As a Catholic who wanted Mr. Thompson to enter the race, I can’t tell you that attracting EVANGELICALS SPECIFICALLY was on my mind.
***It should have been, because that’s the core of the socon movement. Or do you think Huckabee won Iowa because he spent more money than the rest of the pack?
See, that gets back to the whole self-selection thing. The relatively tiny number of people who participate in Intrade are self-selecting, thus skewing the population in ways that we don’t really know. And I’m clearly not someone who would participate in something like Intrade.
***I’m interested in harnessing the data. You think you’re right, but you won’t put money down on that hunch. For the people who do put money down, there is a bunch of data I can mine, and they are more right more often than pollsters and probably more often than you.
Kevmo: “If it is an order of magnitude more likely, how is it that this guy from Arkansas is beating Fred in the polls?”
SiteTest: What’s one thing got to do with the other?
***Your math doesn’t add up. Over at Intrade, when one guy is 10X more likely to win than another guy and someone else is 15X more likely to win than him, they make money by shorting both candidates. That’s what one thing has got to do with the other. And why I pull my data from Intrade, which is a collective wisdom. Your wisdom is pretty good, but it doesn’t measure up to the collective wisdom.
You’re reading things through your own lense, from your own perspective, making little effort to understand the other’s perspective.
***You’re doing exactly the same thing.
It’s not centrism that I value. It’s that I don’t think that he will be competent at being president.
***Here, you say you see leadership qualities in Thompson that would make a good president, but you overlook stunning drawbacks about his character. From my discussion with you it’s clear that it’s because you agree with him. It is centrism you value. The McCain endorsement and other clues point to that, and when Thompson endorses McCainiack, team Hunter will gain a bunch of Thompson Freepers, a great majority of them. You would represent a small minority in freeperland. Your analysis of competency would spit out Bill Clinton as a good president, and that would give your fellow Thompson supporters pause here on free republic, but not on any generic GOP website.
Having all the right views on all the issues (and I don’t actually think that about Mr. Hunter) doesn’t mean one has what it takes to get the job done.
***It’s the most important aspect. It means he won’t compromise and lose his way, like aRINOld. Your dismissiveness of Hunter is based upon idealogy.
Otherwise, it would be quite obvious that I would be the best person to be President of United States, in that my views are the most correct (at least in my view). ;-)
***Yup. I’ve heard that one before. That’s why you would write in yourself.
But an honest self-assessment reveals that I’d be a pretty crappy president, no matter how right are all my views on the issues.
***And an honest assessment of the character of the men in the race today spits out Hunter as the one with the most integrity. Clintoon’s presidency taught us how important integrity is, because no one knows what they’re going to be up against in office.
When I look at Mr. Hunter, I see “manager” not “leader.” I see “Head of FEMA” or maybe “Secretary of Homeland Security.” If that high. I don’t see president.
***Interesting. Most conservatives see Homeland Security of SecDef for Hunter. So far, I really haven’t seen Thompson’s name come up for any of these slots, because he’s not as qualified as Hunter. You just don’t agree with Hunter and so you don’t see him as president. Not much to it, really.
“***It should have been, because that’s the core of the socon movement. Or do you think Huckabee won Iowa because he spent more money than the rest of the pack?”
Well, having marched for life in Washington, DC for some years now, I can tell you that the majority of the marchers every January 22 are Catholic. And the pro-life movement is at the core of the social conservative movement.
I wouldn’t call evangelicals THE core of the social conservative movement, but rather A core.
And since we Catholics actually voted in the majority for Presidents Bush II and Reagan, I didn’t think that evangelicals, our partners in the social conservative movement, would go all tribal on us.
“You think you’re right, but you won’t put money down on that hunch.”
True enough. I also don’t go to Atlantic City or to the races here in Maryland. I have been known to buy a 50-50 ticket at Knights of Columbus meetings.
“***Your math doesn’t add up. Over at Intrade, when one guy is 10X more likely to win than another guy and someone else is 15X...”
Well, I’m pretty sure that I don’t care what Intrade “thinks,” but here’s the deal: I’d say that Mr. Thompson is maybe 30 or 40 times more likely to be the nominee than Mr. Hunter is, and Mr. Huckabee is probably closer to 100 times more likely to be the nominee. Of course, that means that Mr. Huckabee is significantly more likely to be the nominee than Mr. Thompson, but only by a factor of two or three, or thereabouts.
“***You’re doing exactly the same thing.”
I’m expressing my views, but I’m not interpreting YOUR views through my perspective, only disagreeing with them.
“***Here, you say you see leadership qualities in Thompson that would make a good president, but you overlook stunning drawbacks about his character.”
I don’t see any stunning drawbacks in Mr. Thompson’s character.
“From my discussion with you it’s clear that it’s because you agree with him. It is centrism you value.”
From our discussion, it’s clear that you’re now willfully misrepresenting my views, because you’re unable to see things from outside of your own perspective.
On most issues, I think that Mr. Thompson and Mr. Hunter agree. On some issues, Mr. Hunter is more conservative. Abortion is one. I assure you that I’m much closer to Mr. Hunter on the issue of abortion than to Mr. Thompson.
I just don’t see that we’re going to get all the way to that position without first going through a period where abortion becomes again a state issue. Thus, if Mr. Thompson appoints justices that vote to overturn Roe, AND appoints pro-lifers to posts that are sensitive with regard to the issue of life (which he has promised), then I can accept that. That will work. That’s as far as we’re going to get in the next few years.
Unless Intrade is telling you that the likelihood of passing the HLA in the next eight years is above 50%?? LOL.
“Your analysis of competency would spit out Bill Clinton as a good president, and that would give your fellow Thompson supporters pause here on free republic, but not on any generic GOP website.”
I wouldn’t say that Mr. Clinton was a COMPETENT president, but he became a sufficiently PASSIVE president after 1994 that the damage he did to the country was significantly minimized.
“***It’s the most important aspect.”
I’d actually agree with that. That’s why I won’t vote for Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney. My 20% friend is my 80% enemy, as someone around here says.
But Mr. Thompson is my 80% friend. Even if Mr. Hunter is my 90% friend, the fact that Mr. Thompson might possibly be president, and Mr. Hunter won’t, is important to me.
“It means he won’t compromise and lose his way, like aRINOld.”
But Mr. Schwarzenegger never ran as much more than our 40% friend. He was pretty dismissive of social conservatives from the get-go.
“Your dismissiveness of Hunter is based upon idealogy.”
Your willingness to tell that untruth is based on your lack of ability to see from the other fellow’s perspective. My ideOlogy is closer to Mr. Hunter’s in some areas than to Mr. Thompson.
“***Interesting. Most conservatives see Homeland Security of SecDef for Hunter. So far, I really haven’t seen Thompson’s name come up for any of these slots, because he’s not as qualified as Hunter.”
Certainly not, since Mr. Thompson has already ruled out taking any other office. As well, Secretary of Homeland Security is more of a manager’s job, not a leader’s, and I don’t think that Mr. Thompson is an excellent manager.
“You just don’t agree with Hunter and so you don’t see him as president.”
There you go again.
Well, if you must persist in misrepresenting what I’ve said, perhaps we should leave it at that.
Nice chatting with you.
sitetest