Posted on 05/27/2007 1:37:14 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
The three front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination are trying desperately to ease the suspicions among the party's hard-core conservatives that each of them arouses for different reasons.
Rudy Giuliani promised to appoint “strict constructionists” to the court. John McCain mended fences with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. Mitt Romney said his past support for the right to have an abortion was wrong. While there are signs that these efforts are having varying degrees of success, many conservatives are withholding their support in hopes that somebody else emerges.
“What conservatives are looking at here is a group of less-than-perfect candidates,” said Lee Edwards, a historian of the conservative movement at the Heritage Foundation. “A lot of them are waiting for Ronald Reagan, and there is no Ronald Reagan.”
Reagan may not be available, but former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia are talking about joining the race.
Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., said either man could find a receptive audience in her state's crucial primary, which will be third in line behind Iowa and New Hampshire next January.
“I think right now (that) if somebody else would come along in South Carolina and cut through the noise generated by the big three, they'd have a chance,” Vinson said. “I've heard more Republicans, especially evangelicals, expressing unhappiness with the current field.”
The seven other candidates in the Republican field can boast of more solid conservative credentials, but they are attracting only isolated pockets of support because few give any of them a chance of winning.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
Run, Fred, run!
Run, Fred, run!
Run, Fred, run!
Our country DESPERATELY needs someone like you!!!
> Conservatives not cozying up to GOP’s big 3
Can’t imagine why... except maybe they aren’t conservative?
I could easily vote for Fred...tough time voting Romney, but not too far of a stretch...Newt sure, but there’s no chance for him...Rudy, I think I’ll have to be bleeding from my eyes to consider that....McCain, hahaha.....
The rest are just there to talk, but they’re not all that bad....except Ron Paul. I’d vote for Hunter, but I’m afraid he’s a bit too unknown....not much clout.
BINGO!
“Can’t imagine why... except maybe they aren’t conservative?”
But 50% of the LIBERAL ‘r’epublicans support Rudy!?
Actually that’s where 50% of his support is....in ultra-liberal states.
From NumbersUSA.
http://profiles.numbersusa.com/improfile.php3?DistSend=TN&VIPID=743
Voted in 1996 to continue chain migration
Sen. Thompson in 1996 voted against the Simpson Amendment to S.1664. It was a vote in favor of a chain migration system that has been the primary reason for annual immigration levels snowballing from less than 300,000 in 1965 to around a million. Sen. Thompson supported provisions that allow immigrants to send for their adult relatives. Then each of those relatives can send for their and their spouse’s adult relatives, creating a never-ending and ever-growing chain. The bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission recommended doing away with the adult relative categories (begun only in the 1950s) in order to lessen wage depression among lower-paid American workers. The Simpson Amendment attempted to carry out that recommendation. But Sen. Thompson helped kill the reform by voting with the 80-20 majority against the amendment. Sen. Thompson’s vote helped continue a level of immigration that the Census Bureau projects will result in a doubled U.S. population in the next century.See detailed description
Voted to strip legal reforms from 1996 bill
Sen. Thompson helped defeat legal immigration reform when he voted for Senator Spencer Abraham’s amendment to remove the legal immigration reforms from S.1664, the Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996. This vote effectively killed any chance of Congress considering the Jordon Commission recommendations on easing legal immigration levels.
Voted in favor of chain migration in 1996
Sen. Thompson voted in 1996 against the Feinstein Amendment to S.1664. The Feinstein Amendment would have reduced annual admission of spouses and minor children of citizens to 480,000 and significantly reduced annual limits other categories of chain migration such as parents of citizens and adult unmarried children of citizens. By voting against the Feinstein Amendment, Sen. Thompson voted in favor of a system of chain migration that has been the primary reason for annual immigration levels snowballing from less than 300,000 in 1965 to around a million today. In 1996 the bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission recommended doing away with the adult relative categories (begun only in the 1950s) in order to lessen wage depression among lower-paid American workers. The Feinstein Amendment attempted to carry out that recommendation. The Feinstein Amendment would have had an overall impact of reducing U.S. population growth by about 1.2 million over 10 years, but it was defeated by a vote of 26 to 74. Click here to seea detailed description.
Major Numbers in All Categories
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Sen. Thompson has taken no action to reduce
major numbers in all categories.
Importing Specific Foreign Workers
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Voted for a foreign worker bill with no anti-fraud measures in 2000.
Sen.Thompson voted for S.2045, the Abraham foreign worker bill to nearly triple the number of foreign high-tech workers. On the heels of the release of a GAO report finding no proof of a high-tech worker shortage and evidence of abuse in the H-1B program, Sen. Thompson voted for this foreign worker bill that contained no worker protections or anti-fraud measures. The bill passed the Senate 96-1.
As Committee member,
produced H-1B doubling bill in 1998
Sen. Thompson was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that created the Abraham H-1B doubling bill in 1998, S.1723. He voted with the 12-6 majority to send the bill to the floor of the Senate without safeguards for American workers.
Nearly doubled H-1B foreign high-tech workers in 1998
Sen. Thompson helped the Senate pass S.1723 in a 78-20 vote. Enacted into law, it increased by nearly 150,000 the number of foreign workers high-tech American companies could hire over the next three years. Although the foreign workers receive temporary visas for up to six years, most historically have found ways to stay permanently in this country. Sen. Thompson voted for more foreign workers even though U.S. high tech workers over the age of 50 were suffering 17% unemployment and U.S. firms were laying off thousands of workers at the time.
Voted in committee against including
worker safeguards in H-1B bill in 1998
Sen. Thompson joined 9 of his Senate colleagues to keep employee safeguards from inclusion in S.1723. A Kennedy-Feinstein Amendment would have accomplished two important goals: ensuring no American was laid off or displaced prior to hiring an H1B employee; and, that employers demonstrate they had previously taken timely and effective steps to hire a qualified American. 10 Senators helped defeat this amendment.
Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans
to make room for foreign workers in 1998
Before the Senate passed the H-1B doubling bill (S.1723), Sen. Thompson had an opportunity to vote for a measure requiring U.S. firms to check a box on a form attesting that they had first sought an American worker for the job. Sen. Thompson voted against that, joining those who said the requirement would give government too much authority over corporations’ right to hire whomever they please from whatever country.
Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans
to make room for foreign workers in 1998
Before the Senate passed the H-1B doubling bill(S.1723), Sen. Thompson had an opportunity to vote for a Kennedy amendment that would have prohibited U.S. firms from using temporary foreign workers to replace Americans. Sen. Thompson opposed that protection. The Amendment failed 38-60.
Citizenship for Illegal Alien Babies
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Sen. Thompson has taken no action to reduce
the rewarding of illegal immigration by giving citizenship
to anchor babies.
Inviting/Repelling Illegal Aliens
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Voted for comprehensive alien tracking and
identification system in 2002
Sen. Thompson voted in favor of H.R. 3525, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001. H.R. 3525 will significantly reduce future population growth from illegal immigration by making it much harder for temporary visa holders to stay in the country illegally after their visa expire. H.R. 3525 provides for an entry-exit system in which every visa holder is checked with a biometric identifier when heshe enters and leaves the country. This information is included in an integrated database that is shared by the appropriate law-enforcement officials. H.R. 3525 passed the Senate unanimously by a vote of 97-0 and is expected to be signed into law by President Bush.
Voted against an amnesty for illegal aliens in 2000
Sen. Thompson voted against a procedural vote to include an amnesty for illegal aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti in the Senate H-1B bill (S.2045). This was not necessarily a vote against the amnesty but rather a vote against including it with the H-1B bill. The move to include the amnesty with the H-1B legislation failed43-55 in a procedural vote on the Senate floor.
Voted to grant amnesty to close to one million
illegal aliens from Nicaragua and Cuba in 1997
Sen. Thompson voted to grant legal status to Nicaraguans and Cubans who had lived in the United States illegally since 1995, along with their spouses and minor unmarried children. The overall ten year impact of this legislation will be the addition of some 967,000 people to U.S. population. There was no separate vote on the amnesty, as it was inlcuded in the DC Appropriations bill. The only opportunity Senators had to vote in favor of or against the amnesty was the Mack Amendment to S.1156. The Mack Amendment passed 99-1.
Voted in 1996 for major law that cracked down on illegal aliens.
Sen. Thompson was part of a 97-3 majority which passed S.1664. It was a large omnibus bill with dozens of provisions aimed at reducing illegal immigration. It authorized major increases in the border patrol forces. But it also had many provisions aimed at making life more miserable for illegal aliens who manage to get into the country, half of whom arrive with legal visas but then illegally overstay. Until passage of the bill, a person could be apprehended as an illegal alien, be deported and then turn around and come back to the U.S. on a legal student, tourist, worker or relative visa. After the bill, an illegal alien was barred from any kind of legal entry for 10 years.
In 1996, removed higher fines for businesses which hire illegal aliens
Sen. Thompson, in committee consideration of S.1664 protected businesses from having to pay higher fines when they are caught hiring illegal aliens. Under the idea that current fines were not enough of a deterrent against businesses cutting their labor costs by hiring illegal aliens, the Senate immigration subcommittee approved higher fines. Various study commissions have found that the willingness of U.S. businesses to hire illegal aliens is the No. 1 incentive for foreign workers to become illegal aliens here. But Sen. Thompson voted with a 10-8 majority in the Judiciary Committee to remove the higher fines from the 1996 legislation against illegal immigration.
Tried to kill voluntary pilot programs
for workplace verification in 1996
Sen. Thompson voted IN FAVOR of the Abraham Amendment to S.1664. He was part of a coalition of pro-business conservatives and liberal civil libertarians who tried to use the amendment to kill the establishment of voluntary pilot programs in high-immigration states. The programs were intended to assist employers in verifying whether people they had just hired had the legal right to work in this country. Such verification is considered by many experts to be an essential tool for withdrawing the job magnet from illegal aliens. The verification system established by S.1664 did not involve an ID card. Rather it provided that when new workers wrote down their Social Security number on an application, employers could phone into a national verification system to help assure that the number was a real number and belonged to the person giving it. In earlier smaller pilot programs, businesses had hailed the verification system for making it easier for them to avoid hiring illegal aliens. Sen. Thompson was unsuccessful in stopping the voluntary verification system. The Senate tabled the by a 54-46 vote.
But other than that, what do you think about Fred? ;-)
THE FIELD NARROWS... AND BROADENS BUT ULTIMATELY IT IS DOWN TO TWO.
This has occurred without any formal announcements with the doings this week have made it clear that the field was narrowed because John McCain has forfeited all hope of nomination by his ill advised press conference in support of an amnesty immigration bill which is anathema to the party base. So the field has narrowed by one as John McCain is dropped, although he has not yet acknowledged this reality and dropped out, as he now inevitably must.
The field broadens as it becomes increasingly clear that Fred Thompson will run. He has advanced his cause greatly by his timely and unqualified announcement of opposition to the amnesty Bill. Similarly, Newt Gingrich is showing a little more leg as he mopped the floor with Chris Dodd on Meet the Press. If Gingrich sees any daylight at all at the end of September, he will opt in.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is doing his best to deny the rest of the candidates that daylight as Rasmussen reports that he is moving to a double digit lead in New Hampshire and other reports show that he is ahead in Iowa. I predicted that Mitt Romney would be the nominee in August 2006 and I hold to that prediction providing Fred Thompson does not enter the race. Thomson is playing outside game while Romney runs conventionally. At some time that window will be closed and if Thompson procrastinates too long, it will be too late. But so far, Thompson has shown strength in Georgia and elsewhere, and must be considered the front runner, despite his undeclared status. He should have a care though, his weakness might be lack of coherent organization against a man who has demonstrated in every endeavor, demonstrated by earning tens of millions of dollars, that he is the ultimate mechanic. He will find a way to probe and test Thompson.
Rudy Giuliani's reaction to the amnesty Bill is too ambiguous for my taste and I believe he is otherwise disqualified by his views on abortion. The remaining candidates, especially Huckaby, are running in reality for vice president. This includes, alas, Duncan Hunter who is right on every issue there is.
So if we subtract McCain and Giuliani and the second-tier candidates, that leaves us with a fascinating field of three, two of whom are as yet undeclared: Thomson, Romney and Gingrich. I've often posted that Gingrich cannot be elected and will not be nominated, but the party desperately needs him. I believe the party is sleepwalking toward a disaster in 08 and we need to kick over the table and change the rules or we are going to find ourselves in the wilderness for a generation. Newt Gingrich is the kind of bombthrower a party in our situation needs ram-rodding the party or acting as eminence grise backstage, however he cannot be the nominee. But he can save the party.
I would love to see Gingrich in the debates but, if he chooses not to run, I hope someone enlists him in his campaign to somehow change the dynamic so that we have a chance in November 08. A Bush, Rove, Martinez Republican Party is foredoomed to a disaster. Gingrich alone, despite all his liabilities, is the only man known to us with the genius to change the rules of the game. The man, like Churchill, is a walking idea factory and, above all, the Republican Party and the conservative movement needs new ideas about Iraq, the war on terror, globalization, and the emerging threat from Russia.
So the real field is reduced to two: Romney and Thompson. Either one of these two could win the election but not if it is conducted as business as usual.
Romney—gay vote/abortion flipper.
Thompson—not so much.
If Romney wins the Republican nomination, I go independent.
I don’t think I’ll be the only one.
BTW, I haven’t seen Fred on television, because I haven’t watched TV shows for a few years. ...only an occasional movie.
The *real* truth here is that in order to defeat Hillary, conservatives need to be unified.
None of the current candidates will unify conservatives in the manner necessary to defeat the Clinton machine.
It is also expected that a Thompson candidate will be portrayed as “not conservative” in order to drive a wedge between us.
United we stand, divided Hillary wins.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I’d be curious to know what is going to happen to all the stockpiles of cash from his campaign once they pull up stakes?
I’m not trying to be snarky or sarcastic. I truly am curious about what happens in such a situation and I guess that I’m a little concerned that what is in that war chest might be put to use by an opponent that no one in this forum would consider supporting.
John McCain for Secretary of Defense in ‘08??
Despite often angering conservatives too often on a variety of issues throughout his entire duration as U.S. Senator, Senator McCain is also too old to be either elected or appointed to any new position.
States, incidentally like California and New York, that the GOP will never carry in a Presidential Election.
Let’s go back to picking the candidate who makes the the best stage appearance, is witty in debate and wears the right color tie in public.
Comparing voting records is a bore and requires thinking. It will never catch on.
Fred Thompson should be measured by his minot role in the movie, “Hunt for Red October.” If you believe he did a good acting job then it follows that he will make a good president.
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