Free Republic

The next time a liberal professor tells you the rich are getting richer, you can point out that the biggest single offender in promoting it is the federal government. About 60 percent of the federal budget goes to Medicare and Social Security. The average recipient of these programs has a net worth of around $600 thousand ($150 thousand median wealth); whereas the average CONTRIBUTOR to Medicare and Social Security has a new worth well under $50 thousand.

The rich get richer under socialism. It is why the Kennedys, Rockefellers and Soros's and Buffets all support big government. They get to keep their wealth while government steals from the income earners to subsidize golf course haciendas in Sun City.

You are an anomaly?

Business professors like me are not typically leftists. Most are pragmatic Republicans.

With Giuliani, the Karl Rove playbook has to be scrapped.

The sooner the better. The playbook is outdated.

John McCain was giving away free hotdogs during his Bomb Iran speech

I hear nuclear fallout is very effective in roasting hot dogs...

He hasn't entered the race!

When you announce on national television that you are giving serious thought to running for president, you are entering the race. He made that move with the full knowledge that such an announcement would cause his name to be polled along with everyone else, and now he is seeing what it is yielding, for better or worse. And he will make a decision to take the next step or not based on that.

Technically, Rudy and McCain are not in the race, either, since they have not formally announced but only have exploratory committees.

Just to be clear, we are not angry with the Rudy-bashers over here on the Rudy side of the fence. Many of us, including myself, are good, decent conservatives with well-established conservative credentials. Steve Forbes, T. Boone Pickens and many others are over here waiting for the rest to join us. Yesterday we had milk and cookies for you, but alas they were all eaten up by the newcomers who moved us from 27 to 35. Today we have tuna fish sandwiches. Yum.

And Rudy didn’t help his own cause with that talk of taxpayer-funded abortion in the CNN interview

He took his licks on this when he went down to 27 in the polls last week. He is now back to 35. The informed public has pretty much absorbed the info, and adjusted. The uninformed public will swing in Rudy's favor because they are largely pro-choice, even the Republicans.

So far, Fred Thompson hasn’t made any attempt at gaining traction. So what? A national poll is meaningless when the elections are individual state-by-state elections.

If you look at it state by state, the case for Thompson is even weaker. Fred polls weak in OH and PA. He must take at least one of these two to win in November 08. Rudy loses in OH but takes PA and NJ, and that makes him the only Republican candidate at present capable of beating the Dim nominee.

These numbers will not change appreciably in the next 6 months, but if Fred Thompson ever gets to a point that he can beat the Dims in PA or OH I will rethink my support for Rudy.

I live in PA and I can tell you it ain't gonna happen. He's 14 points back in the general here. A generic Republican would poll higher.

900 registered voters nationwide, does not a poll make. Assuming you believe in polls.

I am a marketing PhD. We thrive on polling, so I believe that whenever you make a decision, in business or politics, it is better to make the decision with at least one eye open than to go in blind. You take what imperfect information you have and make of it what you will.

This poll is roughly the same as yesterday's Gallup poll, so that adds more credence to it. But no poll has Rudy out of his front-runner status, nor Fred Thompson getting any traction, and that is what really matters. The numbers vary from poll to poll, but the message does not.

Somehow, I doubt that they are taking Rudy at 35 and Fred at 8 to 10 as bad news over at Rudy Central. In fact, from what I hear, they are serving milk and cookies to all good conservatives who want to stop by, whether they decide to join the winning team or not.

This conservative has joined the team, and I tell you it is warm and cozy and comfy, and the future is bright. Come on over, guys.

Thompson down to 8. I am wondering if this is the public’s verdict on his lymphoma announcement. Rudy up after last week’s decline. Looks like the public absorbed his abortion revelations and is moving on.

No doubt baked and served by one of the queers he lived with.

Hopefully, the person with the, shall we say, alternative lifestyle, will be welcomed into the fold so that we can get to a majority. But we'll have the cookies tested for various communicable diseases just to be on the safe side.

Or, put simply, you do not have any core beliefs that you are not willing to compromise for the sake of winning a political race.

I did not say that. If this were true, I'd have supported Clinton over Dole. My purpose is simply to get back to the point that the most relevant discussions in politics are occurring within the Republican Party. Once that happens, you will find me vociferously opposed to anything anti-conservative Giuliani proposes, just as I have vociferously opposed much of GWB's agenda including Prescription Drugs for seniors, McCain-Feingold, Ted Kennedy's Education Bill, Harriet Miers, Amnesty for Illegals, and so forth.

None of these political skirmishes would have been relevant without power. Today we have no power and the relevant discussions are at DU. When to surrender, now or next year. Great. We have to get the power back, and Giuliani is the only vessel capable of getting us there.

Do you really believe that?

Well, I have a PhD myself in business, but I guess I wouldn't qualify as a scientist. But I have sat in numerous faculty lunchroom discussions with environmental science PhD's, geographers and the like. And I would say based on that, the majority seem to believe in man-made global warming, though they disagree on the severity, time line, effects, etc.

But whether they do or not, the point is that the majority is not always right, in court cases, democracy, or anything else. In fact, I dare say that in my business I thrive because I do not subject my decisions to committee, as many of my competitors do.

Within the framework of whatever is discussed, a minority view should be welcome. My credentials as a conservative are established, and I accept I am in the minority at FR. But that will not stop me from posting my observations.

I don't see any viable candidate running as a 3rd party candidate. Maybe Ron Paul. But certainly not Hunter or Thompson or anyone else with mainstream credibility. Rudy's Veep will be plenty conservative, as will his stable of supporters.

You cannot change the culture by changing politics. You can only change politics by changing the culture. The culture is not conservative anymore. Period. We can lament it until we are dinosaurs, but it is a fact. All of the data out there, including and especially the 2006 election results, say so.

I am a businessman. As such, I assume the macro environment is something I cannot change. I must operate within the parameters as I find them. Most professional politicians approach their occupation this way, which is why people like Specter and Schwarzenegger have longevity whereas Santorum and Allen did not.

In my heart, I wish it were not so. But it is. The sooner we all figure out how to come to grips with it, the better. If a conservative emerges who can demonstrably beat the Dims in the general, I will rethink it. But I am convinced that will not happen.

And I will support my party's nominee whoever it is, whether I think he can win or not.

The vast majority of members in this forum are not buying that argument.

The vast majority of scientists believe in man-made global warming. That does not make them correct. And it certainly does not justify shutting down a minority view.

On top of that, the polls, like yesterday's Gallup, continue to show Republicans are unsatisfied with the current candidates

This is total spin. If you are going to a restaurant and someone asks you if you'd like a bigger menu, are you going to say no? Who doesn't want more choices, in anything? It's a silly game being played by the MSM to try to gin up some controversy.

CNN and Amer Res Group 4/10 had Rudy at 27, probably in reaction to the public funding of abortion revelations. Now that this is behind him, both Gallup and Fox have Rudy at 35 this week, evidence that the predicted erosion is not coming. If someone is going to beat Giuliani, he had better put forth something positive rather than counting on attacks.

Thompson's high water mark was LA Times 4/9 at 15. Today Fox News has him at 8.

How do you reconcile your Constitutionalism with Giuliani’s dismal record on the Constitution and Bill of Rights?

I don't. If I were to vote strictly based on my principles, I would support Ron Paul. But voting is a strategic act. It requires political judgment in addition to conviction.

I have a PhD in marketing, and am very experienced in political consulting as well as market segmentation and brand positioning. Viewed through that prism, it is very clear to me that Rudy is the only candidate capable of winning the general election in 2008.

There is no point to having an education if you let your hopes and dreams get in the way of your ability to objectively assess information.

Put simply, I do not let my political ideology cloud my political judgment.

OK, these are just the Fox Polls. Even there, he is only down from 39 to 36 in 3 months. I am sure that is well within the margin of error testing the hypothesis of no difference from time period to time period.

It still demonstrates that the guy is teflon, since the last few months have not been particularly favorable to Giuliani from a conservative point of view. The guy is a fighter. He takes a lickin and keeps on tickin.

I'll assume you're simply mistaken when claiming Giuliani has gained in the polls when, in fact, he declined in both the most recent Gallup and Fox News polls.

Attention objective lurkers: Here is the link. You decide who is up and who is down:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/