The "alliance" is not Mitt and McCain, it’s not Thompson and McCain either. Rush had it right yesterday, it is Huck and McCain.
Thompson and McCain are still friends but parted ways sometime ago politically. If Fred still was behind McCain, he would have stayed out of the race. Thompson is not in as his “stalking” horse, that is idiotic to those who know the folks who brought Fred into this thing. Mitt has no ties to McCain at all, and indeed wants to be seen as much more conservative, so there is no relationship there.
The fact that Thompson and Romney are basically ignoring McCain is a good political play that I would not be surprised both are in on along with advisers from the RNC.
The name of the game right now for the RNC is to do away with McCain due to how much risk is involved, and Huck, well because. They will go to extreme measures, at least on McCain, to do this, but if they can force him to implode that would be the best method. One thing that is known is when McCain feels he is being ignored by his rivals, he gets testy in public, and we know what that means.
Getting rid of Huck is another matter and may create what many of us here would have thought was the strangest alliance of all, but to the RNC hacks it is gaining merit, Thompson and Romney. It is known the Mitt has a lot of respect for Thompson and Fred seems to be warming to Mitt. Watch the debates, look at how they have split their efforts.
This is a most unprecedented time for the GOP. Two of the most unlikely contenders, McCain and Huckabee, are threatening. The powers that be are not too fond of either of them (Huck has Ed Rollins working for him for Pete's sake) McCain could sink the GOP if he came unglued in the General or worse the White House (hey look the GOP put a nut in the Oval Office)
Desperate times mean desperate measure, or perhaps creative ones, it is about to get REAL interesting....
No, FRiend, Huck will be dispatched soon enough. He’s a self-destruct sequence waiting to happen.
But McCain and Slick Willard? Two conservatives of convenience with a lust for power? That’s a marriage made in megalomania heaven, or some such place.
Huck thinks he's going to veep to a 72 year old president. Little does he know that McCain will backstab him.
> McCain could sink the GOP if he came unglued in the General or worse the White House (hey look the GOP put a nut in the Oval Office) <
Can’t be said too often!
You know, it would please me very much to believe that's true. But, I don't see it. Right now it looks like Romney's in danger of losing to McCain in Michigan and Thompson's in danger of losing to McCain in SC. A McCain win in either of these states, let alone BOTH of them, would give McCain enough traction to make him nearly unassailable, imo. Never mind the fact that, in the event McCain takes both MI and SC, we'll see a considerably weakened Romney and Thompson, neither of whom may have enough effectiveness remaining to derail McCain.
I’ve never thought it was a strange alliance. They have a good coverage of the country (Tennessee, Michigan, Mass), they really aren’t that far apart politically in their current stated views, and they complement each other well.
Fred’s got a commanding presence and somehow has become known as a solid conservative. He’s got a folksy charm, a command of the facts, and an eye toward detail, and he’s a lot smarter than he projects.
Romney’s got the family/character, he’s a consumate professional, he’s got a 50-state organization that rivals Hillary Clinton’s machine, and he’s a great speaker. He’s also an easy guy to get along with.
I could easily see Fred Thompson with Mitt Romney as Vice President. This would give conservatives a solid team, Romney 4 or 8 years to prove his conservative credentials, and we should be able to win in November.
Problems — Evangelicals aren’t drawn to Thompson, but also have been torn from Romney, so a Thompson/Romney ticket still doesn’t guarantee the evangelical vote.
Mitt is doing OK with votes so far, and delegates. But Thompson isn’t yet. That should change soon, at least we hope, but it’s not longer clear that the two of them would end up with a majority of delegates.
I don’t know that Romney really wants to be a VP, but I’m almost positive Fred Thompson doesn’t. Romney’s not young, so maybe he doesn’t think he can be President in 8 years, but if Fred was only doing a 4-and-out that might work. Fred doesn’t look like he’d last 8 years, much less to an 8-year VP stint followed by another 8 at President.
I know Romney is about the same age, but he looks years younger.
I don’t know. If Romney was going to be President, Thompson probably wouldn’t be the prime choice as a VP candidate — maybe a southern conservative governor would work better. But I could see Romney as a good fit for Thompson, since the only thing Thompson really would need (assuming he was winning enough primaries that he’d be considered for president) is help in the northern states, since he took the southern strategy.
I agree with you about who the most likely alliance is, assuming McCain wouldn’t sell his soul to Rudy Giuliani.