Posted on 11/06/2007 7:05:11 AM PST by Calpernia
U. S. Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, has spent the better part of the last decade running for president. He actively sought the office in 2000 and lost handily to George W. Bush. Since that time, he has done everything he could think of to antagonize the base of his own party.
Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-TN, acts as if the thought of running for president just occurred to him five minutes ago. Some days he acts as though it still hasn't occurred to him.
For very different reasons, these two men, with their totally different approaches to politics, have probably slammed the door on their chances for winning the Republican presidential nomination.
In 2000, McCain was the darling of the mainstream media. Back in those days, he was the anti-Bush, which appealed to them. This year his worldview is anathema to theirs because he has unapologetically defended "Bush's war."
But McCain's unpopularity within his party stems from two other issues: illegal immigration and campaign finance reform.
On immigration, McCain seems to have learned his lesson. In what radio host and bestselling author Laura Ingraham would call a "Power to the People moment," McCain (along with a lot of other members of Congress), has gotten the message loud and clear: border enforcement first.
"I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift," McCain said to reporters after being grilled by voters in South Carolina. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."
Too bad it took a meltdown of the congressional phone lines last June to convince the senator of the common sense of the American people. Until he saw his poll numbers sink to single digits, McCain seemed absolutely oblivious to - nay, defiant of - the people's will. Nevertheless, those of us who have been incredulous to the deafness of the president and far too many members of Congress on this issue welcome Sen. McCain into the bright light of reason on this issue.
While "comprehensive immigration reform" (better known as "amnesty"), is dead, the legislation for which John McCain is best known is still alive and festering within our political system. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president will be haunting us for years, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has struck down certain provisions of the law. For that reason, it has left the base of the Republican Party with a permanent bad taste for McCain's brand of politics.
Fred Thompson's alienation from the GOP activists who comprise the nominating block of the party is much more recent. In fact, it unfolds like a wet blanket of sad disappointment day by day. Desperately seeking a candidate to rally around, social conservatives keep waiting for Fred Thompson to show them p something.
His recent underwhelming performance on "Meet the Press" did not help. Asked about his positions on abortion and same-sex marriage, Thompson, who has a respectable record on both issues, managed to flub his answer. He told host Tim Russert he opposes to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution on either issue, preferring to leave these two crucial social issues to the individual states. As Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family has pointed out, Thompson endorses the idea of fifty different definitions of marriage. The same is true, it seems, on the definition of life, since Thompson simply wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue returned to the states.
In addition, Thompson seemed muddled and indecisive about his opinion on water boarding as a technique for dealing with terrorist detainees.
With less than two months remaining until the Iowa caucuses, it is likely that Fred Thompson and John McCain will both continue to decline in the polls, while former Governors Mitt Romney (Massachusetts) and Mike Huckabee (Arkansas) will continue to gain on the current frontrunner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. So be it.
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor.
Well, there is no doubt money and power can corrupt a lot of people. Look at Duke Cunningham, Vietnam War Ace, now serving time for bribery/corruption.
Even so, I think normalizing and maintaining economic trade relations would do more to search for POWs (i.e. greater access) than not.
And as a vet, I don’t have a problem with it.
Now the idea of whether or not John McCain has been involved in some “cabal” of international capitalism at the expense of possible searches of burial/crash sites, or even vietnamese-held americans, seems to me...........disturbing at the minimum, and shameful at the most. But I am not an expert on these affairs, and with that said, I agree we should make as much efforts as possible towards bringing home all POW/MIAs and/or remains.
But,...nothing wrong with keeping big govt on their toes. Conspiracies do, on an occasion, become truth.
I disagree.
Since Bush was elected, McCain slowly came around to support Bush many times over, especially in Iraq. Now when things started looking less successful in Iraq, McCain starting griping about using a different approach, and making Iraqis more accountable, and a minimum, not leave on summer vacation.
I like McCain on many issues, except his immigration stance. But if Duncan Hunter starts gaining steam, who knows.
There is no perfect conservative candidate. What we as conservatives have to decide is come primaries, which candidate best reflect the conservatives values on all the range of issues, AND, who can take out the dem nominee.
That’s the bottom line. If Duncan Hunter or Huckabee can’t gain traction on the dem nominee, what then come primary time? Vote for a repub nominee that has no chance in the national election, because you want to be principled? Let me tell you, its hard to be principled when you are not in office and you have a wackjob dem president paying back promises to all the little wackjobs that got her elected. But, we always have talk-radio, right? Wait, you can’t make laws with talk-radio, or appoint Supreme Court justices. Hmmmmm. Never mind.
>>>Even so, I think normalizing and maintaining economic trade relations would do more to search for POWs (i.e. greater access) than not.
Uh, no. The embargo wouldn’t have been lifted.
“As far as who I’m voting for, it will have nothing to do with the polls”
That’s wishful thinking. This is the time period that most big money people are getting out in public on who they will support in the primaries. And typically after the primaries, the losers will publicly state who their supporters should vote for. Now, that doesn’t mean that that’s how the supports will vote, but it has a lot of sway, when both the loser, and winner, are standing holding hands up for all the nation to see. The days of the Dark Horse candidate are not here, but only as third party candidates. Perot showed some efforts toward this with his percentage, but that was more of a measurement of conservative frustration.
what do you mean?
Kerry even threatened people to ensure no one would tell.
The fact is that Fred is still second in the polls. The author talks about Fred not seeming prepared and being muddled and indecisive about his answers on things such as abortion. However, Freds answers aren't muddled. They are consistent with small federal government, states rights beliefs.
Instead of addressing Freds stance on those issues and the reasoning behind that stance, the author just casts vague dispersions on Fred. The author doesn't really address his stance on the issues at all. It is a fluff opinion piece with no meat. That makes it a bit difficult to really counter because there is really nothing to the article to counter, except the fact that he is asserting that Fred doesn't have a chance and isn't getting support, which is in direct conflict with the poll results.
My approach is to google the author, check out his recent work, and draw a reasoned conclusion based on facts.
Well, that tells me he was a former political speech writer and a little bit more about his opinions. However that doesn't really have much to do with the credibility of this particular article, because this article isn't about the author, it is about Fred and McCain. Which is an interesting pair to lump together, especially with the comment of too little too late since McCain has been in the race since well before there was a race and got most of his early high poll scores from name recognition.
Reading about the author also shows me that he knows the issues that he is glossing over in this article. He's not choosing to write a fluff piece because he's uninformed.
He's either glossing over the issues because he doesn't think it is important to inform readers while persuading them, or because he feels informing them is counterproductive to persuading them the way he wants. Since he's a former political speech writer, I'm guessing the latter.
-— The future of this country is depends on Fred winning the nomination.-—
Best pick up that passport then. If the future of our country is that tenuous, we’re domed anyway.
I’m starting to think the ticket is going to be McCain/Paul because the GOP has simply walked off the deep end.
looks that way to me as well
Is that supposed to be a brag? He's second to a NYC liberal who is DESPISED by the conservative base. How do you explain that?
The author specifically mentioned Fred's answer on abortion, which clearly disappointed a lot of right to lifers. And questions on torture. I personally think you can add his uninformed answers re: the Kay report.
As for George H. Bush being “by far the leading front runner before the NH primaries”, don’t know about that:
“As the 1970s came to a close, Former Governor Ronald Reagan was the odds-on favorite to win his party’s nomination for president (after nearly beating incumbent President Gerald Ford just four years earlier). He was so far ahead in the polls that campaign director John Sears decided on an “above the fray” strategy. He did not attend many of the multicandidate forums and straw poll events held in the summer and fall of 1979.
However, George Bush, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and chairman of the Republican National Committee, taking a page from the George McGovern/Jimmy Carter playbook, did go to all the so-called “cattle calls”, and began to come in first at a number of these events.
In January of 1980, the Iowa Republicans decided to have a straw poll as a part of their caucuses for that year. Bush’s hard work paid off, and he defeated Reagan by a small margin. Bush declared he had the “Big Mo” (for “momentum”), and with Reagan boycotting the Puerto Rico primary in deference to New Hampshire, the victorious Bush looked like he might actually beat Reagan to the nomination.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1980
The point is, yes, we all know that there is one vibrant conservative candidate out there with great name recognition nation-wide, along with national support. The conservatives are split up for various reasons. But when things get to the end and you are in that voting booth on primary day, who will you be voting for? unwavering principle smartly saluting as the ship goes down, or victory over ‘hell’?
As for George H. Bush being “by far the leading front runner before the NH primaries”, don’t know about that:
“As the 1970s came to a close, Former Governor Ronald Reagan was the odds-on favorite to win his party’s nomination for president (after nearly beating incumbent President Gerald Ford just four years earlier). He was so far ahead in the polls that campaign director John Sears decided on an “above the fray” strategy. He did not attend many of the multicandidate forums and straw poll events held in the summer and fall of 1979.
However, George Bush, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and chairman of the Republican National Committee, taking a page from the George McGovern/Jimmy Carter playbook, did go to all the so-called “cattle calls”, and began to come in first at a number of these events.
In January of 1980, the Iowa Republicans decided to have a straw poll as a part of their caucuses for that year. Bush’s hard work paid off, and he defeated Reagan by a small margin. Bush declared he had the “Big Mo” (for “momentum”), and with Reagan boycotting the Puerto Rico primary in deference to New Hampshire, the victorious Bush looked like he might actually beat Reagan to the nomination.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1980
(Oops) The point is, yes, we all know that there is NOT one vibrant conservative candidate out there with great name recognition nation-wide, along with national support. The conservatives are split up for various reasons. But when things get to the end and you are in that voting booth on primary day, who will you be voting for? unwavering principle smartly saluting as the ship goes down, or victory over ‘hell’?
Unfortunately I explain it by the conservative base not making up the majority of the Republican Party, or at least not an overwhelming majority.
There are also a lot of people that really don't follow politics that closely, but still answer questions when polled, and Rudy definitely has name recognition. A lot of people recognize Fred's face from TV, but a lot more know Rudy by name than Fred.
If you think that the majority of the Republican Party are strongly conservative, why were Bush and McCain the front runners in '00, and McCain was kind of considered the more conservative of the two.
The author specifically mentioned Fred's answer on abortion, which clearly disappointed a lot of right to lifers.
Yes it did. However, the author only vaguely mentioned it rather than addressing it. Fred's answer still means he's planning on working to overturn Roe vs. Wade. It doesn't mean he's pro-abortion like Rudy. Fred's belief in state's rights has a lot better chance of resulting in the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and having abortion become illegal at least in some states than an anti-abortion amendment has of getting ratified.
His answer is not bad news for pro-lifers, even though it is being spun that way, and it is a lot better than the empty promises of those who have been consistent supporters of abortion in the past.
And questions on torture.
Even the attorney general nominee refused to give a blanket answer on water boarding because he didn't have the security clearance to look at the information on how it had actually been used.
The whole water-boarding issue is being constructed by the liberal media to get people to oppose people that will try and give a solid, rational answer. If they try and give an honest and responsible answer the press will trash them by with attacks that compel an emotional response.
Liberals will just lie in response to such a question and say what they think people will like to hear. The lie won't come back to haunt them, because liberals expect their politicians to lie and never hold them accountable, they only attack conservatives (or at least Republicans) who lie, or who they concoct a story about them lying such as they have with Bush.
I personally think you can add his uninformed answers re: the Kay report.
There isn't a politician running for either party that hasn't been uninformed on a variety of topics. No one knows everything. However, Fred is the one the press and a lot of pundits are beating up over every little thing because they have decided that attacking him as lazy and uninformed if a good approach.
Once again it is also an argument about form, not function. Are you really suggesting that being able to B.S. your way through questions you don't know the answers to, or ignoring the question and talking about what you want to talk about instead like a lot of the other candidates do makes them better Presidential candidates? What is makes them is less honest and less genuine.
By the way, if Roe v Wade is overturned, we WILL have 50 states with 50 different laws on abortion. Just to clear that up...
And Reagan was lazy and unmotivated too, as I remember!
too little + too late = for fred.
“why is Fred doing BETTER than Romney in most polls”
Because Fred is still coasting on name recognition, Arthur Branch, and there has not been a real election yet.
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