Posted on 05/09/2007 2:31:43 PM PDT by bd476
There's a vacuum in the GOP, we keep hearing, and Republicans aren't quite satisfied with their presidential choices.
Apparently, neither a veteran senator-war hero, nor a Harvard MBA/JD corporate governor, nor even a law-and-order, 9/11 mayor is quite good enough for the Red Staters. There's just something missing.
And what, one wonders, might that be? Exactly what je ne sais quoi would fill the alleged GOP void?
Just Fred.
Thompson that is. The actor who doesn't act, Thompson is tall and big; he talks straight, drives a truck and is wunna-us. A bootstrap American with take-it-or-leave-it charisma, he's got smarts and the kind of steely gaze you'd like to see aimed at al-Qaeda.
His resume otherwise has all the right bullet points: lawyer, chief minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, a U.S. senator who ran hearings on campaign finance controversies while chair of the Senate Government Affairs Committee from 1997-2001.
Like Ronald Reagan's, Thompson's acting career has featured strong manly roles -- a CIA director, senator, FBI agent, chief of staff and rear admiral -- as well as head prosecutor on ``Law and Order.'' When Thompson spoke recently to the Orange County (Calif.) Lincoln Club's annual dinner, he approached the podium to the L&O soundtrack.
In his speech, he came across as sincere, honest and straightforward -- all the traits Americans crave in a candidate -- and he talked folksy:
``Even if we won't be going around in the woods trying to find any bears to kill, sometimes the bear visits whether you're looking for him or not,'' he said.
What's not to love about Thompson? Apparently, nothing, which may explain why the former Tennessee senator is polling in the...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Fred is on Fox again tonight!
“Vacuum in the GOP”
Let’s see, the Democrats “front runners” are a former first lady who lies reflexively, but in reality has positions to the left of Marx himself, and the sacrificial rookie, acceptable as a challenger because he’s black, but doesnt seem black, so when she beats him nobody can complain?
The GOP may have a vacuum but the Dems definitely suck.
I was and am against No Child Left Behind, and the Medicare Drug Benefit. Actually, the latter is not an expense to the gubmint, but to the recipient who must pay insurance premiums with, in my case, a $265.00 deductible. My prescription was 30 pills for $100.00. After the bill went through they went to $126.00. Any time the gubmint gets into anything the costs soars! Unless I am mistaken, the gubmint absorbs no expense from this bill. The pharmaceuticals are very strong lobbyists in Washington.
However, I think Duncan Hunter is reconsidering the NCLB, preferring that management of public schools go under local management. I don’t know his stand on the other things you’ve listed, so I am bringing your post to the attention of the campaign, hoping we may be provided some answers.
I saw him! Why is the media pushing Fred Thompson? I don’t think we want to know.
What was he doing on there? Was it an interview? If so with who?
I have this seasoning recipe for buttered popcorn that will make you buy cold refreshments to drink between handfulls. Mrs. Thompson doesn't like Mrs. Clinton so you know how this will work out:-0
Yep, seen that same spam over and over again. That’s why he’s rated more conservative than any candidate, including your celebrity, by the ACU (except Brownback) and the National Journal.
If that’s the best you got, it’s sad. The old “Flake Amendments” are this year’s Dingell Norwood. NOthing but Fluff. And the fact of the matter is on all of those other items, Fred would have been right in line along with Hunter and the vast majority of GOPers.
I doubt Thompson would have voted for No Child Left Behind.
Another states’ rights issue, I think.
No child left behind is no more or less a states rights issue than the previous dept of education programs that were in place when Thompson was in office and voting for them.
Which vote were those? I see votes to reduce control of the Feds over schools.
* Voted NO on funding smaller classes instead of private tutors. (May 2001)
* Voted NO on funding student testing instead of private tutors. (May 2001)
* Voted NO on spending $448B of tax cut on education & debt reduction. (Apr 2001)
* Voted YES on Educational Savings Accounts. (Mar 2000)
* Voted YES on allowing more flexibility in federal school rules. (Mar 1999)
* Voted YES on education savings accounts. (Jun 1998)
* Voted YES on school vouchers in DC. (Sep 1997)
* Voted YES on $75M for abstinence education. (Jul 1996)
A fair and serious question for you, Paperdoll: Since the conservative base isn’t large enough in and of itself to carry any candidate into the White House, what appeal does Duncan Hunter have to “swing voters” - the independents who decide elections?
More importantly, what are Hunter’s chances of carrying any of the fifteen swing states (Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin)?
pissant wrote: “Hunter a big spender? I see you’ve bought into some myths. There is only two areas that Hunter wants to increase spending on and has consistently voted to do so. Border security and the Military. No one is more qualified to be CIC than this wise man.”
Wrong.
The Club for Growth’s Andrew Roth:
“Like most Republicans, [Duncan Hunter is] strong on tax cuts, but he’s been part of the big government spending spree of the last 6 years. He also has a protectionist streak in him. Here are some of the more troubling votes:
NO on NAFTA
YES on No Child Left Behind
YES on Sarbanes-Oxley
YES on the 2003 Medicare Drug Benefit
NO on CAFTA
YES on 2005 Highway Bill
YES on the 527 bill (like most Republicans, he flip-flopped, having first voted NO on McCain-Feingold)
Hunter also went 0 for 19 on the Flake anti-pork amendments.
Despite being a member of the Republican Study Committee, Hunter frequently votes NO on their fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)
We gave him a 49% on the 2005 Club for Growth scorecard. That places him 187th within the House GOP conference, out of roughly 230 members.
National Taxpayers Union shows a more telling trend. He was strong in the early 1990s, getting B’s and one A, but as time went by, like most politicians, his score dropped. For the past few years, he’s been getting C’s.”
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2006/10/duncan_hunters_voting_record.php
*
“...This explains why Duncan Hunter isn’t gaining any traction; his record on fiscal issues is that of something other than a conservative.”
http://race42008.com/2007/03/24/fiscally-fisking-the-2008-contenders/
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Hunter needs to raise tens of millions of dollars over the next year to boost his profile among conservative activists, say experienced political hands. That effort could be complicated by the opposition of influential power brokers because of Hunter’s long history of opposing free-trade deals and promoting tough border security policies.
“We just had an election where Lou Dobbs’ candidates on immigration ended up all over the floor – dead,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a free-market advocacy group, referring to the populist CNN commentator. “I tend to think it is fool’s gold.”
Other top Republicans decry what they consider Hunter’s indifferent record on the effort to curb extravagant federal spending.
“Our (political action committee) would cross him off the list,” said David Keating, executive director of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. “We wouldn’t even consider endorsing him because his record on fiscal issues has been so bad.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20061226-9999-1n26hunter.html
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LOL, I guess Fred is so popular with the public that he happens to be in the cast when Law and Order is cancelled. Come on, people! Who do you think you’re kidding in saying how Fred is really known and ‘electable’ outside the swooning mass of GOP whose main reason of supporting him is that he is an acceptable conservative but predominantly he’s an actor that the public will supposedly swoon to?! This man is nowhere near the hype. There is nothing stand out about him and the GOP is heading down the same track if it thinks of handing this nomination to him.
“Denigrating a man who has an honest job is really rotten.
Has Duncan Hunter ever held a non-government job?”
Yes, Duncan Hunter has been involved with farming and a lawyer. Most importantly, he has shown himself to be a man who loves his country and would die for it as he dropped out of school to serve in Vietnam. What is Fred going to say in regards to military service? You seem to think Fred is this famous actor who has ‘electability’ with the public for that fact they supposedly ‘know’ him! But the public is more impressed with men who have been in combat and send their children in the current war. The Demonrats were almost successful with Kerry playing that game and use Webb similarly. A vet is more likely to attract the public at this time than an actor who is looking old and doesn’t like to campaign. And you are all just grasping onto Fred because he is an actor. I stand by that. He is in no way the best candidate. Acceptable if Hunter wasn’t in the race, but he is NOT the best.
Fred married at seventeen and had a child by 18.
I think that is an acceptable reason not to be in the military.
Your posts are sure nasty and bitter.
Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson as a ‘08 Presidential ticket would do nicely among many other GOP Presidential ticket possibilities. I’m also hoping that whoever the GOP does finally end up with as a Presidential ticket is also successfully able to create some decent political coattails that positively affect all of the other political races throughout the U.S. on November 4, 2008.
Every president in the last 30 years (except Poppy Bush) has been an “optimistic man of good cheer”. Tell me DH has that?
Both men’s credentials are fine. And bottom line, I respect DH’s Rangering as probably the most noble work ever done by a human. But that does not translate into a winning candidacy.
Fred has a high lifetime ACU score than DH and I KNOW he can win against any Dem candidate in the hopper.
I have as much chance as Hunter does, good man as he may be.
I gave him a shot, but since the guy STILL doesn’t poll over a point or two, I’ve figured he isn’t going to catch fire.
If just 25% of the country’s GOPers who realize that Hunter is actually far superior to Rudy McRomney, but “he hasn’t caught fire”, would give a little effort on his behalf, rather than accept the media annointed lemons, he’d already be in the top tier. And once he gets into the top tier, and the media attention that comes with it, it’s curtains for the lemons.
Alas, it is going to be the dedicated folks at the bottom that make it happen. But happen it will. Got John O’Neill and Ann Coulter’s endorsements, and talk radio is starting to give him his due.
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