Replies

Dear Kevmo,

Thanks for your post. It’s reasonable both in tone and substance. You’re a credit to Mr. Hunter that you support him. Sadly, that seems to be the exception these days for Hunter supporters.

“When you say Thompson is ‘conservative enough’, there will always be a contingent that does not think so.”

Absolutely true. Conversely, there are plenty of folks who will say of Mr. Hunter, “too conservative.”

My gut feeling is that Mr. Thompson is sufficiently conservative to appeal to 95% of Republicans. He’ll appeal to most of those who are more conservative than he is, and also to those who are less conservative. I don’t think he’ll have much cross-party appeal, he’s probably a little too conservative for that. But he’ll have some.

Thus, my own belief is that the universe of voters who might potentially be willing to vote for Mr. Thompson in the general election is substantially larger than that of Mr. Hunter.

“Lots of people write like that but the ones who put their money down are the ones who produce Intrade data.”

Well, we’ll see who gets what. Whatever Intrade says, I’m completely comfortable that Mr. Thompson will receive in New Hampshire a multiple of the percentage that Mr. Hunter received in Iowa, and Mr. Hunter will not get more than roughly half in New Hampshire that Mr. Thompson got in Iowa.

If that proves to be the case, then what Intrade says or doesn’t say doesn’t mean squat.

It will show that Mr. Thompson is far and away a much, much more viable candidate, and Mr. Hunter is pretty much toast.

“***People voted. Delegates were selected. That’s supposed to mean more in our society than some biased poll results, but it doesn’t.”

Yes, it means that Mr. Hunter will have at least one delegate at the convention. Out of a couple of thousand.

Drop. Ocean.

That’s why folks are ignoring it. It wasn’t hotly contested, and therefore, has no meaning beyond the simple result that Mr. Hunter will have at least one friend at the convention.

“1) pretty much ended Mr. Tancredo’s candidacy;
***Wrong. Tancredo dropped out several weeks ago.”

“5) given Mr. Thompson the opportunity to fight another day;
***Thompson said he needed to come in second. He didn’t meet expectations he set up for himself, having campaigned exclusively in Iowa for the last few weeks before the caucus.”

From my perspective, he was setting a goal he hoped to achieve, to motivate the troops. Mighta done it, too, if Mr. Romney hadn’t had his campaign leak a lie to Politico that he was dropping out. But you know what they say about love and war.

In any event, he got enough to fight another day.

There are no expectations for him in New Hampshire, but he will absolutely have to place in the top three in South Carolina, in my own view, to have a realistic chance of doing well on Super Tuesday.

And all that does is gain him entry to the last part of the race.

“Thompson: ‘I Need to Come in Second’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1946065/posts
Significantly, Thompson’s dropout contract for January rose ~40 points after the Iowa caucus.”

Who cares? If he doesn’t drop out in January, what does that mean about Intrade? Guess we’ll have to say it’s trash, then.

"Rasmussen is the first polling organization to start using and referencing futures market data. In particular, once you look at the data and the interface, youÂ’ll realize that itÂ’s just a frontpiece for Intrade.

"'Our prediction market for Iowa turned out to be very accurate,' Rasmussen said."

Rasmussen's futures market had Mrs. Clinton as the odds on favorite for winning the nomination less than two weeks ago, with nearly 70%. Guess that prediction didn't turn out too good so far. Either that, or the one that's there today, showing Mrs. Clinton with less than 30% chance of winning the nomination, will prove not to be all that accurate. If you predict every possible outcome, you'll have to be right some of the time. LOL.

“I know Hunter doesn’t have much of a ‘chance’ but he’s the best man in the race, so I’ll stick with him until he no longer asks for our support.”

Fair enough. For myself, I wouldn’t support him even if Mr. Thompson dropped out at this point. The sort of crowd he’s attracted at FR makes me think there’s something wrong with Mr. Hunter to attract such folks as supporters. Present company excepted.

“9) made Mr. Edwards’ candidacy viable; and
***Interesting. I don’t think much about dems, but I just don’t see him as viable. Oh well, their problem.”

We always tend to think that the future will be an extension of the immediate past. But in political campaigns, there can be discontinuities. Ask Mrs. Clinton about that.

A lot of Dems may wake up one day very soon and say to themselves:

“Wait a minute. We just rejected Hillary in favor of a guy who was:

“- born and raised a Muslim in his youth;
“- didn’t become a Christian until his early 30s;
“- has misrepresented these facts;
“- has been a sitting US Senator for just over one year;
“- has a middle name of ‘Hussein’;
“- hasn’t come up with a solid policy proposal yet;
“- is running against a fellow who served six years as a US Senator, and has already been through a presidential race.

“Why are we voting for this fellow?”

And let’s face it, Mr. Edwards wasn’t that far off from Mr. Obama in Iowa.

“Quite powerful for a beauty contest.
***And yet, the one that you ignore, where actual delegates were chosen, had 3 candidates win delegates: Romney, Thompson and Hunter.”

It doesn’t matter whether I’m ignoring Wyoming or not. The COUNTRY is ignoring Wyoming. Thus, it isn’t having any appreciable impact on the point of view of the vast majority of voters. Because probably not more than one in five voters could even tell you the results.

You know the old philosophical question about trees falling in forests. Of course the tree falling makes a sound, even if no one is there to hear it. But if no one hears it, no matter how loud it was, no one will pay attention to it.

“***Money. The big money goes to the Rockefeller Republicans. The GOP thinks like bankers — they prefer to lend resources to people who don’t really need it. I understand all of that, but what many republicans don’t understand is the powerful voice behind evangelical pro-life (EVPL) conservatives. It surprises the GOP to see EVPL’s go for a liberal candidate like Huckabee, and most in the GOP can’t see why EVPL’s won’t flock to Hunter, and the dems are scared stiff of EVPLs. Huckabee is just a test for the GOP, to see how EVPLs get treated, and if they get the back of the hand, the whole nomination is likely to go down the tubes.”

Oh, I don’t know. I think Mr. Hunter’s problem is that he just doesn’t have sufficient appeal to lots of rank-and-file folks. He certainly didn’t motivate ME to send him any money, and I initially backed him before Mr. Thompson started talking about getting in the race.

I’ll tell you what the problem is for me.

I worked up on Capitol Hill for 13 years (and in the White House in the first years of Mr. Clinton’s administration, as well as for Mr. Gore’s offices while he was Vice President); my business had a contract to perform certain technical services there. In those years, I saw and met a number of US Representatives and Senators. I met Bob Dole, Alan Simpson, Patrick Leahy among others. I saw Newt Gingrich walking around the Capitol complex from time to time (always with bags of papers and documents, looking like he’d drop them all at any moment - even as Speaker of the House he looked like a rumpled old college history professor).

I also saw, met, worked with lots of government bureaucrats, typically from about GS-11s up to SESers (SES = Senior Executive Service - these are the bureaucrats who effectively manage the goverment on a day-to-day basis). Sometimes, I’d also work directly with political appointees.

Some of these folks were great to work with, some weren’t that great to work with, some were horrible.

When I first saw and heard Mr. Hunter, I immediately thought to myself, “good, competent mid-level SESer.”

I didn’t remember ever seeing him on the Hill. And when I saw and heard him speak, I didn’t think - “congresscritter” or “Senator” or “cabinet secretary” or even “undersecretary” or “deputy secretary,” but rather “SESer.”

I can’t tell you exactly why that is, but that’s how he strikes me. He seems like a good, competent, intelligent, likeable, high-level bureaucrat.

I know a lot of guys (and a few women, too) like that. I live in the Washington, DC area, and have since I was six years old. I’ve known folks like this nearly all my life. My father worked for the government (although he wasn’t a super-grade - the equivalent of SESers back then), and I knew then, and still know lots of folks like this. I have friends and neighbors who are mid-level to high-level government managers. I go to church with folks like this. They are insinuated into every part of my life.

It’s sort of unavoidable, having lived here since I was a child.

I like most of these folks. They’re my friends, my neighbors, my buddies. I feel warmly toward them. And I feel warmly toward Mr. Hunter.

But I wouldn’t vote for any of these people that I know for president. And I’d like to avoid thusly having to vote for Mr. Hunter, too.

He’s a manager, not a leader.

I think that most Republicans instinctively have the same feeling, even if not enunciated.

“***Yet, out of the 7 candidates in the race, only 3 won delegates in Wyoming.”

How many made any effort to speak of?

“I don’t know his strategy, but I thought I caught a glimpse of it with his choice of campaigning in Wyoming over Iowa,...”

I’m not sure that’s much of a strategy. Pick off 1/12 of the delegates in the smallest states, and let the larger states go essentially unchallenged. Ouch.

“***Then go with the candidate who fits the Reaganite mold the best.”

I am. He may not fill it out all that well, but Mr. Thompson, in my view, is closer to Ronald Reagan, when all is said and done, than any other candidate.

“On Free Republic we all went through this kind of thing when the conservatives were pushing McClintock and the anything-with-anR-in-front-of-it republicans were gleeful about aRINOld.”

I think that comparing Mr. Thompson to Mr. Schwarzenegger is ridiculous. Mr. Thompson is a moderate conservative. Mr. Schwarzenegger is no kind of conservative, and I don’t think many folks ever thought he was. He is, and always has been, a liberal like Mr. Giuliani.

sitetest

I don’t much care about Intrade or other similar set-ups for two reasons: 1. They only give us the wisdom of the market for today. The market is efficient, but that’s only in the long-term; 2. The folks who participate in Intrade are self-selecting, and thus, represent only a certain sort of folks.
***I like Intrade for 2 reasons. 1) it’s more reliable than poll result. Since futures markets are more reliable than polls, I like to proceed from them. and 2) it’s a chance to make money by putting your money where your mouth is for your candidate. Most folks around here rely upon polls to make their point. The TV networks relied upon polls rather than actual votes. Something’s wrong with this picture.

Conversely, there are plenty of folks who will say of Mr. Hunter, “too conservative.” My gut feeling is that Mr. Thompson is sufficiently conservative to appeal to 95% of Republicans. He’ll appeal to most of those who are more conservative than he is, and also to those who are less conservative. I don’t think he’ll have much cross-party appeal, he’s probably a little too conservative for that. But he’ll have some.
***Here’s where we differ. Look at the results of proposition 187 in California, and Bill Sali’s run in Idaho. Both were loudly proclaimed to be “too conservative” and doomed, right up to the election day. But in liberal california there were lots of crossover votes, just like for Reagan, because they could see that the media had jumped the shark. That won’t happen with a centrist candidate. There are 3 big issues that will cause democrats to cross over for Hunter: Immigration, jobs, and security. We live in a dangerous place, and that’s why tootyfruityrudy is so popular. Hunter beats tooty’s credentials on security and WOT by a mile, and yet that’s supposedly the big draw for Rudy. On immigration, Hunter is the gold standard stalwart and everyone knows it, and it is the biggest issue that democrats will jump the aisle for. Hunter’s criticism of Thompson over this issue is well aimed. We need someone in the white house who isn’t a johnny-come-lately on this issue.
Road to Des Moines Conversions on Immigration (Hunter Press release)
News Which Cannot Lose ^ | 10/25/07 | Duncan Hunter/staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1916889/posts
Finally, on jobs, Hunter stands apart from his party and from the pack, pointing out such things as MFN status for China and other nations who intend us harm is not a good policy, and with plans to keep high paying jobs here in the US. That message appeals strongly to democrats.
.

On the other hand, Mr. Hunter will likely appeal to more Republicans on the conservative side than Mr. Thompson. But political beliefs, like IQ, exist in a distribution described by a bell curve. Once you get past a certain point on one side or the other, you don’t gain much.
***In some ways I agree. How did those Iowa results strike you? Was Huckster a surprise to you? He wasn’t to me, because of Intrade and also because I thought there was some pro-life evangelical support looking to land. We need a pro-life evangelical who has crossover support, and the most conservative choice is Duncan Hunter. When it comes to evangelical, even Hillary Clinton tried to pretend she was one of them. It failed. Thompson isn’t an evangelical either. Look at how his followers treat evangelicals. The evie crowd will not be happy in Thompson’s camp. They will be happy in Hunter’s camp.

I suspect that Mr. Hunter will actually lose more votes on the left side of the Republican Party than he’ll gain on the right side. And I think that it will be rarer than hen’s teeth to find Democrats who will vote for him.
***We need real data on this. Dems jumped over by the boatload for Reagan, a pro-life evangelical conservative. During this election, it appears that the evangelical side of things is more liberal, but their biggest concern is Pro-Life (Like HLA support) and jobs and maybe after that, security.

Thus, my own belief is that the universe of voters who might potentially be willing to vote for Mr. Thompson in the general election is substantially larger than that of Mr. Hunter.
***In marketing terms, you’re saying the TAM (Total Available Market) for Thompson is bigger than the TAM for Hunter. But it’s your own belief, my belief is based upon the 1980 and 1980 electoral results, which showed a huge TAM for conservative evangelical pro-life, and the 1996 election which showed a tiny TAM for a centrist republican.

Whatever Intrade says, I’m completely comfortable that Mr. Thompson will receive in New Hampshire a multiple of the percentage that Mr. Hunter received in Iowa, and Mr. Hunter will not get more than roughly half in New Hampshire that Mr. Thompson got in Iowa.
***Before Hunter was shut out of the debates, I would have been willing to go out on a limb. But things have changed, so like you say, we’ll see. Hunter did pretty well in a state where he chose to campaign. Thompson showed disrespect for New Hampshire when he chose to announce on Jay Leno rather than go to the first debate there. It could cost him.

It will show that Mr. Thompson is far and away a much, much more viable candidate, and Mr. Hunter is pretty much toast.
***Well, he just told the press that he’s still in the race and I’m still supporting him, so we’ll just see if how the chips fall.

Kevmo: People voted. Delegates were selected. That’s supposed to mean more in our society than some biased poll results, but it doesn’t.”

Sitetest: Yes, it means that Mr. Hunter will have at least one delegate at the convention. Out of a couple of thousand. Drop. Ocean. That’s why folks are ignoring it. It wasn’t hotly contested, and therefore, has no meaning beyond the simple result that Mr. Hunter will have at least one friend at the convention.
***I guess electoral votes, which are set up by our constitution, don’t mean as much as poll results, which are set up by corporations with agendas. But apparently it’s okay because it doesn’t affect your candidate. There was a time on Free Republic when, what you wrote right here would have showed you to be unconservative. Times have changed. People wonder how fascism gains a foothold. It’s things exactly like this.

Mr. Tancredo was running hard in Iowa. He got no traction. He read the writing on the wall. He got out in time to likely get someone (who will remain unnamed) to pick up some of his campaign debts. Although there are larger issues that doomed his campaign, his failing struggle in Iowa was the proximate cause of his campaign’s demise.
***Good enough. Note that Tancredo was pushing hard in Iowa and Hunter wasn’t. Hunter’s still in the race and Tancredo endorsed the guy who seems to have lost the most in that race. This strategy has “given Mr. (Hunter) the opportunity to fight another day” to put it the way you do in point #5.

From my perspective, he was setting a goal he hoped to achieve, to motivate the troops.
***Then why did he say he needed to come in second? He didn’t come in second.

Mighta done it, too, if Mr. Romney hadn’t had his campaign leak a lie to Politico that he was dropping out. But you know what they say about love and war. In any event, he got enough to fight another day.
***I agree, he did. Was that what you thought his campaign was going to be like, a crawl through the trenches? At this point in time he was supposed to be kicking tootyfruityrudy to the curb, but instead he is fighting for 3rd place. We Hunter supporters knew he was a bit of a long shot, and things went quiet when Thompson entered the race with his enviable name recognition. But looking at what Thompson has done with his name recognition and poll position, I see a lousy candidate. He reminds me of the Fred Thompson who had a chance to damage the Clintons on Chinagate and didn’t press forward.

Thompson: ‘Not particularly interested in running’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1946015/posts

There are no expectations for him in New Hampshire, but he will absolutely have to place in the top three in South Carolina, in my own view, to have a realistic chance of doing well on Super Tuesday.
***So if he doesn’t, if he gets 4th, then will you acknowledge that he isn’t a good campaigner? What is the threshold for meeting that acknowledgement?

Who cares? If he doesn’t drop out in January, what does that mean about Intrade? Guess we’ll have to say it’s trash, then.
***The point about prediction markets is that their overall data is more reliable than polls. Does that mean you won’t listen to any more polls because one or 2 of them were wrong about Huckabee? The data is useful because it gives a snapshot before & after an event. If you take a picture of a piece of property one day, then take the same picture 2 days later, what is significant? The CHANGES are what are significant.

Rasmussen’s futures market had Mrs. Clinton as the odds on favorite for winning the nomination less than two weeks ago, with nearly 70%. Guess that prediction didn’t turn out too good so far. Either that, or the one that’s there today, showing Mrs. Clinton with less than 30% chance of winning the nomination, will prove not to be all that accurate. If you predict every possible outcome, you’ll have to be right some of the time. LOL.
***Again, you’re not seeing that the significance is the change in the data.

It doesn’t matter whether I’m ignoring Wyoming or not. The COUNTRY is ignoring Wyoming.
***OK, then why are you taking your cue from what others think? The country is going to hell in a handbasket, are you going to follow it?

Thus, it isn’t having any appreciable impact on the point of view of the vast majority of voters. Because probably not more than one in five voters could even tell you the results.
***Basically, the end of the republic. Dazzled by bread & circuses.

I’ll tell you what the problem is for me. I worked up on Capitol Hill for 13 years (and in the White House in the first years of Mr. Clinton’s administration, as well as for Mr. Gore’s offices while he was Vice President);
***Sorry to hear about that... —snipping some storytelling—

I can’t tell you exactly why that is, but that’s how he strikes me. He seems like a good, competent, intelligent, likeable, high-level bureaucrat. — more snipping —
And I feel warmly toward Mr. Hunter.
***I hear that a lot.

But I wouldn’t vote for any of these people that I know for president. And I’d like to avoid thusly having to vote for Mr. Hunter, too. He’s a manager, not a leader.
***You sound like a Navy guy. And I disagree vehemently with your assessment. I heard Bob Dole was a leader, not a manager, and that he was nicknamed “Babe” after the pig who wanted to be a sheepdog. That got us nothing. And I also heard Reagan ran his whole presidency by pulling out 3x5 reference cards. These are all interesting stories, but they don’t sway me.

I think that most Republicans instinctively have the same feeling, even if not enunciated.
***That’s because the republican party has changed. This is a conservative website with no affiliation with the GOP. Did you know that? We’re inundated with tons of people who call themselves conservatives (even tootyfruityrudy supporters) but they aren’t. I really don’t care what “most Republicans” instinctively feel, because most republicans are not all that conservative.

I’m not sure that’s much of a strategy. Pick off 1/12 of the delegates in the smallest states, and let the larger states go essentially unchallenged. Ouch.
***If those aren’t real delegates, then it’s a good strategy.

Kevmo: Then go with the candidate who fits the Reaganite mold the best.”

SiteTest: I am. He may not fill it out all that well, but Mr. Thompson, in my view, is closer to Ronald Reagan, when all is said and done, than any other candidate.
***Then why do you acknowledge that he is a moderate conservative, basically “conservative enough”? Thompson does not fill out the Reagan mold, Hunter does. But one thing that Reagan harnessed was that the american people were angry with how they’d been treated internationally with the Iran crisis, and how Carter had messed up the economy. Most republicans at the time considered Reagan’s economics to be “voodoo economics” — sound familiar? But Reagan tapped into the discontent, making him electable. Hunter can tap into the discontent over immigration, WOT, and FleeceTrade. But if that discontent doesn’t really exist, we’ll end up with a Rockefeller Republican.

I think that comparing Mr. Thompson to Mr. Schwarzenegger is ridiculous. Mr. Thompson is a moderate conservative. Mr. Schwarzenegger is no kind of conservative,
***Except that he was being called a moderate conservative at the time, but he has veered left. If Thompson drops out and endorses McCain, would that give you pause about his conservatism? At the time we couldn’t get it across to starry-eyed freepers that aRINOld was no conservative, but now it seems perfectly clear. If you go on over to the Intrade Forum and see why they think Thompson is tanking, you’ll see stuff that is not allowed on Free Republic and you might find yourself withdrawing that characterization of ridiculous.

and I don’t think many folks ever thought he was.
***Yet, go on back to those threads and you’ll see.

He is, and always has been, a liberal like Mr. Giuliani.
***Bookmark for later reference. It may be the only way we learn.