Posted on 09/24/2007 7:00:11 AM PDT by Doofer
WASHINGTON – A well-known evangelical leader opposed Dr. James Dobson’s criticism of presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, pointing out the candidate’s conservative views and his potential to win the ’08 election.
“He (Thompson)’s obviously against same-sex marriage. He doesn’t support quite the same constitutional amendment that some of the others of us do, but he’s been talking with us about it, and has been moving closer and closer on the amendment,” said Bauer, who is president of American Values, according to OneNewsNow.
“So I hope that we can, as a movement, be very wise about this, and not savage candidates that we may very well have to support in 2008 if they’re running against Hillary Clinton.”
Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Colo.-based Focus on the Family, wrote in a private e-mail last week to friends and supporters that he will not support Thompson for president because he is too weak on key issues that concern the Christian right.
In particular, he criticized Thompson for not supporting a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay “marriage” on a national scale.
Thompson, an actor and former senator, is against same-sex “marriage” but favors a softer stance, calling for each state to decide their own legal definition of marriage and forbidding states from imposing their marriage laws on other states.
“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to the constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote, according to The Associated Press.
The prominent Christian conservative also blasted Thompson for his seeming lack of commitment to Christianity, highlighting the candidate’s rare expression of faith and for not attending church regularly.
“He (Thompson) has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians?” wrote Dobson.
“Not for me, my brothers. Not for me.”
Bauer, however, defended Thompson as an evangelical favorite and predicted that he can still win the Christian support if he confirms his conservative stance, performs well in debates, and demonstrates ability to raise campaign funds.
“I think the one thing that almost every conservative Christian agrees about is that we cannot allow Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States,” concluded Bauer.
According to the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the race for the 2008 GOP nomination is highly fluid, with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Fred Thompson virtually tied at 24 and 19 percent, respectively. Not far behind at 15 percent is Sen. John McCain of Arizona while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 7 percent.
In contrast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has a clear, across-the-board lead in the Democratic race over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 34 percent to 20 percent, roughly the margin she has enjoyed for months.
Thanks. :)
Yup...
Don’t worry. As far as I’m concerned Thompson is Dubya II without the benefit of Laura.
I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 because of illegal immigration and I only voted for him in 2004 because Kerry is a traitor.
I was happier with my 2000 vote.
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
— John Quincy Adams —
Several months ago I posted in some of the discussions about a possible Newt candidacy my contention and reasoning that Newt was positioning himself as a possible conservative "spoiler". Curiously, I had absolutely no responses to those comments, so, for the record, I'll offer my arguments here again.
However viciously they fight among themselves over the spoils of power, the last thing the establishment elites of either party want is a genuinely viable conservative candidate. No matter how much they attack each other, if it appears a more-or-less genuine conservative who might actually follow the Constitution somewhat becomes a threat, they will make common cause to destroy him. With regards to the current crop of candidates, here's how that plays out.
Duncan Hunter, at least by his record, is the most consistently conservative, therefore he is unacceptable to the elites under any circumstances. Luckily for them he is not an effective campaigner on the national level and has shown he will be unable to break through the tacit MSM consensus to simply ignore him as much as possible. So far, ignoring him is effective enough; it is not necessary to attack him in order to neutralize him.
Fred Thompson appears to also be a genuine conservation, but his public career has taken a different tack in that he has been sophisticated enough to establish a significant level of co-operation and contacts with the "insider" elites, yet has also never lost his ability to connect with us common folk. /grin This duality is a double-edged sword, however.
Many of the elites believe Thompson is "their man", one who possesses the advantages of both the down-home appeal and empathy of George Bush AND the intellectual articulateness and public-speaking presence of Bill Clinton. These elites support Thompson because they believe he can win AND because they believe they'll be able to control him. They believe his down-home campaign persona and his nuanced, intellectualized conservative position statements are simply clever campaign strategies in order to get elected and that once in office he won't do much to disrupt their comfortable status quo.
The grass-roots conservatives who support Thompson, however, believe he's a "real" conservative simply because they so desperately need to believe it. He has a good conservative record, albeit with certain ambiguities, and he says the right things, mostly, although some of those "nuanced, intellectualized conservative position statements", as well as those extensive insider connections, are troubling. Whatever their doubts, as far as the available information is concerned, he's good enough AND he can win.
For Thompson, this state of ambiguity works to his benefit by allowing supporters to project onto him their hopes and desires and also by giving possible opponents plausible reasons for caution and hesitation in attacking him. If Thompson has the skill to walk this tightrope of ambiguity and keep both camps of supporters guessing long enough he can win it all. There is simply no way at present to tell which group is being snookered.
Finally, we come to Newt Gingrich. Months ago Newt stated that he would only enter the race if no conservative appeared to be viable. Thompson, however unconventional his tactics, has steadily gained ground and is now a frontrunner, yet Newt is now making noises about getting in. Therefore, his previously stated rationale was a lie. So what is going on?
Newt is essentially an insider "ringer", the establishment's "designated conservative" who is brilliantly articulate enough to talk-the-talk but who lacks the necessary core of deeply-held belief and commitment to walk-the-walk. Newt's out for Newt and is for sale to the highest bidder. In this election he is willingly serving as the tool of those insiders who don't want to take the chance of betting wrong on Thompson, so they'll use Newt to divide, fragment and dissipate the gathering conservative momentum. This will throw the GOP nomination to Guiliani, and for the insiders, either a Guiliani or a Hillary victory is perfectly acceptable.
I can confirm that. When she was the head of West Virginians for Life, she endorsed an incumbent Democrat for the State Senate instead of me. He was anti-abortion with exceptions, and I was just anti-abortion. I challenged her endorsement and asked her to follow NRA's example and endorse both (or on the other hand endorse neither) but she refused.
I have stopped donating to WVFL as I believe that they have placed their primary goal of saving the unborn in second place and put politics first.
In the initial thread on this topic, post #925, I posted:
Apparently they were able to get the language changed to allow doctors to do more counseling about abortions but no telling what Thompson’s involvement had on that. The abortionists weren’t overjoyed by the new language from what I could tell.
So to the extent that you believe this is favorable to Thompson, you can credit me for bringing it to the attention of that inflammatory thread. The problem is...Fred hasn't claimed that this was the extent of his involvement or that his lobbying involved that aspect.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1870737/posts?page=925#925
That's not quite what I said....He was pro life with exceptions (life of the mother, rape, and incest). I on the other hand believe that all abortion is abhorrent....I just don't believe that a little bit of murder is OK! If you abort a baby that was conceived from a rape or incest, you are definitely executing the wrong individual. You should be going after the child’s father.
Speaking of which, we also differed on capital punishment - I am for it, and he is against it. Capital punishment is favored by about 80% of West Virginians, but the legislators refuse to let it come to the floor for a vote.
For the most part all FDT folks like Hunter. It has been said so repeatedly.
I wish Hunters loyalist were the same way.
..it was for prairiebreeze...
Thanks anyway.
..but I checked your homepage, and the words there seem to belie what you just wrote?
Gary Bauer supports Fred Thompson?
Then that’s another reason why I won’t. Thanks for the info.
Interesting.
No where on there did I say anything about Hunter as a candidate or a person. Mentioned no names except Fred actually.
Correction on that last part. The "GAG rule" was mentioned specifically in one entry on the billing record although that tends to set that aspect apart from the rest of his lobbying for the abortionist group. If that was the extent of his involvement, Fred would do well to publicly make that clear.
I appreciate and support Duncan Hunter as far as I can and never said otherwise, but I also recognize that he’s going nowhere fast and I won’t put my money or energy toward a candidate that amounts to Hell’s Biggest Snowball.
What’s more, I don’t troll around on Hunter threads taking pot-shots at him. Ever. I defend and support Fred on the Fred threads and don’t feel a need to slum around throwing mud at the other republican candidates. Reagan’s 11th commandment, if you’ve ever heard of it.
But apparently my post struck a nerve. Which I couldn’t care less.
Dobson is being too particular on this one. I’d support a federal marriage amendment, but leaving it to the states in the federalist style of government is also a good solution. In fact, letting federalism take care of this one has its own advantages. First of all, if the federal govt decides to define marriage as one man and one woman, what’s to stop them from changing that definition later if they should so choose? Secondly, if it’s left to the several States and your state makes a decision on the matter you don’t like...there’s always the next state over. This will likely also have the positive side effect of confining the radical gay rights activists to a few already liberal states, thus getting them out of our hair.
The AMA and ACOG were very active in lobbying the President to allow communication between patient and doctor.
The President changed the wording prior to his first veto of the legislation to overturn the entire directive in November,1991, to allow doctors (and only doctors) to counsel patients.
Here’s the billing records in question:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/THOMPSON_DOCS/thompson_records.pdf
The lobbying was all prior to 11/91. All contact after 11/91 was with DeSarno. Theres a good review here
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2007/07/thompson-bush-a.html
If the Thompson backers COULD go after Hunter, they WOULD. They certainly have no problem going after the rest of the candidates. Hunter is solid.
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