Time to Step Up, Fred

If David is saying it, Rush is thinking it! THIS IS HUGE!!

Let’s hope .

Most excellent!

If David is saying it, Rush is thinking it!

Is David using the half of Rush's brain that is tied behind his back just to make it fair?

He is in Iowa and he is proving it. It is nice to see David Limbaugh’s almost endorsement. Rush has pretty much did the same. Ann Coulter aside, who can’t seem to think straight around Mitt. The most conservative of conservatives, the ones who took down Dan Rather and forced Bush’s hand on Miers are largely supporting Fred.

That leaves us with Fred. I must confess that Fred is the only one I don't have major reservations about -- apart from his electability.

I wonder if that means Limbaugh has reservations about Duncan Hunter. It seems to me Hunter is the only one Conservatives would have no reservations about. I realize the guy can't get any traction but that's what puzzles me even more.

Other than that, Limbaugh has hit the nail on the had. As usual.

It’s time to step up, Fred. Conservatives need a leader about whom we have no major reservations. The only one looming out there about you is your failure, so far, to persuade voters you want the job.

All of the GOP candidates are vastly superior to all of the Democrat candidates, but here’s the way I see the field now.

Rudy is a strong leader and very good on national security and the war. But he is a social-issues liberal, whose pledge to appoint originalist judges is encouraging — but not completely convincing.

John McCain is a war hero and a patriot. He has been strong on Iraq but disappointing on Guantanamo, tough interrogation techniques and other war-related issues. He is not a supply-sider and is abysmally bad — obviously — on campaign finance reform and thus free speech. Also profoundly troubling is his history of sycophancy toward the liberal media elite and, in turn, their sporadic love affair with him.

Mike Huckabee, I believe, is a strong and sincere Christian. That means a lot to me. It doesn’t bother me that he wears it on his sleeve — assuming he’s not being exploitive of his religion, and there, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Every candidate’s worldview guides his beliefs and agenda, and it would be far worse for Huckabee to deny the strong influence of his worldview in forming his identity and contributing to his ideology. It’s one thing to be upset with Huckabee if you believe he has used his Christian credentials subtly to highlight and demean Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, but I don’t believe that’s what he’s done. Christians shouldn’t be accused of attacking other faiths when they are simply promoting their own.

My problems with Huckabee concern his political agenda. Huckabee is probably the strongest social-issues conservative, and since his views are driven by his strong faith, I don’t fear he’ll change for expediency or other reasons. But it does bother me that he appears to believe — erroneously, in my opinion — that his faith requires him to endorse an unacceptably expansive role for government. Extremely problematic are his views on foreign policy — applying Golden Rule principles to implacable, deadly terrorists and dictators and sometimes even convicted murderers; his nanny-state, big-government tendencies, including advocating a federal smoking ban, greater government involvement in health care, and opposing school choice; his ambiguous record on taxes; and his pandering to liberals on global warming and class warfare, especially in borrowing from their lexicon to pile on George Bush concerning his approach to Democrats and to foreign policy.

Mitt Romney is a man I’ve warmed to as the campaign has unfolded. I began with great skepticism because of his major, far-too-recent flips on major issues. Certain aspects of his record — even after his conversion — cast doubt on his commitment to the unborn and traditional marriage. He also strikes me as a bit too coiffed, too robotic and too much of a politician. But I do see Romney as a very likeable man who is saying almost all of the right things, pun intended, and who, if he is the man he holds himself to be, will make a great president.

That leaves us with Fred. I must confess that Fred is the only one I don’t have major reservations about — apart from his electability. Yes, I worry that he supported McCain-Feingold and that he might not be a strong supply-sider. But on most issues, he seems reliably conservative and appears to have a solid and strong character. I do believe that with Fred, we know what we are getting.

I find his lack of “fire in the belly” refreshing. He strikes me as one of the few presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan whose primary motivation is not personal aggrandizement but rather serving and leading the nation in very troubled and dangerous times. I see him as almost being drafted into this project, and his refusal to drool publicly over the prospect of becoming the most powerful man in the world is positively delightful.

That said, he needs to make a more convincing case to the voters, which will require a greater display of enthusiasm that he views these as both perilous and promising times and that he is the best man, overall, to navigate the ship of state through these times.

So, Fred, please, as distasteful as it may be to you, it’s time to step up and prove you want it. Time is short.

Here are some words from people I respect on Fred Thompson:

“Fred Thompson has, over his career, much better defined federalism than almost anybody else in Washington. He is one of very few people voting against feel-good popular legislation that was not the proper domain of the federal government.”
-Pat Toomey, President of the Club for Growth

“the genuine moderate as opposed to conservative aspects of three of the top-tier, four of the top-tier candidates were on full-fledged display last night. There was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson.”
- Rush Limbaugh

“he shows great political courage in taking on half of the single most important long-term economic issue facing this country (the other half being the long-term Medicare mess). On this proposal, conservatives ought to be rallying to Thompson’s defense, not greeting him with silence.”
-Quin Hillyer

”Good for Fred. Good for his excellent, broad based, tax-cut plan — including a flat-tax option and a corporate tax cut… Good for Fred for mentioning National Review and Investor’s Business Daily for speaking positively about his candidacy… Good for Fred for showing fire, energy, and animation throughout the interview. It’s the same fire in the belly that I witnessed in our CNBC interview earlier this month.
I vastly prefer positive policy visions to down-in-the-mud trashing. (I know, I know, criticizing each other on the issues is a key part of politics.) But my great hope is that the Republican contenders will emphasize their key policy visions as the race heats up.”
-larry kudlow

”That’s why I’m pleased that Fred Thompson has thrown his hat into the ring. Thompson has been talking and writing about his belief in federalism. In a recent speech, he argued that “centralized government is not the solution to all our problems…this was among the great insights of 1787, and it is just as vital in 2007. Thompson rightly argues that the abandonment of federalism has caused a range of pathologies including a lack of government accountability, the squelching of policy diversity between the states, and the overburdening of federal policymakers with local matters when they should be focusing on national security issues. Federalism “is a tool to promote freedom” as Thompson puts it. So for the supposed heirs to Ronald Reagan who are running for president, let’s hear more about expanding our freedom by cutting the federal government down to constitutional size.”

- Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policies at the CATO Institute

“Fred Thompson says that he will base his campaign on the ‘first principles’ of ‘individual freedom and limited government.’ If he follows through, he will have an opportunity to position himself as the only small-government conservative in the race. … Does Fred Thompson, then, offer an alternative for small-government conservatives? While he is not quite the second coming of Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, a look at his record shows that he has generally supported limited government. … Of course, spending the last several years in Hollywood has enabled Thompson to avoid taking positions on many current issues. Now that he is in the race, he’ll have to be much more specific about his positions. But, given the fact that McCain, Romney, and Giuliani are clearly big-government conservatives, Thompson has an opportunity to seize the small-government mantle.”

- Michael D. Tanner, Director of Studies at the CATO Institute

One reason President Bush has lost the trust of the American people is his secrecy and the extension of the executive arm. Out of all the Republican candidates, only Thompson has clearly made the case of a more open White House. Thompson is a candidate who holds a cautious view of executive secrecy. Matthew Nather, of Congressional Quarterly, thinks this has everything to do with his professional experience.

According to Nather in the 12/20/07 issue of CQ:

”As the counsel in the 1970s to the Republicans on the Senate Watergate Committee and as the Chairman in the 1990s of what is now the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Thompson has much more experience than any other candidate in leading congressional investigations of presidents. He has spent much of his career, in fact, thinking like a prosecutor and standing up for Congressional oversight responsibilities.”

Nather also reminded readers that it doesn’t mean that Thompson would necessarily give away presidential power:

As one of the main authors of the 2002 legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security, Thompson defended Bush’s insistence on having maximum flexibility on hiring and salary decisions for the departments employees. He claimed that a Democratic alternative would “actually diminish the president’s national security authority that other presidents have had.”

Fred Thompson can rally conservative democrats in the general election. None of the other candidates could do it.

I find his lack of "fire in the belly" refreshing. He strikes me as one of the few presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan whose primary motivation is not personal aggrandizement but rather serving and leading the nation in very troubled and dangerous times. I see him as almost being drafted into this project, and his refusal to drool publicly over the prospect of becoming the most powerful man in the world is positively delightful.

And that my FRiends is called a bull’s-eye.

I wish Hunter was doing better. I think he is an unquestionable conservative. That said I’m one hundred percent behind Fred he has that special something. He has had to fight a Press that has tried to lock him out and Christian Judases who have questioned his Christianity. I wish those same word realize their is nothing Christlike in big government and taxes.

Well said. He neglects to mention McCain’s problems with illegal amnesty, but otherwise he gets most of it out there.

He’s a lot more polite than I would be, but no harm in that.

So. It’s not as if Fred isn’t very personable when you see him, but he still evidently needs to break through. Although I must say I don’t really trust the poll numbers. If the folks in FR, through all our discussions and disputes, still overwhelmingly back him, with Duncan Hunter second and all the rest far behind, can the rest of the conservative base be stupid enough to have the wool pulled over their eyes?

Certainly a few nudges from the Limbaughs would not be amiss, because if the party nominates the wrong candidate, our country will be in serious danger of a real disaster. If the wrong person gets the nomination, the Republican party will destroy itself and one of those otherwise unelectable Democrats will walk right into the breach.

There’s no use saying “I’ll vote for anyone with an (R) after his name, because there are millions who won’t. So let’s not settle for second best or even worse.

If El Rushbo could bring Fred back from the dead, he would, but he can’t, so I expect both Limbaughs will be overt and closet Myth Romneybots shortly.

Sounds like a setup for Rush to give national exposure to Fred’s “message to Iowa’s voters” on Wednesday.

From your words to Rush’s ears!!!!

Good article, but hopefully David will watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VblJq4j0_SE

Fred has made an eloquent case. The media is determined to define him as the lazy man who does not want the job. In truth, he is the principled man who simply wants to serve.

If people like David Limbaugh and his brother Rush believe in Fred, as so many of us do, they need to get behind him and help him swim against the tide of the MSM. If they want him to win, it would be a huge help if they and others would dispense some "equal time" by being as vocal and as repetitive against these false claims as those who make them.

I think Rush doesn’t want to endorse in the primary and risk having his endorsement defeated . It wouldn’t look good for him .
His brother David can do it though , as he has far less street cred to lose . This is a quite telling development .

bump

Other than being too nice to Huckabee and McCain, David Limbaugh is where I am and I suspect a lot of other people. My ranking, Hunter, Thompson, Romney, Guliani, Paul, Curly, Huckabee and McCain.