Replies

>> I don’t know a ton about Allen but I’d have guessed Cox was to his right. Cox was the most conservative of the candidates when he ran for Senate from IL in 2002. <<

I would dispute that. I voted for Jim Durkin in 2002. George Ryan was hellbent on ending capital punishment at the time and Cox was one of those anti-death penalty conservatives. While I understand the "all life is sacred no matter what" position, Cox would say bizarre stuff like he thinks life in prison would be a "worse punishment" but he would allow the death penalty for terrorists. So wait... he wants to give terrorists the "lesser penalty" according to his own internal logic? He actually believes that? Huh?

>> I didn’t know Cox was a never Trumper though. Weird. <<

He means well, but he's a clueless campaigner and his shtick is to always go around claiming "I'm the only true conservative in the race" regardless of who else files for the job. Another FReeper pointed out the main difference between John Cox and Jim Oberweis losing every time they seek a major office is at least Jim Oberweis runs a competitive campaign and puts up a respectful showing, usually coming in a close second. Cox does awful and wins about 20% of the vote, then goes around telling everyone he's popular and a proven vote getter.

>> Allen certainly seems to be a stronger candidate. <<

I certainly agree. The problem is, its California, so any Republican will have a huge uphill battle. But I'll take a 5% chance of winning with Allen over a 0% chance of winning with Cox. Of course, $100 says that Cox and his supporters will go around claiming "we woulda WON if conservatives had gotten behind COX!!" in the event Allen makes the runoff and then loses to a RAT.

>> One of them needs to drop out to have a decent chance of making the runoff. <<

California's jungle primary is a disaster and keeps resulting in RAT vs. RAT matchups. That being said, Cox's egotistical run actually appears to not be that damaging, since the second place RAT in the race is polling a very DISTANT fourth so it doesn't matter if Cox and Allen duke it out for runner up. Still, it baffles me why any conservative who is an informed voter and reads up on Cox's past campaign history would want to vote for him. The only IL conservative I know who DOESN'T have buyers remorse over backing Cox is probably Phil Collins, and I bet even Phil agrees that Allen would be the stronger candidate for California Governor. Cox will be taken seriously when he stops running for the highest office in the land and sets his sights on something he can actually win.

I also voted for Durkin in the primary cause he was talked up as most electable (I voted for Jim Ryan too), but despite that one issue you mention I doubt very much that Cox wasn’t more conservative than McCainiac Jim Durkin on the vast majority of others. Much like someone pointing out to me that Bob Smith was more conservative than John Sununu despite Smith being a burgeoning environut.

“So wait... he wants to give terrorists the “lesser penalty” according to his own internal logic? “

Yeah that’s some pretzel making right there. Obviously he knew his position was unpopular with the base and wanted to mollify it BOTH by saying life without parole was worse and by saying he’d kill terrorists, without realizing the contradiction.

I heard Bill O’Reilly say he was against it too and favored hard labor instead.

Obviously they both have a moral objection and were trying to mollify conservatives with the “life is worse” line. Some prisoners would rather die I’m sure but their feelings are not relevant to the subject in my eyes, I just want filth wiped off the planet.

Cali’s system s*cks b*lls. CA GOP could work it to our advantage if they would run a SINGLE, DECENT candidate for every statewide race but any jerk can just file to run as a Republican, they need an official endorsement or caucus process and anyone who runs outside of it gets blackballed for life.

Maybe Trump endorsed Cox cause of the polling, Allen is behind Cox in most polls. Hard to gauge these polls at this juncture, not even Nemsome is polling so highly as to be assured of making the runoff, Cox is even ahead of him one poll! How rich is Cox? Cause spending a jillion is the only way I can imagine he’d do better against Newsome than Allen would.