Posted on 01/07/2008 9:05:07 PM PST by jazusamo
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
It was not that long ago that the big political question was how Rudolph Giuliani would do against Hillary Clinton in the November election.
The Iowa caucus votes have made that question sound like ancient history, if not science fiction. The results of the Iowa caucus are only a small part of the story of this election year but their implications are significant.
One implication that reaches well beyond politics is that a state that is 95 percent white gave its biggest vote total to a black man.
More Iowa women voted for Obama than for Hillary. So much for the "race, class and gender" mantra among the intelligentsia.
So much also for the "inevitable" or "invincible" candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the biggest story out of Iowa is that 71 percent of Democrats voted against Hillary.
The next biggest story is that no one in either party won a majority. It is still a wide-open race in both parties.
As for the Republicans, Mike Huckabee won by 8 percentage points in a state where 60 percent of the Republican voters were evangelicals.
However surprising his victory, it was not massive by any means and the large evangelical factor will not be there in most other states, even among Republican voters-- much less in the general election in November.
With all the media attention to the various political rivalries in both parties, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that all of this is ultimately about choosing a President of the United States.
The question of what kind of President each candidate would make is infinitely more important than all the "horse race" handicapping that dominates the media.
By far the best presentation as a candidate, among all the candidates in both parties, is that of Barack Obama. But if he actually believes even half of the irresponsible nonsense he talks, he would be an utter disaster in the White House.
Among the Democrats, the choice between John Edwards and Barack Obama depends on whether you prefer glib demagoguery in its plain vanilla form or spiced with a little style and color.
The choice between both of them and Hillary Clinton depends on whether you prefer male or female demagoguery.
Among the Republicans, there are misgivings about the track record of each of the candidates, especially those who have shown what Thorstein Veblen once called "a versatility of convictions."
There are fewer reasons for misgivings about Fred Thompson's track record in the Senate but more reason to be concerned about what his unfocussed and lackluster conduct of his campaign might portend for his performance in the White House.
When it comes to personal temperament, Governor Romney would rate the highest for his even keel, regardless of what events are swirling around him, with Rudolph Giuliani a close second.
Temperament is far more important for a President than for a candidate. A President has to be on an even keel 24/7, for four long years, despite crises that can break out anywhere in the world at any time.
John McCain trails the pack in the temperament department, with his volatile, arrogant, and abrasive know-it-all attitude. His track record in the Senate is full of the betrayals of Republican supporters that have been the party's biggest failing over the years and its Achilles heel politically.
The elder President Bush's betrayal of his "no new taxes" pledge was the classic example, but the current President Bush's attempt to get amnesty for illegal aliens, with Senator McCain's help, was more of the same.
President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon probably cost him the 1976 election and cost the country the disastrous Carter years.
McCain's betrayals include not only the amnesty bill but also the McCain-Feingold bill that violated the First Amendment for the illusion of "taking money out of politics." His back-door deal with Democrats on judicial nominations also pulled the rug out from under his party leaders in the Senate.
The White House is not the place for a loose cannon.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
President Reagan towers over any candidates who have followed him. Compared to his sense of knowing who he was and what he stood for, they’ve all been shadows.
A Constitutional Amendment, Calling A Constitutional Convention is necessary (The SCOTUS is broken and needs to be fixed). A President has an immense amount of leverage to drive that agenda.
Yeah, I saw the same column posted with a different title last night. I don’t know why several sites post his pieces with different titles, it’s confusing to say the least. But I posted “What Does It mean” about an hour and a half before “Remember, We’re Choosing a President” was posted. :)
The more his columns are posted the better because more people read them.
I agree with Medved. McCain is with the Republican party enough that he isn’t simply running as a republican to get elected. He’s not consistantly conservative, and he also votes against the party on party-line votes too often for my taste.
Of course, I tend to eschew the “RINO” label anyway, preferring to discuss ways in which candidates fail to support conservative or even republican party issues, rather than simply drawing a line one way or another.
But even under accepted definitions of RINO, I think McCain doesn’t quite fit. IN some ways, he is pretty conservative, and we could do worse for President (this ignores the questions of emotional stability).
Because of the title the other post had more responses and thus I had assumed they beat you to it. I’ll check times the next time! : )
A good analysis, and pretty straightforward (especially the side comment about McCain's stability).
Regarding Medved, I listen to him a lot and mostly enjoy his show. I'm just getting tired of his self-righteous, "I'm always right, you better listen to me" shtick. I know Rush claims he's always right (yes, it's a play on words, sometimes), but somehow Rush's way of making his points doesn't grate on me like Medved does.
On the other thread I believe some were reading things into his column that weren’t there, it did make for some interesting debate though. I have to chuckle to myself when some try to say Dr. Sowell has really blown it on some point, most often they just cherry pick a few words and then put words in his mouth to justify their point.
And his comment about Romney is true. Romney IS very even keeled. : )
Yes, your scenario happens a lot on the net, and everywhere, unfortunately.
“It was a combination of failing to acknowledge the Soviet domination of Poland, and the fact the many southerners wanted to vote for “one of their own” that year.”
Southerners, being mostly conservative, were tired of Rockefeller Republicans, country club republicans and other Moderate (ie liberal) republicans. The GOP always seems to come thru for the most liberal republicans, gee could it be that is why they aren’t getting many donations these days?
In a country which would pass the McCain-Feingold bill, you propose to convene a Constitutional Convention whose only purpose would be to change the Constitution? Repeal of the First and Second Amendments would be far more probable than any positive outcome you might conjure up.The SCOTUS is broken and needs to be fixed.
We are one justice away from a solid SCOTUS majority for consistent enforcement of the Constitution as its framers and ratifiers understood it. We were two justices away from that before O'Connor resigned, and we have been further away from it than that in recent memory.And, God willing, the next couple of vacancies on SCOTUS will not be due to the loss of the four solid and one sorta conservative justices on the court. There will really be a battle in the Senate over the next SCOTUS vacancy. But to try to get a constitutional amendment is an order of magnitude more difficult than getting Senate approval of a good man or woman to sit on SCOTUS.
We don't know the future- except that we know that throwing up our hands in disgust is a certain loser.
I checked mine and I got the Third edition and didn’t notice any lack of proofreading.
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.