Posted on 01/31/2008 2:09:25 PM PST by Jim Robinson
My friends, I have to admit that I've been in a bit of a quandary since the Real Conservatives ® Thompson and Hunter dropped out of the race leaving us to to place our bets on one the four headless horsemen. But after having a day or three to sort it all out, I'm beginning to see a ray of hope.
Number one, my worst fear that the pro-abortion, pro-gay, anti-gun social liberal Rudy Giuliani might be nominated, and thereby bring an abrupt and unholy end to the pro-life conservative movement within the GOP has been allayed. His evil culture of death platform has been soundly rejected by the Republican voters. Thank God! If nothing else is gained, that alone is a huge victory for us!
And that leaves us with the unwelcome slippery task of having to determine and select the least evil of the three remaining RINOs. But wait! When choosing between evils, why not choose the good?
McCain is insane and there are many good reasons not to choose him, but I'll list just five: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, the Keating 5, and the Gang of 14. No thanks. McCain is out!
Romney ran on a pro-abortion platform, is pro gay rights, is prone to BIG government solutions, promises anything to anyone for a vote, and flip-flops on important issues. Can't trust him.
Now Governor Huckabee. Could this be the good vs evil? He's a Baptist minister. A genuine 100% pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, Southron Christian social conservative!
And that would be my reason no. 1 to support Huckabee. He has the trust and backing of the Christian evangelicals and the support of the Bible Belt. You cannot win the presidency without the South, and I believe the pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-America Mike Huckabee is the most likely of the three GOP hopefuls to carry the South. And that's a pretty darn good reason!
My number two reason is that he is NOT McCain (and that's a pretty darn good reason too).
Number three (and this will be a tough one for a lot of my FReeper Friends) is that he is NOT Romney.
Numbers four and five are he's NOT Hillary and NOT Obama. Oohrah!
Number six, he plays a mean bass and he's a traditional favorite at Free Republic's infamous quadrennial Inaugural Balls in Washington, DC. Perhaps we could persuade President Huckabee to drop by our ball and perform his rocking rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama!" Now, wouldn't that be a hoot!
Number seven, if we can keep Huckabee in the race all the way through, thus preventing McCain or Romney from gaining enough delegates to win the nomination, then maybe, just maybe a deadlocked convention might seek out another candidate. One who can re-unite the Reagan Coalition, save the GOP, and put us back on the conservative track. Of course, my personal favorite to be that man would be FRed Thompson.
Woo hoo!!
Let it ring out through grassroots America and on to the convention! Support life! Support the GOP! Support Huckabee! And re-draft FRed Thompson!!
Never give in, never give up, and never lose hope.
Long live the Reagan Revolution!
I think we need to look at this on a state-by-state basis. Here in Missouri, I will be voting for Huckabee. Romney's a distant third to the neck and neck Huck and McCain. Missouri is winner take all so we need Huck to win this one.
There is no way in hell I will ever vote for McCain or Huckabee.
BTTT
Geez Jim it appears NOBODY is paying particular attention to #7.
It tells me that Huckabee promised something to Jim Gilchrist in return for his support. It also tells me Jim Gilchrist had the misfortune to believe him.
Hope you read the volumes there on Huck. Lots of his claims were factchecked there too.
Srooy, J.R., but you have lost your mind. Goodbye, it was nice while it lasted.
That’s what the conservative movement has to lose.
A very good point.
Sorry, I cannot and will not support or vote for a man who would look into the eyes of his prospective constituency and sincerely, honestly and convincingly swear to them that he was not pro-life, that he was pro-choice and that he sustains Roe v Wade and he would always sustain Roe v Wade and that he would preserve and protect a woman’s (or even an underage girl’s) “right” to choose to murder her unborn child so help me God.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4
If we could do brokered and get rid of the "Three Ass Clowns of the Apocalypse" here and get a real candidate I’d be for it though.
Agreed. Let’s have a real race, head to head and see who really has the majority of the party’s support. McCain isn’t winning among those who consider themselves Reps. How can a party have as its nominee a self-declared maverick who has sided with the Dems on so many issues against his own party? Huckabee is clearly an accomplice helping McCain steal the nomination. Many of the Rep states are winner take all so there will be no brokered convention as long as Huckabee continues to be in the race and allow McCain to win with 33% to 35% of the vote.
The challenge with this one is there are to few people here to actually shift the vote enough, and many are worried a brokered convention would hand it to the most establishment- McCain.
Words fail me.
Huck is the worst of all of them in my humble opinion.
WE_CANNOT_WIN without a Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-2A candidate. This is a bare fact. All else is moot.
I had been planning on voting for Keyes, but as my state is a "maybe" for Huckabee, I will reconsider my position.
As a Reagan Conservative, I say this with my teeth set on edge, for even though I am a socon first in priority, and I would most readily identify with Huckabee among the popular candidates for that reason, and despite Duncan Hunter's endorsement, it goes deeply against my grain to do such a disservice to my ficon and seccon friends in the Reagan Coalition.
Agonizing as this has been for all of us, I can't yet agree with your reasoning. I know the hour is growing late for a plurality of states to engage in their Primaries next Tuesday.
I respect your reasoning, and were I in California tonight rather than North Carolina, where we will vote in early May, I might be willing to take a chance with you. As it is, it is easy to question your most highly valued wisdom.
Mind you, I do not think, any more than my Great Grandfather did, that "voting is a privilege." Like him, I insist "it's a responsibility." By this I think he clearly meant, like those on a jury, we're compelled to make a choice and those choices are often difficult. It must be very difficult for you, sir, to endorse a choice of action, in this case a vote, in the Several States controlling their voter's choices this coming Tuesday, more for a strategy than for a man. In this case, however, this amounts to a choice for a man, one who is more Socialist than "Social," let alone a "Social Conservative."
In North Carolina, it is though you had recommended I choose a man essentially no different than the Social Liberal Democrat who presently occupies the Governor's Mansion in Raleigh. I won't bother to list the problems I have with Governor Huckabee, except perhaps to mention only that I believe him to be as neurotic as Senator McCain, perhaps with enough conscience to be as uncomfortable with his own integrity as McCain is not. He is proven equally as vindictive and resentful. He has called me a bigot, for example, since I do not believe state policy should be to spend revenue to subsidize illegal aliens so they may attend our Universities and Community Colleges with "in-state tuition. I suffer no man to call me a bigot, though, obviously the welfare of the Republic is something I hold to be more important than my personal feelings.
As much as Southrons like myself can appreciate well-cooked Squirrel (though not the rodent's brain which is dangerous to man for food) when times are exceptionally poor, I can guess the reasons why the former Governor of Arkansas has yet to win a majority of "evangelicals" in any state so far. This gives me increased confidence that my fellow evangelicals in the Republican Party are not as "easily commanded" as that young, silly Washington Post reporter once casually remarked.
And there is more, so much more about the Governor, particularly in his second term, and things he has carelessly said - about Fred Thompson for example - on the campaign trail so far that force me to question his suitability for the Oval Office every bit as much as "Captain Queeg."
It is a strategy you are suggesting we support, perhaps an artful one that I could recommend from here in North Carolina, since it could eventually lead to this State going from the least to the most important State, in a close deadlock, much as it kept the candidacy of Ronald Reagan alive into the 1976 Convention, thirty-two years ago.
But the chance of actually electing this walking train-wreck seems too great, and as you can tell, I find the thought of a failed presidency on his Republican watch as dangerous to the Party as McCain's. The thought of possibly making this man our Nominee seems as irresponsible.
But, as I say, this is not my choice to make next Tuesday. That choice belongs to yourself and others in California and in the 19 other States who vote next Tuesday.
I'm more focused already on the Congress and the state House and Senate, and in building a Farm League, perhaps in hope such a lack of choice for Conservatives never happens again.
My respect for every Conservative in the States who votes in the Republican Primaries Tuesday, and especially to you. I will neither question your wisdom nor your strategy because I must live with the decisions you make every bit as much as I must the choices made by Rep. Hunter, former Senator Thompson (whom I still support) and the Crossovers and Independents who gleefully or ignorantly boiled our choices down to these stooges so incredibly early.
God grant you wisdom, "my friends." And I conclude with two thoughts, begging you not to forget the other very important contests in each of the several States, and never to give up on your country. You are correct in one very important way. We are responsible to make a choice, and may God be with each of you. When May arrives, I hope you have left us with some choice to make. Regardless, I will vote anyway, even though North Carolina's Democrat Oligarchy will offer us only a closed ballot, licensed Partys and no opportunity for a Write-In.
God Bless America, and Long Live our Free Republic and Jim's FreeRepublic. Forever.
Have it your way, knock yourself out.
All I’m saying is it’s going to backfire. There is so much more to clobber him with than the Hanoi Hilton.
You have FReepmail.
in reading all this I see this as the best road to a brokered convention:
This assumes we actually want a brokered convention rather than an outright defeat of McCain. (The best scenario is actually having Romney pound McCain into defeat outright.)
arguendo:
A brokered convention is best served IF ronpaul and Huckabee COMBINED have an irrelevant number of delegates. In other words, where Huckabees votes can not put anyone over the top even if combined with the ron paul delegate.
It is also better if the Romney delegate count actually exceeds the McCain delegate count so McCain is not the presumptive plurality choice.
This neutralizes the Ahrnold evirowackos and the Giuliani pro abortion and giuliani pro homosexual fringes.
This leaves the brokering to happen between Romeny the businessman/negotiator and McCain the gang of 14/backstabber.
However to achieve that result where McCain is shut out of the outright win AND high ground in a brokered convention, it requires Huckabee recieve as few delegates as possible.
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