This hiccup is almost over. They'll forget soon enough and so will we. But we will be stronger for shaking out and eliminating those who were obstacles to what we're trying to accomplish here. Pretty soon, this thread won't get any more posts and then we need to get to work taking Giuliani down and keep conservatism strong in the GOP.
For us long time conservative FReepers, I think this thread has been cathartic. And Jim got to clean house too.
Thank you Jim.
My personal opinion is the work to "take Giuliani down" should be to build up several other "acceptable" candidates as our conservative flagbearers. Right now half the problem as I see it is that none of the other candidates are very acceptable so none are getting much traction.
I know Duncan Hunter is the preferred "conservative", and of course if Fred joins I guess that will be who most will support, but until that point I'd love to see some sort of "truce" involving at least Romney (I know McCain is not worth arguing over), and maybe Brownback.
Romney is scary to people because they don't trust him. Could we take a week or two though were we pretend we trust him, and then argue about what he is actually TELLING us? I'm not positive that, based on what he SAYS he believes, we can support him or not, but I haven't been able to tell because every discussion of him ends up with half the argument being that he USED to have different positions and we can't trust him.
And I'm not saying that's a bad thing to point out, but it's keeping me and others from figuring out if he's even acceptable on his stated positions.
Does this make any sense to you all? Is it something that could possibly be done? I have to ask because you all should know I lean toward Romney so I have a "vested interest" in doing something like this anyway, but I think I make a good argument for trying it on the merits.
Heck, maybe you'll prove to Romney supporters that even accepting his veracity he's not good for us. And if you don't, we can always go back to yelling about his past after the break is up.
Maybe we need a new approach for other candidates, like a period where we can discuss what we like and dislike about Duncan Hunter without ANY mention of the impossibility of his winning. I think it would be helpful.
It might well turn out to be a bad idea. What you you and others think?