I personally doubt that Thompson can beat Hillary. I’m convinced that the only one that can beat Hillary is Giuliani and here is why:
The GOP has lost a lot of voters due to the unpopular war. None of the GOP candidates (except for Ron Paul) wants to end the war. Therefore, those voters will either stay home or vote for the Dems.
Another group of voters that will either stay home or vote for the Dems are the Latins.. GWB got about 35% of the latino vote as he was soft on immigration. Thompson is playing the tough man on immigration and he might only get like 21 - 25% of the latino vote. The Latinos are the fastest growing group of voters. Another group of voters that Thompson can’t attract are moderates. Thompson is clearly favoring to overturn Roe vs. Wade and abortion rights are a key issue for most moderates. They will not vote for someone who they percieve to want to outlaw abortions. Giuliani on the other hand side has a lot more potential to attract Latino voters and moderates. Even though Giuliani says that he is pro life, he still supports a womans right to choose. That opens the door to many moderates. Of course, a part of the religious right will stay home, but Giuliani will pick up more moderates and Latino voters than he will lose from the Republican core. I doubt that there will be a 3rd candidate if Giuliani is the nominee. The ‘08 elections are way too important to hand the elections to Hillary.. She will win if the Republican vote will be split between 2 candidates who are running. Hillary can do a lot of damage as she will have a Democratic congress. The damage that she can cause in 4 years is very serious. I know that if Giuliani is the nominee, it’ll be a choice between to evils but Giuliani for sure is the lesser evil. He has been a low tax supporter and he also is against a government run healtchare system. He has been fiscally responsible unlike our current president who is wasting money left and right and I’m not just talking about the war. He signed way too many spending bills.. I’m personally voting Republican because I want fiscal conservativism and GWB has been a joke!
It amazes me that people can’t see the impending doom that awaits the GOP if it nominates Rudy as its standard bearer.
You guys think that all of the moderates and independents are going to vote for Rudy, thus making up for all of the conservatives that won’t.
Well, let me tell you two things:
1) There WILL be a 3rd party candidate. Maybe 2 of them, if Rudy is the nominee. There may be a 3rd party conservative candidate and there will DEFINITELY be an attempt to split the ‘moderate’ vote by Bloomberg. Bloomberg has a beef with Rudy and will spend any amount of money to stop him. Rudy loses.
2) The ‘9/11 firefighters for truth’ and the ‘9/11 families for justice’ will sink any possibility that Rudy has of appealing to ANY moderates. The damage that this will do to a candidate who has nothing else but 9/11 to run on is devastating. Rudy loses again.
Rudy is, without question, the dumbest choice we could make. And it ain’t just because of abortion. The second dumbest would be to nominate a stealth liberal former governor of the most liberal state in the country. But that would be for another post...