Posted on 01/02/2012 7:19:06 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Tomorrow less than 20 percent of registered Republicans in Iowa are going to tell us who they believe should take on President Obama. Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who has bypassed the caucuses, said last week that Iowa picks corn, not presidents. Is he correct?
Well, if you ask Mike Huckabee, he would say yes. But on the other hand, Obama did win the state.
Iowa’s importance will be in whittling down the field of contenders. It is most likely going to claim several conservatives, which means that their voters could flock to another right-wing candidate — not necessarily the frontrunner.
If Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich gets an Iowa bump, as Huckabee did, you can expect establishment Republicans to once again pound the message that voters have to nominate a moderate to win the presidency.
This theory makes sense for the commonwealth, because we are the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. That’s why U.S. Sen. Scott Brown does not vote as conservatively as we all want.
However, the rest of the nation is not Massachusetts, so GOP voters can hold out for a Ronald Reagan conservative.
For years the Democrats believed they could not nominate an ultra-left-winger and win the presidency. That was one of the major reasons given in 2004 to end Vermont’s former Gov. Howard Dean’s candidacy. Obama trashed that hypothesis.
Compared to Barack, Hillary Clinton looks like Margaret Thatcher.
In 2008, Republicans dutifully nominated U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Despite publicly criticizing then-President George W. Bush on federal spending, McCain was otherwise an establishment moderate because of his record of being part of the Senate Gang of 14 and a supporter of amnesty for illegal immigrants.
When Republicans select a moderate, the nominee cannot run to the middle to win over voters. Actually, the candidate has to do the opposite to make sure there is no base abandonment.
Moderation can impel Republicans to stay home rather than vote, as we saw in the disastrous 2006 and 2008 elections. GOP voters were angry at our elected officials for increasing spending, growing entitlements, etc. They repaid them by refusing to vote.
Being a shrewd politician, McCain tried to motivate the base by picking Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin.
It wasn’t enough to retain conservative voters when he stumbled over the market meltdown, and in the end, even moderates such as Colin Powell ditched McCain.
We have been there and done this moderate candidacy against Obama. Are we going to repeat this unsuccessful model?
I'm still 100% for Newt. But if Newt blows up, I would not be too unhappy with Santorum.
Well since moderate McCain, conservative Huck, and fake conservative Romney were the final three last cycle, I guess you were most likely a Willard guy.
Or a McCain mushy moderate stooge.
Btw, I wrote in Mike Huckabee versus Obama.
Sorry, the last three standing were McCain, Huckleby, and Paul. Not Romney.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_States_Republican_presidential_candidates,_2008
On March 4, 2008, John McCain became the Republican presumptive presidential nominee when he obtained the 1,191 delegates necessary to receive the party’s nomination.[2] Mike Huckabee announced his withdrawal from the race later in the evening.[3] McCain’s last remaining competitor in the race, Ron Paul, withdrew on June 12, 2008.[4]
I can’t see them working together.
They hate each other bad.
Let’s kick them.
We do need the Senate.
Nixon was the last, Ike equally so.
If the Obamanation won Iowa and then the Presidency, it shows the complete idiocy of the caucus Iowans-—of course, McCain was a poor POS as well for the Repubs but a hair bettwer than what the country got-—How is the change coming along for you?
I can see it now. We’re getting fixed to have an another squishy RINO shoved down our throats. We don’t get a candidate anyone but the establisGhent can stand and we lose anyway. Gutless asses. Hope I haven’t offended Jim by trashing Willard the Giant Rat.
Danged Android! “Establishment”
Romney is already in trouble with conservatives. If he's the nominee, and he starts this 'moderate' stupidity, he'll go down in flames even more than John McCain did, unless he finds someone like Sarah, who can woo those conservatives to hold their noses and vote for him.
That won’t work for Romney. Even if he picked Sarah herself as his running mate, it would not help him. They tried that trick before with McCain, so everyone knows it; no one will fall for it again. If the RINOs think a trick like that will help a prevaricator like Romney, they are in for a huge surprise.
George H W Bush?
Nixon was a liberal, by today's standards, and Eisenhower was practically a communist. The top tax rate was 91%!
The way things are going, allowing the media to shoot down everyone to his right who gets close to Romney in the polls, it appears that we are.
We let the media pick McCain, and it appears we're going to let them pick Romney too.
That's because a bloc vote swings disproportionate influence over a) candidates and b) officeholders' voting patterns (studies have shown).
Liberals have educated blacks to bloc-vote, and that plus marginal, fungible, might-disappear-if-you-don't-act-right grantsmanship/political money have allowed them to buy our officeholders out from under us.
Bill Clinton did the same thing. That whole gig he did in the 1980's, joining and then surging to the forefront of the "Blue Dogs" and the Democratic Leadership Council (Dem "moderates) was all dumbshow to position himself where he and his leather-winged consort -- both of them former SDS (New Left) members, first cousins of the Weather Underground back in the day -- could slide into office and then promptly do a) gun control and b) Sovietized health care.
And remember, Hillary tried to wrap her task force in secrecy -- same thing Nancy Pelosi did with the Obamacare bill, telling Congress they had to pass it first before she'd let them look at it(!).
Nixon was the last, Ike equally so.
George H.W. Bush ran as a "kinder, gentler conservative" -- which anyone who knew how to parse the language knew was code for East Coast Sissysquish "Me Too'er". Just another in a long line of nardless, pansified Republican "moderates" going back to Wendell Willkie and Harold Stassen.
Oh, so you like Obama for President and Hillary for VP, giving Biden the shove, as the next Dem ticket?
Obama won't do it. Even he isn't that stupid.
One word: Arkancide. And he knows it.
Concur. He had (has) ties (still) to the Arkansas Stevens political machine that whelped Slick and Beast. In fact, I regard Huck as the Stevenses' double-down bet on a Republican resurgence -- their way to "win" if things turn GOP-ish in the country.
He also made a helluva mi casa, su casa speech to (I think it was) LULAC (or La Raza) in Little Rock in 2003 at their national convention there. He was allllll for immigrants then. And Bill Clinton was sitting on the dais behind him, as were no doubt the Tysons and Bo Pilgrim, too, who've been peopling their chicken-processing operations in Arkansas and Texas (say hello to Rick Perry) with illegal-immigrant Mexicans.
Huckabee's dubious on integrity and associations and a big negative on the illegal-immigration issue.
Matthew Dowd was on Charlie Rose tonight selling Willard's "inevitability" ...... though he was honest enough to notice that Willard has a "flawed candidate" problem, and conservatives flat don't accept him, period.
He predicted Willard would lurch Left in the general, to try to "occupy the center". As if that sort of politics worked anymore in the Age of Alinskyite Personal Destruction.
Oh, and some other bloated, fat RiNO Rat was there, calling a win for Willard in Iowa "game over". He was also lying to us, telling us that Romney is "the one the Obama people are afraid of". Bull hockey. Dowd was selling that, too.
Dowd was at least willing to wait a primary or two ..... and honest enough to outline the Establishment strategy of using lots and lots of money to wear the voters down, shoving Willard in our faces until we give up and give the bastards what they want.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.