Posted on 11/13/2007 11:13:48 AM PST by pissant
The American electorate is a fickle mistress. Just ask former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
When Thompson announced his candidacy for president just after Labor Day most national polls showed him running a close second behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the majority of state polls had him in the top three.
No longer. Thompson's campaign has yet to take off as expected and voters -- especially in crucial early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida.
The most recent data comes from New Hampshire where two surveys were released over the weekend. The first, conducted by theUniversity of New Hampshire for the Boston Globe, put Thompson in sixth (yes, SIXTH) place with just three percent of the vote. (Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the way with 32 percent.) In a Marist University poll Thompson again took sixth place with just five percent support. To be clear, Thompson was never a frontrunner in New Hampshire but polls conducted in the run-up to his announcement and just after he formally entered the race show him regularly polling in double digits.
Thompson's shrinking support is apparent in other early states as well. The last three polls taken in Iowa put Thompson in fourth, fifth and fourth place, respectively, and his high water mark in any of those surveys is 11 percent. In Florida, too, Thompson appears to be fading. A new poll conducted for the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times showed Thompson in fifth place (eight percent) behind Giuliani (36 percent), Romney (19 percent), Arizona Sen. John McCain (12 percent) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (nine percent).
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
Thanks, I could not remember his name.
Gay is fine. Log Cabiner, not so fine.
It's time to ditch Fred and support Romney! : )
There are also three heavens, and you can't go to the highest one unless you are a temple-worthy Mormon.
Their God is not the God of the Bible. Their Jesus is not his Son who declared himself the great I Am. Their heaven is not heaven as described by Jesus in the Gospels and in Revelation.
They use Christian terms but with different meanings.
They say Jesus died for our sins, but works are part of their salvation. My daughter said like the Father buys the bike, and we peddle it the last mile out of 100.
All of these are not tents of Christianity. Are some Mormons Christians? That is possible.
Is an unchurched Fred Thompson a Christian? That is possible, too. To me that is more possible than for Romney.
But I know only God can judge and separate the wheat from the chaff.
tents of = tenets of
Try reading post 476 again. The Log Cabin Republicans aren’t conservatives.
No problem!
Intellectual or subtle jabs don't count of course...
I don't recall seeing you quite as impassioned defending Fred or his supporters as you do the Mitt team.
And how did Huckabee get in the mix? I thought you were "torn" between FDT and Mitt...
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ll defend any of our candidates that have any chance of winning the nomination against unfair attacks, simply because whoever wins I want to be viable for the general election.
On the other hand, in this instance I’m not defending Huckabee so much as noting why he is a danger to the other candidates.
You are right on the other subject. I have been making claims that Fred supporters aren’t expected to be logical. That was impolite, and I apologize.
I will point out when an ARGUMENT is illogical, but there’s no reason to suggest it’s a character trait to be illogical.
It is easy to fall into the habit of attacking people rather than issues.
You can always SAY who you are going to choose as a running mate.
However, and this year it’s probably even more critical, you may well need to save that pick to get the delegates needed for victory. In a brokered convention, the VP slot is the biggest bargaining chip you have, and if you give it to someone who has no delegates, you can’t really take it back.
Agreed.
It then depends on the method, feather or sledgehammer...
Now, see there, I don't think your argument is really on target. IIRC, FDT didn't say that he was against "criminalising abortion", he said that he was against prosecuting women who get abortions (which IS a different matter, btw). In many (perhaps most) cases of abortion, the women IS a victim - she's pressured into it by a boyfriend, etc. which is why those sidewalk counselors have as much success at heading off abortions, even right outside the clinic, as they do. Many women don't WANT abortions, but feel trapped into it by the "options" that the left-leaning media and political culture have given them, even if not explicitly forced into it by an unscrupulous boyfriend or "partner".
Now, I would ask you, if the various states make laws against abortion, and many of them criminalise it, don't you think that is therefore "criminalising" abortion, which FDT would thus be indirectly supporting? Doctors would go to gaol for performing abortions - as they should. That's criminalisation, and it would all be possible by following the federalist approach of throwing it back to the States and letting them deal with it as they will. And yes, the HLA is against federalism. The essence of federalism is that of what is colloquially known as "States' rights". The federal government doesn't intrude on those areas where it is not explicitly granted power by the Constitution - that is left to the States, and this rightly includes abortion (just as it already does every other form of homicide, btw). And okay, technically, an HLA would "sidestep" federalism by explicitly granting the issue to federal purview, but really, that's not exactly what the Founders had in mind when they set up our federally balanced system. Is Fred to be condemned because he doesn't like tinkering with the Constitution? Just remember, you tinker with it to push your short-term goals, and the lefties will soon be tinkering with it to push theirs - all based on your precedent, and you won't have any reason to complain.
The majority of states would ban or severely limit abortion, which will lower the total number of abortions in this country, which is (or so I thought) the goal of the pro-life movement in this country.
Bad on him because he claims he's trying to save it. If you plan to take down SS, be clear about it. But also be prepared to be destroyed politically.
You misunderstood. My "good on him" was in agreement with your PERCEPTION that FDT is trying to "destroy" social security. I don't think that HE thinks he is doing so, however. That was YOUR interpretation of events. I, personally, WOULD say that SS ought to be ended - stop in-payments now, pay out to those who've paid in even if we have to temporarily finance it from the general budget (wouldn't that be a reversal!), and once that's done, end the program.
I've heard he wants to "get tough" but I hadn't heard he supports building a fence. But IMO that isn't nearly enough and doesn't get to the heart of problem. for example, it doesn't address all the illegals aready here and it doesn't say how the labor void will be filled.
IIRC, his plan unveiling basically said that illegals will self-deport once they don't have access to jobs or services. As for the fence - true, he hasn't said anything about it that I've heard, but at the same time, I can't make the leap of illogic that many Hunter supporters make - that NOT saying something about the fence (yet) means that he's against the fence. That is a factually unproven and logical untenable assertion which many DH supporters make.
As for the "labour void", why does FDT even need to address this? Do you think it's the federal government's job, or even its business, to regulate employment? I don't. Let the labour MARKET take care of it - which is the whole point. Currently, the market is saturated with a low of low-skill, low-education, low-value labour from Latin America which is creating a huge imbalance on the "supply" side of the equation and driving wages down. Encourage illegals to self-deport (since they'll always find a way around the fence - a fence will slow, but certainly not stop, them all), and you'll find wages rising. As for the "labour void", it may just end up being filled by all those African-American males who have turned to crime because they don't see any good labour or wages options currently because of all the illegals taking jobs and pressuring wages down. Once these men can get some self-respect back by getting a job and being able to support themselves and perhaps a family, many will turn back and go straight.
Ultimately, I think the problem for FDT in all this is that while he is conservative, he's too "paleo" (not in the Pat Buchanan sense) of a conservative to really appeal to many of today's conservatives. FDT is a Constitutionalist - that's why he pushes federalism despite the fact that half of Americans probably never had even heard the term before this year. FDT is a Constitutionalist in the way that really counts - he MEANS it, he's not just mouthing it to give himself conservative street cred. Problem is, many conservatives and Republicans today can't handle that - they want the same sort of quick-fix, gung-ho, judicial activist, force our way onto the country by Constitutional fiat that the lefties have been giving us for years (and yes, amending the Constitution for partisan purposes is just as bad as "amending" it through juducial appeal to a "living document"). Conservatives have learned to use the Left's tactics - and the Constitutional way is forgotten in the process. Even DH, as conservative as he may be, doesn't strike me as really having the grasp of the Constitution that FDT has - DH is just more gung-ho in using conservative judicial activism than perhaps Romney or McCain or Huckabee might be.
You know, CW, I have been wondering.....who pays you and do you get paid by the POST? They’re like a bad rash on every thread I visit, especially the Fred threads. I don’t know about others, but I’m beginning to just scroll right by them.
Now be fair, he defends all “our” candidates...
“Our” is just not well defined...
Three responsese to your federalism argument.
First, If we are not supposed to amend the constitution to end something as tragic as the murder of millions of American citizens every year, then when is an amendment to the constitution legitamite. Surely, there was some reason that the founders specifically outlined a process for amending the Constitution.
Second, doesn’t the 14th Amendment which specifically gives congress the power to legislate in order to ensure that no state deprives anyone of life, liberty or property without due process of law and that no person is deprived of the equal protection of the laws already give Congress that power to intervene when a state legalizes the murder of any class of people. If that power has already been granted to the federal government by the 14th Amendment then it cannot by definition violate the 10th Amendment.
Finally, there is a huge difference between enacting a constitutional amendment and judicial activism. Judicial activism (a living constitution) is bad because it is anti-democratic. Unelected judges are changing the social contract which we all agreed to live by. In contrast an Amendment is ratified in exactly the same way that the 10th Amendmnet was ratified and is thus every bit as authoritative. If we truly believe, as Lincoln said that the American Government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people” than surely the American people have the right to amend the constitution through a democratic process.
Is it possible for Fred to pick a running mate this early in the game ? and what effects would it produce ?
I’d also asked you what someone who has a very small following bring to the table? So far he’s not demonstrated an ability to bring a block of voters to the campaing in sufficient size to matter, imo.
The electorate is very fractured and support scattered mostly among 3 - 5 candidates so far makes me think that the VP selection may well be someone outside the current crop of candidates. That may make it easier to meld supporters from all the other campaigns into one rather than having them be disheartened because their man wasn’t picked. jmo.
49 days and Iowa starts the weeding process........
Huckabee is a nanny state person.
I don’t care how you feel about smoking and smokers, his stand is contrary to liberty and our principles.
After he lost all that wait, he’ll be taxing Bad Food next. And he’ll be the one to decide what that is.
I could vote for him against Hillary, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.
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