of 9/11.
Rudy's home base is in media-capital New York.
Given those facts, why is anyone surprised that he gets a lot of press? But the beneficiary of some insidious back-room deal to anoint the party's nominee? Pure political anti-Rudy spin, to my mind.
Who did NOT expect Duncan Hunter to show well in South Carolina? But who DID expect a northeast social liberal like Rudy to run neck-and-neck with a pure Conservative?
To my mind, the only conspiracy theory here is the one being perpetrated by Massey. There is plenty of time for Rudy's warts and skeletons to erode his popular support, and if there are enough of both he will be denied the nomination. So be it. I will vigorously support WHOMEVER my party nominates [oddly enough, this makes me a troll or an anti-conservative. Who knew?]
And I have another question, not answered in the column anywhere that I can see. Why? Why Rudy? To my mind, this whole conspiracy theory is a house of cards. A ruse, in it's own way, to perpetrate the idea that Rudy's popularity is a chimera; that the momemtum he is building has no grass roots support. I think neither is true.
What I do think is that hard-core Conservatives are shocked that Rudy's stance on social issues have not torpedoed his Presidential ambitions already. I understand that confusion - I'm a bit confused by that myself; I thought the party would be much less tolerant of Rudy's past statements about gun control and abortion.
Apparently, however, like me, the first and TOP priority to most Republicans SO FAR, is beating Hillary/Obama and the Islamic extremists. Social issues take a back seat; we can deal with them later.
Jusy my two cents.
Excellent post.
"Gun control" is not a social issue. It's a constitutional one.
It's how we're going to defend ourselves if the Islamic terrorists decide to start getting busy here in America.
"Illegal immigration" is part social issue, part national security issue, part constitutional issue ("The President shall protect the US from invasion" to paraphrase that part of the Constitution.) I don't trust Rudy on this point.
Those two issues disqualify him in my eyes. Abortion is just icing on a very bitter cake.
I don't buy a conspiracy theory either, but you can't deny the impact that the MSM has on people's awareness of candidates. An election cycle rolls around, and all of a sudden people are told that Hillary, Obama, and the 3-headed Rino represent the frontrunners. Most people get their information from the MSM, so what do you expect them to perceive as a viable candidate. I tell everyone I know to get their news somewhere else and to explore a candidate's history and positions, but everyone's too busy to listen.