[Ikemeister]

We’re short of Republicans this year. McCain, Huckabee, and Rudy are both rinos too. Thompson is the only one left who has a shot.

[Jim Noble]

Thompson is the only one left who has a shot.

A shot at what?

The nomination, or the Presidency?

[jveritas]

There is a very important reality that political junkies do not realize when it comes to Presidential elections. It is the extreme importance of the likability factor and the connections to regular voters who do not analyze and dissect every aspect of a candidate. In Presidential elections it is the messenger likability and connections to regular voters that make him win elections and not his purity on the ideological issues. First they have to like and then they listen to his message.

Hillary Clinton fatal flaw is that she is the most unlikable and meanest political candidate to run for President in decades and that is why she is not going to win the Presidency no matter how hard she, her husband and the media try.

Fred Thompson is by far the winner among conservative and republican political junkies, including Rush Limbaugh, because after detailed dissection of all candidates, they found out that from pure ideological point of view he is the most conservative. According to the political junkies he who is the purest must be the nominee. However all this does not matter, as long as Fred Thompson is not connecting with the regular voters, the non political junkies, then he is not going to win the nomination or anything else.

I know that many Fred Thompson followers on FR are not going to like it, some of them are great FReepers and good FRiends, but that is my analysis and I strongly believe it.

[RFEngineer]

“We’re short of Republicans this year”

Depends on what it means to be a Republican. I know what it used to mean, but it’s been quite a while since that was was relevant.

Of course, this takes this thread into dangerous territory - this is where folks start telling conservatives “a vote for _______ (insert actual conservative GOP candidate name here) is really a vote for Hillary”

Which then degrades to “Do you want to vote on principle, or do you want to win”

Which can lead to: “Well, at least RINO candidate A is not as bad as Dem candidate B”

Which invariably leads to “Because of YOU (finger pointed in chest of conservative voter) the GOP is going to lose....you are a traitor and a socialist - (or worse)”

Republican used to mean you had at least bedrock principles, from which you were loathe to deviate. Now it means big government & big spending, among other things.

I think Romney fits quite well in a GOP headed by the present crop of Republican party leaders, including GWB.

So, it really depends on what the meaning of “Republican” is.....