Posted on 01/05/2008 9:20:20 AM PST by Styria
I don’t know if they are still posted. Try this link
http://www.usastrawpolls.com/states/Utah-Straw-Polls.html
The Utah GOP held a straw poll during their convention last summer over Out of about 1300 votes, 85% voted for Mitt Romney. Ron Paul came in second. No other candidate reached 5%.
It looks pretty lock-step if you aske me.
Your basic argument is that Fred Thompson’s character is in question because of a phone call made on behalf of Aristide in 1991. If indeed Fred intentionally made this phone call for corrupt purposes, there would be a pattern of such violations. If no pattern exists, this cannot have been a serious breach of principle. It might have been an oversight, but I don’t know enough about the context, and the Politicon link bars us from finding out about more.
You can’t show a pattern like this, because there is none. The only pattern that can be shown is that Fred is a consistent conservative. That’s why the media is running away from him.
“Free Republic is a conservative forum, not a Republican forum and as such you should expect nothing less.”
There are tons of populist also.
Yes, we are, if we don't unite and get behind a solid conservative who can unite the party - who can appeal to all three wings. The only one who can is Fred. Duncan Hunter can't - shoot, he can't even break out of the 1% barrier in a state like Iowa where the GOP is more conservative than the national average. Duncan, unfortunately, only really appeals to DefCons, and they can't win alone. Huckabee largely appeals only to SoCons, and they can't win alone. Mitt appeals mostly to FisCons - and they can't win alone either.
Another fact of human nature: the threshold for overpowering a bully is very low.
Your guy will win if he earns it.
Period.
He won’t if he doesn’t. It’s a trial by fire. It requires enormously hard work on many different fronts.
People will unite behind the candidate that earns their support via winning all the battles required for the nomination. Such a candidate deserves that support because this process is monumentally difficult. The victor will have survived the trial by fire.
........I appreciate your reasonable answer..........
No prob. I hope I’ve changed your perception of fred heads.
Also, JimRob endorsed fred.
..........I disagree with the perception of Fred Thompson as being significantly more conservative than Mitt Romney...............
He may not be worlds ahead in terms of conservatism but I do think that he is to the right of Mitt. Also, I don’t believe Mitt to be electable. Yes, unfortunately, because he’s a mormon. Americans have said in multiple polls that they wouldn’t vote for a mormon candidate. And there’s also the issue of the conservative base. Mitt just like McCain or Huck or Guiliani would split the base, I do believe, mainly because of the percieved back/forth(flip flops) on some of the important social issues. I don’t believe Mitt to be Waffle Kerry, but it does look extremely bad and social conservatives would be distrusting because of it. Also, many religious conservatives look at mormonism as a cult, not a religion.
—————Best of luck in supporting your man.-—————
Thanks. You too.
I’m a conservative first but even as I support Thompson I maintain that Giuliani will absolutely support our troops and this WOT far more effectively than any dem in the race. Sitting it out will not be an option for me this time around. There’s alot more at stake than just ideology.
In fact, I’m so concerned for this country right now that if Fred can’t get the nomination then I’ll back Rudy. I’m sure there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that he doesn’t remember what happened on 911 and no matter what his opinions were before that day on social issues 911 was his defining moment as a man. SCOTUS nominees will have to pass the WOT smell-test for him and no liberal judge will ever get his nod.
As cynical as I am politically I’m convinced of that.
dignity, of course i mean clinton. i still fully support W, but fiscally and with regard to immigration, fred is more my style.
Anyone note no update for 1-1/2 hours and still 6 counties are out?
I'll give you the process that I went through in coming to accept Mr. Romney as a candidate for my vote.
First, I see Mitt Romney as someone who has talent as an executive and has been developing and exercising that talent for all of his adult life. My best bosses at work have tended to be men who were less ideological about political or any other issues and more practical about getting things accomplished. Most good executives tend to be that way. They may have opinions, but their focus is on finding the right people, motivating those people to do their jobs well, and ensuring that the company's structure is such that good performance in each individual job fits into good performance as a team. People who can do these things have a particular talent, and that talent has value.
After doing very well in business, Mitt Romney wanted to apply his talent to public service. He ran first for the senate and then for governor as a Republican. He didn't run with any strong ideological agenda, but he wanted to make our government work better. His positions were a mix of Republican platform positions, compromises that any Republican would have to make to run in Massachusetts, and positions that he had from his upbringing in a financially rich and politically moderate family. I don't like the compromises that anyone would have to make to win in Massachusetts. I probably couldn't make those compromises for myself, but I don't see those who try to run in a liberal state as being evil because they accept some horrible positions in order to try to make other things better.
As governor of Massachusetts, he seems to have tried to get the best bargain that he could on all of these issues. He couldn't repeal gun control in Massachusetts. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted to repeal all gun control if he could, but he did a few small things to make the situation better for gun owners. He couldn't have stopped Massachusetts from having pro-abortion policies. He says that his study of life issues during a stem-cell controversy led him to a pro-life position. He came from a family that believed strongly in legalized abortion because they had known someone who died from an illegal abortion. In most of his adult life, he would have had no reason to look at the issue all that closely. When he did look at the issue, he changed. I looked at the issue differently until my late 20's. Each of us confronts the issue at a different time in life. I don't like the idea of making anything mandatory, but the current practice of making emergency rooms take uninsured patients means that we already have a kind socialized medicine everywhere. Forcing people to buy insurance means that they don't get that care for free if they could have paid for it. Massachusetts is going to be a state that does many wrong things. No one was going to change that. I think Mitt Romney did the best that anyone could have done in that situation.
Running for national office, he's been in a position to look at issues from a national perspective. Because the nation is more conservative than Massachusetts is, he's going to be in a position to embrace more conservative positions. I believe those positions will more closely reflect his own values and not the compromises that anyone in his position would have to make in order to be elected in Massachusetts. I'm sure that he doesn't hold conservative positions as passionately as I do, but I'm not looking for someone who feels as passionately as I do. I'm looking for someone who will be effective.
Likewise, I don't see Fred Thompson as some great conservative champion. If someone wants to support Fred Thompson, I can respect that choice. I'm not saying that Fred Thompson is bad or that supporting him is stupid. Fred Thompson has made his own compromises, and while those compromises don't make him a bad person or bad candidate, they do reveal him to be something other than the conservative purist that some people like to claim. Fred Thompson was always part of the John McCain/Chuck Hagel/Lindsey Graham wing of the Republican Senate. He may have been the best of that group, but he was part of that group. He has voted for gun control in a few instances as well. Most of these were not tight votes, but if he really wanted to show solidarity with America's gun owners, he could have voted in our favor. He's lobbied for pro-abortion clients. Again, doing so doesn't make him a bad person or bad candidate, but he's not the lifelong, pro-life champion that some want to claim. I'm skeptical of his whole argument for his not-guilty vote on one count of the impeachment. He can say now that campaign finance reform hasn't worked as he'd wished, but that statement is either a flip-flop itself or shows a lack of foresight. If we call the statement a flip-flop, then he's just another candidate changing his position to be elected. Lack of foresight may be a worse quality in a president. Regardless of his personal reasons, the people of Tennessee didn't force him into any of these votes. He could have voted 100% with Gun Owners of American and NRA and not suffered any negative repercussions with the voters of Tennessee. He could have voted against campaign finance reform and had no problems with the voters of Tennessee. The same is true on impeachment. Whatever compromises he's made, he wasn't forced into them.
Finally, Fred Thompson has no executive experience. The presidency is an executive office, and nothing in his background shows that he has a talent for that kind of work. Let's assume that you agree with Mitt Romney only 70% of the time and Fred Thompson 80% of the time. If Mitt Romney's effectiveness is 50% and Fred Thompson's is 25%, then you'll get 35% of what you want with Mitt Romney and 20% of what you want with Fred Thompson.
If none of these things changes your mind, that's okay. I'm not interested in insulting you because you've chosen another candidate. I don't respect you any less for looking at the evidence and coming to a different conclusion. I don't hate you or hate Fred Thompson. On the other hand, if you can't discuss these things without throwing insults, then you've lost my respect and you've driven me further from supporting your candidate.
Bill
Thanks!
You and I have inhabitated two very different Free Republics then.
Bill
Well done. I strongly prefer Fred, but could vote for Mitt if Fred falls. I don’t entirely trust Mitt, but it isn’t like GWB has been all that trustworthy either. And Fred’s record in the Senate is moderate, not conservative.
I do wish we had a better selection to choose from...
Bill
Thanks!
By the way, as regards his Mormonism. I wouldn't care if the President as an individual were a Mormon. I just hate the thought of it giving any more veneer of legitimacy to the lie that it is Christian, when it is not.
I'm having trouble getting the website to refresh. Did the folks in Wyoming ever finish their caucus?
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