No way. Way!

This has got to be, by far, the most interesting primary season that I can recall. Looks like one of my predictions from yesterday was actually spot on. Of course, my Florida predictions were rather akin to a shotgun blast...

At any rate, McCain beat, not handily, but he did beat, Romney in Florida. Rudy's out, and probably going to endorse McCain. Will that hurt Romney? Probably. But, Mitt still has some things going for him, leading up to the convention:

• There are enough Western states, where Romney is likely to perform well, on Super Tuesday to catch up, or at least keep within striking distance, of McCain's delegate count.
• He has the support of a sizable majority of the "uncommitted" delegates (akin to the Democrats' SuperDelegates)
• If Huck makes it all the way to the convention, his delegates could, in theory, be sent to one column or the other, tipping the balance. My guess is that Huck is going to send them to Mitt, rather than John, because Mitt is closest to Huck on social issues.

As for the Dems, Hillary continues to shore up her delegate count, while Barack is wooing establishment Dems like Teddy into his camp. Hillary's ace in the hole has always been the SuperDelegates; Teddy's defection suggests that they may not be a lock for Hill. Still, Barack is going to have to pick up some delegates on Feb 5 if he wants to stay in this thing.

As for Super Tuesday? Hell if I know.

Bye Bye, Rudy

Odds are against America's Mayor tonite.

Was a time I thought Rudy might have been the most electable guy in the Republican field. (Note that I didn't say he was the guy I would vote for, but he was the most electable). Truth be told, he's probably still the most electable in a general election, at least against Hillary. Obama he'd have a harder time with, I think.

At any rate, there are several scenarios that could come out of Florida, not just for Rudy, but for the Republican field. Since I suck at predictions, I won't tell you which I think is most likely. You'll just have to guess.

• Under scenario #1, Rudy wins the Florida primary. The momentum carries him all the way to the Convention. Alternatively, there is no momentum and he fizzles on Super Tuesday, leaving Mitt or John at the top of the delegate count.
• Under scenario #2, Mitt takes it. This is pretty much the nail in the coffin for the rest of the field; If Mitt takes Florida, he probably takes Super Tuesday as well.
• Under scenario #3, Huck makes a comeback. We have a 3-way race, maybe decided on Super Tuesday, maybe later. Maybe third round of balloting at the Convention.
• Under scenario #4, John picks it up. It's a 2-man race, with Mitt in the lead. John could easily pass Mitt on Super Tuesday.
• Under scenario #5, Fred Thompson remembers who the hell Terry Schaivo was, makes a Santa Clause/Superman tour of the state and wins it as the "hands down" candidate.

Sorry, couldn't help it. I had to put something light in there. No way Huck's coming back. Some things just ain't possible.

WOW.

Sometimes, stories just speak for themselves.

Sometimes, it helps to remember that you're not the only one who believes political correctness is a bad thing.

Sometimes, you just need to hear from Edgar Friendly:



Not related, but did you know Alan Keyes is still running (again) for president? I love Alan. I campaigned for and voted for Alan in the 2000 Republican primary. But I'm kinda done with the whole "I'm gonna run for president" thing. He's getting to be a bit like the Jessee Jackson of the right. Maybe he could run for congress first, or something. I know the whole senate run thing didn't work out, but then again, Keyes is no Michael Clarke Duncan or Scatman Cruthers. (A nickel's worth of pocket lint to anyone who gets the reference without having to actually click the link).

Fred Drops Out

Read all about it. No surprise here, but I'm sad to see it happen. Hindsight being what it is, I suppose it's the right time to reflect a bit about Fred's candidacy, and how it went sour. Here are the things that could have been done differently:

• Got in earlier. July 4 would have been ideal, and may have given him more momentum. September was, in retrospect, definitely too late.
• Debated more. Fred performed well in the debates; it was a mistake to announce on Jay Leno during a debate that he could have won.
• Media management. Fred's campaign had no idea how to handle media criticisms. When even Fox News is accusing you of being a lazy candidate, you need some serious PR help to disprove them.
• Created a winning delegate scenario. Fred needed to be able to focus on the states where he could win. He could have done what Rudy is doing for Florida, and taken Iowa South Carolina. Instead of focusing on a place he could win, he seemed all over the map.
• Been easier on James Dobson. True, the Focus on the Family founder's initial criticisms of Thompson's faith was uncalled for, and unsound; but Fred could and should have been conciliatory, rather than standoffish. This put off a good number of evangelical supporters, driving them over to Huck.
• Smartened his message. His slogans were a bit trite. I think the campaign underestimated the intelligence of the Republican base.

Just my thoughts, informed by the light of hindsight.

Three-Ways aren't always good

Just a quick update from South Carolina:

Looks like McCain will narrowly take it over a close second Huck. Looks like we forgot about the 25% of voters in South Carolina that are veterans, as it seemed they tracked extremely high for McCain.

While I'm here, let me say this: I thank John McCain for his service. America owes him a great debt that we can only repay by insuring future generations of Americans grasp the freedom for which he was imprisoned.

Having said that, the fact remains that, while a veteran may be emotionally connected to McCain, it doesn't mean he'd be a good president. It's not that much different than a woman who votes for Hillary, or an African American who votes for Obama. Being able to relate to a candidate does not qualify them, and voting on that basis is plain foolish.

Aw hell, at least Rudy's way down at the bottom. Still, I'd prefer him to McCain. And Mitt may actually be in trouble here if he can't make some deeper progress in the other southern states.

Goodnight, Fred, we hardly knew ye. If you'd have run 200 years ago, you'd have won in a landslide.

Well, I suppose that's it, then.

Fred managed to hit higher than Rudy, but lower than Ron.

The big surprise yesterday, for me, was the Mitt victory over John McCain. Let me tell you why I was certain McCain would win.

• In 2000, when McCain was running a primary campaign against George W. Bush, he won Michigan handily, thanks to folks like my democrat boss who really liked the guy. I assumed that would carry him.
• McCain's campaign actively sought independent and even Democrat voters in the Michigan primary (a move, by the way, which pisses me off to no end; MY party, not yours. I don't pretend to be a Democrat, you shouldn't pretend to be a Republican.)
• My precinct is around 10-1 in Democratic favor. Yesterday, at least from the pages I could see, at least 3 Republican ballots were passed out for every 1 Democrat ballot. Even if the Dems stayed home, that's just shenanigans.

Fortunately, my precinct wasn't especially representative of the state. Mitt, my #2 man trounced McCain handily, and is creeping closer to the magic number of 1,191..

Unless Fred can turn it around in SC, or Rudy in FL, it is looking like Romney will be the Republican candidate. There is a scenario in which McCain places 3rd in Florida and then makes a big bang on Super Tuesday, but even if that happens it is likely that the delegate count will be close come July. Same thing if Huck handily wins SC, and then begins to carry the rest of the South. Still, things are looking good for Mitt right now.

The Michigan Republican Primary, Conclusions

As promised, let's take a look at the remainder of the Republican field for tomorrow:

There are, of course, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. These guys are all right in terms of policy, but have run terrible campaigns, and are almost completely unelectable due to their lack of personality. Normally, a lack of personality wouldn't be enough to turn me off of a candidate, but add to this the fact that they have been ignored and shunned by both the media and the Republican establishment, and these boys don't have a snowball's chance in hell.

That leaves me with, of course, Fred Thompson. As you can see from the archive, I'm a Thompson supporter, and have been for a long time. Yeah, his campaign has been poorly run. Yes, he's been portrayed as not having enough "fire in the belly." But, in some ways, that's just what I want in a president: someone who had to be convinced to take the job, and for whom his personal success doesn't depend on him becoming president. I want a president who's not a career politician, who can go back home to Mount Vernon and make booze. On policy, he's almost dead on, and is the first viable candidate since Reagan to speak convincingly about federalism.

Is Thompson electable? Well, he was. I think he might still be. He won't win Michigan, partly because he hasn't had the resources to campaign here, but also because our Dems will all be voting for McCain once they figure out Hillary is the only one on their ballots. Still, if Thompson can beat out Huck in South Carolina, he may have a shot at capturing much of the rest of the South. Granted, it's a very slim scenario, and I certainly wouldn't take bets that it will happen. But in 1980 Reagan lost Iowa, swept the south, and lost 5 more primaries on the way to the convention. If there was indeed a Reagan political miracle, isn't it all right to hope for one for Thompson?

So, whether you are from Michigan or not, get out there and show Fred some love!

The Michigan Republican Primary, Part 3

With just one day left until the Michigan primaries, it's time for me to finish out my analysis of the Republican field. I'll hit two of the candidates this morning, and the remaining candidates, including my choice, this evening.

Mitt Romney. Mitt is an interesting candidate. As a Michigander who is too young to remember his father as governor, I can't speak intelligently about his political heritage. His religious heritage worries me, however. I know I'm not supposed to care that Romney is a Mormon any more than I care that Bush is a Methodist, or that Rudy is a Roman Catholic. Still, Mormonism is a relatively new player in the grand scheme of things, and several of its core tenants go against the most ancient of Christian tenants, including the doctrine of the Trinity. Does that disqualify Mitt to be president? No. But it does speak to his judgement.

The Mormon thing would probably be all right if Mitt hadn't been Governor of the same state that keeps electing Teddy Kennedy and John F. "I served in Vietnam" Kerry. Fact is, he had to do an awful lot of cow-towing to the left in Massachusetts, and while he says he's changed his ways, I'm skeptical, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, given all of this, Romney's stated positions make him my #2 choice. I'd have no problem getting behind a Mitt presidential campaign, even if I don't prefer him in the primaries.

Giuliani is a bit of an enigma to me. While I get that Mayor of New York is kind of a big deal, I'm not sure his experience there is far-reaching enough to work as president. Experience in the senate helps Thompson and McCain in that it has given them a taste of national political life. Experience as governor helps Mitt and Huck, because it covers so much wider a geographic spectrum. But Rudy's entire political life has been New York politics, which is fine for New York, but worries me at the national level.

I'm confident that Rudy would be all right for defense. I'm worried about his approach to social issues, and to the supreme court. He's saying the right thing as far as the court and things like gun rights, but his track record is worse than Mitt's here. I'll vote for Rudy in a general election, but I'd do it a bit begrudgingly.

The Michigan Republican Primary, Continued

OK, so, moving on...

John McCain. What do I think about John McCain? Well, he'd probably do all right in the War on Terror. Border security is a wishy-washy issue for McCain, having supported the failed immigration bill. He calls himself, on his campaign web site, a "leader on the issue of global warming," which is, of course, not a good thing. He seems to be OK on taxes, but less so on government regulations. McCain-Feingold, of course, best exemplifies this. His work with Kennedy on education falls into that category, too. He's generally OK on social issues, but has the whole federal marriage legislation thing going on.

My big beef with McCain, however, has been this maverick-centrist image he's tried to create over the years. It pissed me off in 2000 why my boss at the time, a staunch democrat, decided to vote in the Republican primary for McCain. She liked what he had done, and what he had to say. Fact is, unless the Dems had run someone really off the wall, she'd have voted for the Dem in the general election anyways. I always felt like McCain enticed "independents" to interfere with the Republican primary process, which just isn't the way it ought to be. The Republicans ought to be able to pick their own guy. By targeting independents, McCain corrupted the process. He did it again in New Hampshire, and if he wins Michigan, it will be the independents that did it for him.

Those are plenty of reasons not to vote for McCain in the primary. Beyond that even, he just seems like a loose cannon that could go off at any moment. He feels like the Republican Howard Dean, in terms of personal stability. That all is perception and maybe even a result of media interpretation, and not the reason I am not voting for him, but I do have to admit it scares me.

The Michigan Republican Primary

Well, I have to say... seven months has been too long. But, I don't feel bad about it; the thing about being a conservative is that, for the most part, I'm not interested in what government is doing. In fact, the less it does, the better. I've got better things to do, like raise my kids, work for a living, and play Dungeons and Dragons every Saturday. I think that's probably why Libertarians do so bad at the polls; most of the folks that share their views believe that government should have less power, and folks are always more motivated to gain power than to give it up.

Anyways, the Michigan Primary is just days away, and I've got some thoughts I'd like to share. Each day over this weekend, I'm going to talk about the Republican candidates, and I will finish off on Monday with a discussion of my pick. Reading my previous blog entries you might be able to guess who it is, but I think it is still a worthy exercise.

Today, let me start with Huckabee. I want to like Mike, I do. Heck, if nothing else, I'm scared that if I don't vote Huck that Chuck will come and kick my ass. In addition, I like his conservative social message. I'm completely OK with a Baptist pastor as president. I greatly admire his weight loss story, as I'm working on my own right now. Here's what I don't like:

• The Arkansas tax record. Yeah, I know, even Reagan raised taxes in California as governor. Still, it makes me wary.
• Golden Rule foreign policy. The golden rule is a rule about individuals, not nations. It's appeasement foreign policy cloaked in biblical rhetoric.
• Immigration. He just doesn't seem to know where he's going with it.
• In a general election, the anti-Christian left would eat him alive.

While I'm at it, I may as well do Ron Paul. I like everything about Ron Paul, save one big issue: the war. Paul is short-sighted here; there is indeed a constitutional basis for what we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Paul would come out in support of the war on terror, he'd be my candidate. I know its one issue, but its a big one for me. In addition, like most libertarians, Paul needs to recognize Friedman's ideas about transition, and that these unconstitutional programs need to be phased out rather than shut off. But, I could live with that if I had to; the foreign policy thing is too overshadowing.

Yabba Dabba (Friggin) Do!!!

My good friend Phil believes that, if there is a Republican who can beat out Hillary, it is Fred Thompson. He thinks that Rudy's too moderate to energize the Republican base, and that Romney is still a moderate deep down as well, despite the rhetoric. McCain, well, he's just a couple deuces short of a full deck.

But Fred Thompson, more than anyone in the field, has a folksy, populist, Reagan-like appeal. Thompson presents well on TV, and Arthur Branch is embedded in many of our minds in the same way that "The Gipper" was in a former generation. Not only that, Thompson has the wherewithal to look Michael Moore in the eye, tell him he's nuts, and then blow a big puff of smoke in his face. That, my friends, is the testicular fortitude that a Republican presidential candidate needs to have.

Now, all of the big conservative radio guys have held off of a full endorsement of a particular candidate. My bet is that, as we get closer to this thing, that's going to change. Thompson is the kind of candidate that someone like a Sean Hannity or even a Rush Limbaugh can get behind, I believe.

Reagan said it once, "How can a president not be an actor?" I can see Fred saying that. Reagan also said, "Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." I can see Fred saying that, too.

It is looking like Fred is finally going to declare, quite fittingly, on Independence Day. Let Freedom Ring!

The Lunatic Fringe

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.

Now, I don't know who the editors are at the Las Vegas Review Journal, but it is nice to see that someone else out there gets it. I mean, for crying out loud, if Republicans had sworn off every left-leaning media outlet, there would be no White House press corps.

What is it that these nutjobs at Moveon.org are afraid of? They claim that Fox News is not a legitimate media outlet, yet the bureaucratic mouthpieces of NPR and PBS are somehow direly needed. Moveon.org claims to want NPR and PBS to be free of "partisan meddling," but they just don't get it: ANY outlet that is controlled by government is, by its very nature, partisan.

It's like the same loonies that think that funding elections publicly will remove corruption from the process. Hello? Is there any government-funded program that is not inherently prone to corruption? These dingbats disparage our Armed Forces during a time of war, and seek to defund our mission in Iraq.

Look, I'm all about liberty. Really, I am. I believe that we get the government that we deserve. But the fact of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot of really, really stupid people out there on the left, and they've got a much sexier message than those of us on the right.

After all, what sells better to the working class: "We want to raise your wages through the force of law," or "if you work harder to improve your station in life you can?"

The truth isn't always easy, and it isn't always popular, but it is still the truth.

What the Liberal Media isn't Telling You - Part 1

Among other things...

Not everyone hates George W. Bush, especially not all Republicans.

DDT is not as dangerous as malaria.

Phil Gramm behind him.

Democrats pander to the evangelical block as much as Republicans.

Hillary wants the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds. Something bothers me about this.

OK, I know, I know. I've heard it. The Confederate flag, even if it doesn't represent slavery or racism to Bo and Luke Duke, it does represent slavery or racism or something to Jesse Jackson and his friends, so it's offensive. It's about reception as well as intention. Fine, fine. I disagree, but I'm tired of this particular argument for a while. We can revisit it another time.

I'm not even upset at the hypocrisy of Hillary. She never suggested removing the Confederate star from the Arkansas state flag, or pulling down the "lone star" Republic of Texas flag down off of the Texas Statehouse grounds. (Although, that would be a fun one to watch. Can you imagine the hell that Hillary would catch?)

And, honestly, the "support the troops from South Carolina by removing the Confederate flag, yet let's demand Bush bring them home without victory" argument is, by any logical estimation, flawed at best. But, that's not new, we've seen it a lot from Hillary. And I'm sure we'll see a hell of a lot more. That doesn't especially bother me today.

Nope. My big problem is this:

Hillary Clinton is a Senator. From New York. She thinks she needs to dictate to another State, South Carolina, what it should and should not do with its flags.

Hillary Clinton wants to be President. Of the United States. As which she, we should assume, would actually think she had the power to dictate to a state, like South Carolina, what it should do with its flags. Now, that is scary, my friends.