Posted on 01/11/2008 9:05:46 AM PST by jdm
Right Wing News has done another Rightosphere temperature check on the Republican race for the Presidential nomination. Over half preferred Thompson as the Republican candidate — these folks must have been very happy with last nights debate, where Thompson finally woke up and realized politics ain’t bean bag and you can’t win if you don’t play. RWN’s does some helpful breakouts on relative preferences among the candidates, so do check out the temp check.
The two candidates the bloggers don’t like are McCain and Huckabee. I’d pick it strongly the other way, but bloggers actually prefer McCain over Huckabee. My view is that Huckabee would be a better President down the line, definitely more conservative, and more tolerable to have in the news and on your TV set for 4 years — a big consideration.
I don’t like McCain, I don’t trust McCain and I don’t believe McCain. I don’t believe his heart is in the right spot (John McCain loves John McCain), I don’t trust his judgment, and I don’t like the way he thinks about issues.
And I actually think Huckabee has a good case defending his record as governor of Arkansas — conservatives actually believe in solving problems at the state and local level, and Arkansas historically has had terrible schools and public infrastructure.
Huckabee didn’t do anything for the Republicans in Arkansas, and I don’t like his record on crime, but his record on illegals isn’t nearly the worst in the country. He did leave his state with a large budget surplus, which is much better than most Republican chief executives today.
I’m at the point of thinking we need to give Huckabee a break.
One reason Romney isn’t doing that well is because he’s nit-picking Huckabee’s record, and he’s not taking on his opponents at a principled level — Huckabee is right to respond “What would you do” when faced with court orders and a terrible school system.
UPDATE: This is news — Human Events endorses Fred Thompson. This race might have been a completely different one if Thompson had decided he really wanted to be President a few months ago, instead of only last night.
Patrick Ruffini suggests the Arkansas governor will have to make a similar decision, “[Huckabee] seems to be running for Mr. Congeniality at times. Huckabee’s path to the nomination lies in convincing conservatives why John McCain was so unacceptable to them to begin with. He has to make a decision about whether he’s running for President or Vice President.”
Obviously I’m just wasting my time trying to make peace offerings to Fred’s supporters anyway.
No way they would win.
John
I personally think this could be violation of election law, and certainly unethical, because, Congressman HUNTER who already had delegates, is officially on the ballot there and campaigning, as a legal candidate, regardless of the polls, and FOX said "here are the candidates".
This is NOT a small point. In fact it is a lie.
They must have a disclaimer in the future, if they pull this exclusionary behavior, and say "some of the candidates on this ballot for President are here tonight", or "here are some of the candidates".
What gives them the right to say, as in New Hampshire, "let's now bring the Democrat and Republican candidates together, because one of them on this stage here tonight will be the President next year". They actually said that when others were on the ballot as well and the people of New Hampshire and other states had not yet spoken.
I think this is a serious issue.
And the establishment thinks they can come to us in late October and whine and ask that we buy in to their two party charade after this treatment. They have a lot of nerve as well as another think coming.
ping
Who do you support?
who are we getting our information from? bloggers and posters on FR and similar sites. who posts on these sites? people who care enough to do so.
true conservatism is salient enough to us that we spend a good portion of our day reading/writing about it. but we are not the ones who elect presidents.
those people in the middle do. i think we are so excited by what we see on FR and right-leaning bloggers that we will be very surprised when no one else votes for our guys.
i hope i'm wrong, but i just see our sample size as too small to get a good read on the situation.
that being said, GO FRED!!!
Claiming Hunter is a conservative, doesn’t make it true. You’ve Hunter folks have done a fine job fooling people. But the truth says otherwise.
Terrible picture. Why does Congressman Hunter’s campaign use this photo that looks like a combination of airbrushed, many years out-of-date, or of a vain older fellow trying to look young artificially? It makes him look either too young for the presidency (candidates should try to look in their late fifties at least) or too vain/therefor lacking in judgement. He looks a lot better/more Presidential as he’s gotten older.
It looks as though Congressman Hunter’s website has been hacked! Checkout gohunter08.
I agree that Hunter shouldn’t be on the ticket. That’s the only way Freddy could win; with people wanting the VP to be President!! Fred can have any other Republican and he will not win a general election. And that is a loser along with those who pushed such a candidate to perform so terribly in the name of ‘electability’.
Of course it has. But they really aren’t concerned about him, right? Such a “lousy”(sarc) candidate and they go to such lengths!
BTTT Outstanding!
LOL... Not even 1% of the american public knows who Duncan Hunter is and all the GOP needs this Minimum Wage raising, Free Trade blocking, Al Qaeda in Bosnia supporting, Energy Welfare passing moderate to win the election?
Hunter and his supporters are a complete joke.
“It is pretty interesting that Hunter and Thompson haven’t attacked each other in the debates.”
Pretty hard to when Hunter isn’t even allowed in the debates.
“Lets just run Dole and Kemp again and get it over with.”
We are about to, different names but the same results.
“That’s all there is too it.”
You’re to funny.
It will be be George Allen.
So we can hear Maccaca (sp?) for the next nine months no thank you. I would rather him pick Rick Santorum.
Patraeus
Get real. First of all he can’t campaign while in still in the Marines and DEFINITELY not in uniform. Say he wanted to do this. He would have to request to retire which could take months and then he could get in, but it would not be tomorrow (maybe by mid-summer). Next, what are his thoughts on the issues? Is he pro-life? for gay marriage? Just because he is miliary doesn’t mean he might not be for some of these believe me there are quite a few officers in the military who are pro-choice and some that don’t care about the gay marriage thing so would not care if it got passed. Just a thought.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.