Posted on 01/13/2008 8:40:43 AM PST by pissant
EAST COUNTY – Even in East County, where they still love Rep. Duncan Hunter, voters are a bit mystified about why he's hanging onto his unlikely quest for the presidency.
With the conservative Republican coming in last place with less than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, the prospects of his moving into the White House appear nearly impossible.
Some wonder whether he's running to highlight national defense and border security – his steadfast issues as a congressman – or in hopes of getting a job in a Republican administration.
In an interview while campaigning in Michigan last week, Hunter said he has no plans to drop out of what has become a wide-open race for the Republican candidacy.
“It's easy to quit. It's hard to win,” Hunter said. “We're moving ahead full-throttle.”
Beth Taormini, who owns a bookstore in Hunter's hometown of Alpine, said she has supported Hunter for Congress, but isn't sure who she'll vote for in California's presidential primary Feb. 5. She hasn't heard much about Hunter in campaign coverage and doubts he can win.
“But I wonder whether that's important to him?” she said.
Hunter's supporters bemoan that the national media has largely ignored his campaign in favor of Republican front-runners Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
“If the rest of the country knew him as well as we did, he'd have a fighting chance,” said Matt Schumsky, a Republican party activist who lives in Alpine.
Elected in 1980, Hunter has since represented the 52nd Congressional District, which cuts a wide diagonal swath from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station to the county's northeastern corner. He has usually beena shoo-in for re-election, often getting two-thirds of the vote or more.
But he has struggled for attention the past year on the presidential campaign trail, and he's raised only $1.9 million, tens of millions of dollars less than the front-runners.
Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego, said Hunter hasn't attracted notice because he isn't nationally well-known.
“He starts out totally obscure to most of the world,” Jacobson said. “Hunter is not an especially charismatic character. He doesn't have the charm of a Huckabee. He doesn't play bass in a rock 'n' roll band.”
Hunter's biggest victories so far were in Wyoming, where he won one of 12 delegates in the state caucuses, and in Nevada, where he was endorsed by the state's Republican Assembly.
When Hunter's campaign issued a press release Monday morning saying he had a major announcement, several news organizations predicted he was dropping out of the race. Instead, Hunter used the press conference to complain about being excluded from the most recent presidential debates.
Hunter's family physician, Paul Ver Hoeve of El Cajon, said his relatives in New Jersey hadn't heard of Hunter.
“When I mentioned Hunter's name, they said, 'Who?' ” Ver Hoeve said.
Ver Hoeve said Hunter is running to spread his conservative message.
“He loves his country,” Ver Hoeve said. “He's kind of carrying on the Reagan ideal.”
Signs of support for Hunter's presidential campaign are rare in East County, although one of his neighbors near his home on Peutz Valley Road has a 6-foot-high “Hunter for President” sign in his front yard.
Among Hunter's most fervent supporters are two other neighbors, Lu Ann Slay, 54, and her husband, Ed Roczey, 67. They've spent the past eight months traveling to 23 states to hold up Hunter banners along highways and cheer at his campaign events.
Slay said she admires Hunter and wants to spread the word about him to others.
“I feel like I'm going to war, except I don't have a uniform,” she said. “I feel like I'm fighting for something with a purpose.”
At El Cajon's Parkway Plaza, 67-year-old retiree Burley Dodson said he is supporting Fred Thompson, another struggling Republican candidate, because he feels Thompson is more personable than Hunter.
Dodson said he has little interest in the issues that Hunter has focused on.
“The main thing that concerns me is the economy right here – the food that I buy, the gas that I buy,” he said.
Hunter decided not to seek re-election to his congressional seat as he focused on the presidential bid. His son, Duncan D. Hunter, is among the candidates running for the seat.
Hunter last week denied a persistent rumor that his son is serving only as a placeholder candidate so that he can re-enter the race for his seat. “It's not true,” Hunter said. “You've got my word on that.”
Former La Mesa councilman Barry Jantz, who follows local politics in a Republican blog, said Hunter might be seeking an administration post if a Republican is elected president.
“I can't think of anyone better qualified to be defense secretary or national security adviser,” Jantz said.
Hunter has more charisma than the others put together. Too bad he can’t be seen to show it. He’s well spoken, never misses a word or fails to make his point. He has a great sense of humor and looks like a man, not a metro Rino. I want a commander in cheif, not an appeaser, preacher or used car salesman.
The wit and wisdom of Duncan Hunter
(AP) Referring to Giuliani, Romney and McCain, Hunter said: “The guy who has the most influence with these three gentlemen is Ted Kennedy. We need to move away from the Kennedy wing of the Republican party.” Hunter
“I don’t need consultants to give me a conservative image.” Duncan Hunter
Hunter responding to Johnny Suttons’ remarks re: Campeon/Ramos:
HUNTER: You know, that’s about the weakest statement I have ever heard and about the weakest justification for saying that a guy is unarmed. So ask him. Pin him down on this thing. Say, did you search him, did anybody search him and so if you didn’t search him, how do you know he’s unarmed. And hit him with that. And, you know, the other question I’d ask him, if that’s true, how did those 600 people die in Nuevo Laredo, most of them in drug-related murders if guns weren’t used? Do these guys choke to death on their Wheaties in the morning?
Rep. Hunter makes use of child labor
We aren’t sure whether Rep. Duncan Hunter’s grandson is going to be class president or bully bait — it could go either way.
Hunter (R-Calif.) recounted in the Sept. 27 GOP presidential debate that the child, who is also named Duncan and called “D-3” by his family, has picked up some questionable habits from his grandfather.
“He walked up to his first-grade teacher about a month ago, stuck his hand out, and said, ‘My name is Duncan Hunter … My grampa’s going to be president,’” the senior Hunter said. “And then this little 6-year-old looked his teacher right in the eye, and he said, ‘Now, can I count on your vote?’ ”
Nurse Amy Salud, one of a platoon of nurses thanking Hunter for cheering their patients, shakes his hand and says they have met before. On a previous hospital visit? asks the congressman. “No, at the Miss Philippines Pageant,” says Salud. Hunter puts on a Scrooge face. “Ah, yes,” he says, “the Miss Philippines Pageant. I didn’t win.” Salud laughs.
He hands her a House of Representatives pen. He hands another to a bedridden patient. Hunter bends over and half-whispers, “It’s a congressional pen. It writes only in red.” The patient laughs.
You make the perfect point as to why Duncan Hunter is still in this race.
He is keeping conservative issues front and center in the race.
If it was left to the others, the fair trade, immigration and other issues would be minimized.
If you believe in conservative issues, you need a conservative leader!
Well, that seems to be changing for some of NJ.
1st Choice
38% Rudy Giuliani
16% Fred Thompson
15% John McCain
12% Mitt Romney
11% Ron Paul
5% Mike Huckabee
5% Duncan Hunter
2nd Choice
27% John McCain
22% Fred Thompson
17% Mitt Romney
12% Rudy Giuliani
8% Ron Paul
8% Mike Huckabee
6% Duncan Hunter
Rudy's support has dropped by by half since March.
This was the result of this Saturday's Middlesex County Presidential Convention.
That is funny! lol
Charisma is in the eye of the beholder.
Behold the collective blindness of the average voter.
Burley Dobson wants someone to whisper sweet happy nothings in his ear instead of the truth. The truth isn’t always the happiest thought. Dobson needs to read this.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelReagan/2007/10/10/where%e2%80%99s_the_fire
“He had the exact same chance as Mike Huckabee did to catch on, and he didn’t.”
Sure he did....he got invited on Leno, letterman, Colbert, the daily show and all the talking heads...just like Huckabee....WAKE UP.
Hunter didn’t lie to get attention like Huck did. The only thing Hunter has proved is the media and too many republicans don’t want an honest candidate with the record to back it.
It’s another attempt from the socialist media to marginalize Congreeeman Hunter and Conservatism.
Congreeeman=Congressman. Darn keyboard! ;O)
Charisma and electability:
Two code words that mean a candidate is open to anti-Americanism.
Issues are not of concern to the RINOs, which is why they want Hunter out so bad....make sure there are no choices except bad ones.
It doesn’t matter if we are being LIED to, as long as they have “charisma”! The media decides who is “electable” and the average mind-numbed voter has been sold a bill of goods and took the bait...hook, line and sinker!
I know that the pro Hunter groups in both Facebook and Myspace are growing. Slowly, but growth is growth and that’s among primarily young voters.
“As Ann Coulter wrote in her new book, the best-qualified of all the candidates is Rep. Duncan Hunter.” - Michael Reagan
I know. America is asleep. No, not just asleep. In a coma.
Or how about China's thinly veiled threats to nuke L.A.?
New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen weighed in on the debate when ABC/Facebook excluded Hunter from Saturday night’s live broadcast. The network claimed Hunter lacked the support to be included in the broadcast.
Cullen said “Limiting the number of candidates who are invited to participate in debates is not consistent with the tradition of the first-in-the-nation primary. The level playing field requires that all candidates be given an equal opportunity to participate - not just a select few determined by the media prior to any votes being cast.”…
After unsuccessful attempts to convince Fox and ABC to reconsider, Cullen announced New Hampshire GOP would no longer support the Republican forum scheduled for Sunday on FOX that has also excluded Hunter.
http://newsblaze.com/story/20080106234257nnnn.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html
This headline seems to indicate so much of what is wrong with America. There’s a reason a call so many Americans “American Idle voters”.
“It’s Fox’s ‘Idol’ to the rescue”
Agreed,
However for the good of the conservative movement and for the good of America, would not it make sense for Hunter to bow out and throw his endorsement to Thompson?
Why split what is left of the true conservative base ?
I met some new Hunter supporters Saturday. They saw him once on Glenn Beck and came running to the Presidential Convention, never before being involved with politics, because they couldn’t understand, after hearing him once, why he is not the primary candidate. They came to this event to see what they could do to help.
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