Posted on 01/10/2008 3:51:22 PM PST by darkmatter
Thompson needs to seriously raise his voice and go ‘out of character’ when he calls out Huckabee. He needs to get angry or something. Otherwise, nobody will take notice.
Right on the money.
If McCain was to come unglued in the General election, the GOP would be left with no candidate and in the eyes of the public they would have been guilty of running a person with emotional issues for the highest office in the land.
Do you think that would be a wise thing for the GOP to do? Trust me, they don't.
If it were only that simple...
mitt endorsing obama would not surprise me in the least.
“Well fortunately the cooler political heads at the top of the GOP will do what needs to be done before that will happen.”
Again you have implied that McCain won’t win the nomination (in fact you’ve all but guaranteed it) but McCain is in fact in a position to make a competitive run at it. Cooler heads at the top of the GOP are all well and good except of course the people get to vote. You keep alluding to some secret knowledge that you have, but in real life, if McCain wins SC and continues to gain momentum he’ll be a contender. I have a hard time believing McCain would drop out of a race that it looks like he could win just because some higher ups in the GOP told him he had to. McCain has in the past had no problem at all bucking the GOP.
But one thought.
If you were the big boys at the GOP, and knew what level of risk he is, would you do everything you could politically and then some to contain that risk? His is a unique case.
Think strategically, not personally. Think like a political party hack, think like you are in the backroom, not an individual.
The good thing is it will probably be a moot point in the near future. They were saying the same things about McCain 8 years ago after NH...
But one thought.
If you were the big boys at the GOP, and knew what level of risk he is, would you do everything you could politically and then some to contain that risk? His is a unique case.
Think strategically, not personally. Think like a political party hack, think like you are in the backroom, not an individual.
The good thing is it will probably be a moot point in the near future. They were saying the same things about McCain 8 years ago after NH...
Of course that, but also I would love to see him take McCain on about the Senate expunging fence money from the budget. Also, a b*tch slapping of Britt seems to be overly due..
It’s not complicated. One candidate can show that he backed a winning strategy when others were tippy toeing and engaging in avoidance. Then he asserts that if elected he will get Bin Laden. The others offer no strategic thoughts at all and don’t give any impression that they care about winning. McCain’s numbers go up. What’s complicated?
It’s politics...
BTW except for Huckabee, I have seen little of “avoiding the war” or in Huck’s case dogging Bush, just more discussions on other issues, which there are many others beside the war.
Oh, except Paul, but he doesn’t count really...
Got that right. I'm starting to believe he's only in it at this point to help McCain.
What specific suggestions for winning the war can you name, and by whom have they been made?
Well lets just avoid the point that there is more to all this than just the war, and that is no reason to back McCain becuse of all his other issues.
However, I’ll bite:
http://www.fred08.com/Principles/PrinciplesSummary.aspx?View=OnTheIssues
If you have read any of our articles and our postings here over the year you would understand that there is more to war than you seem to posit and that your “more than just the war” is in fact, in many, many respects part of the war.
You may remember a while back a book that became popular here among strategic thinkers by two ChiCom colonels about unrestricted warfare. After reading it Admiral Moorer remarked to me at the time: “It’s not like they didn’t tell us what they intend to do.” They are doing it and they are quietly encouraging the terrorists to employ what we commonly now call asymmetric warfare, the capability for which is only going to increase because of our technology which we have developed but the Islamic theo-fascists intend to continue using against us more and more to spread their fanatical version of Islam based on oil income, which they believe Allah gave them and we have been stupid to allow to continue.
So long as citizens wear blinders in this regard and have such a narrow view of war so that what is really happening is excluded from our public thinking and discourse, we will not be able to effectively respond.
Here is the first of the ideas from the website you reference: “A larger, more capable, and more modern military that can defeat terrorists, deter adversaries, and defend the U.S. and our interests.” That is a specific idea and a correct one. If we are, as so many keep saying: “stretched too thin,” the obvious answer is to thicken things. President Bush has made a cautious move in this direction, and it will be necessary to greatly expand the effort in that direction, but what is that increase to consist of, at least in broad outline and, most importantly, how will it coordinate with other efforts outside of the traditional concept of warfare and in the arena of unrestricted warfare?
We need more vision and leadership from all the candidates in this regard.
But the public is war weary and needs a break. With the exception of Ron Paul and Huckabee, all the republican candidates seem to be very much intent on continuing the war as it has progressed if indeed not escalate to some extent. Just because it is not the first and last word out of their mouths at every turn does not reduce their comitmtment but acknowledges where things are for the majority of voters right now. Bread and butter issues both related and unrelated to the conflict are in the minds of most.
Anyways, the given example of my candidate, and many others here at FR, Fred Thompson is clear as to what he wants to do. Indeed it seems he wants to re assert the case, something that sadly the Bush administration has not done a great job on, despite being very correct in most of their actions to date.
As far as the initial subject, John McCain, while he has a good if not excellent stance on the WOT, others have one as well without the problems on a number of other Conservative issues that cause concern among a vast majority on Free Republic. They also do not have the risk to the GOP of having an outburst during the General Election that could leave the party high and dry. This is of concern among many at the RNC.
He did.
Yes he did. I hope he keeps up the energy and passion he displayed last night and he can turn this thing around. Hopefully SC will come to its senses put Fred on top.
Thank you. You make our point very well.
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