Posted on 01/25/2008 10:02:32 AM PST by BplusK
With Thompson dropping out of the presidential race, his conservative supporters are wondering who to support now. He has not yet endorsed one of the remaining candidates. There are four viable Republican candidates left; Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Giuliani. Giuliani is unacceptable to the kind of conservative who was supporting Thompson, because of his liberal social views and reputation as a moderate. He has yet to win a primary and may drop out of the race if he doesn’t win Florida. McCain and Romney are currently tied for the lead in Florida polls.
McCain is leading national polls, but Huckabee and Romney have more delegates than he does so far, which is what will ultimately determine the primary outcome. Huckabee is expected to do well on Super Tuesday, February 5, when 21 states, including quite a few southern states, will be holding their primaries. Many of those primaries are closed, so Independents won’t be able to vote in the Republican primary, which had helped McCain.
Although not quite as liberal as Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney and McCain have problems with their records which have made conservatives hesitant to support them. Rush Limbaugh said yesterday this may be the first election he doesn’t support a Republican.
Huckabee’s record on fiscal issues is troubling. However, his record on social issues is outstanding and he is to be admired for not hiding the fact he’s a Christian. Compare this with John McCain, who not only has a poor record on fiscal issues such as tax cuts, but also has a poor record on social issues, receiving only a 65 rating in the most recent rating from the American Conservative Union, lower than even Nebraska’s Senator Chuck Hagel who received a 75. He's also referred to conservative Christian leaders who didn't support him as "agents of intolerance," comparing them to Louis Farrakhan. National talk radio hosts like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can’t stand McCain, and columnist George Will recently said he’s no maverick, he’s really just a Democrat. McCain received a 75 rating from National Right to Life, and Brent Bozell reported yesterday that McCain aides whispered to reporters that he wasn’t really that opposed to abortion and would come around on gay rights. McCain is disliked by the Republican party base and conservatives in Arizona, who consistently rate him as the most unacceptable candidate for president. Last year the chairman of the Maricopa County GOP wore a sticker that said “McCain 2008” crossed out.
Romney claims to be a conservative now that he’s running for president, and to his credit, did make some changes his last year or so in office, such as signing a bill banning partial-birth abortion. However, supporting Romney is a big gamble, since the pattern is that most candidates tend to run conservative then become more liberal after they enter office.
Yesterday Duncan Hunter endorsed Huckabee. Hunter was one of the most solid conservatives in the race, so this endorsement should not be taken lightly. Even libertarian Neil Boortz appears to be supporting Huckabee, because of his Fair Tax plan which would eliminate the IRS. At this point, Huckabee is looking like the best remaining viable candidate for conservatives to support.
The only place for paleoPaulie, a wholly owned subsidiary of Al Qaeda, is in the mental hospital of the nanny state or any other state. Fortunately, he is being appropriately crushed and has become irrelevant. Americans know a nutcase when they see one.
Never saw that video before, even though I’d seen the link passed around.
Wow. That about clinches it for me. He also makes for a really poor debater.
As much as I loathe him, I loved the rejoinder: “...I am pro-choice, my opponent is multiple-choice” by Ted Kennedy.
What’s hilarious is that same response can be used for the likes of Hillary, and John Kerry.
pro gun,
anti abortion,
no bennies for illegals,
a pardon for the border agents,
How could you waste your vote like that?
Mike Huckabee = Jimmy Carter
I’m still votin for Fred!
We already mailed in OUR absentees in CA for Fred, and I’m not ashamed of it. I WILL say, though, that I’ll feel bad for my haste IF it turns out that Romney (my “next choice down”) narrowly loses to McCain.
Depends on what's most important to you.
On the 2nd Amendment and social issues, Huckabee is clearly superior to his rivals.
As a practical matter, El Run Paulie is not going to do anything about "illegal" immigration either. He is allergic to the kind of taxes it would take to close the borders and the shorelines. He has voted against funding a fence.
I am going to vote for Fred.
Legally, he is still on the ballot.
I see us going into a disputed convention, and Fred would be the victor there, especially if he gets a decent number of delegates.
Vote for Fred. Write in, if need be.
LOL.
Fred is a professional Republican politician. I am not; I am a conservative. Of course he will support the Republican nominee. I won’t, unless the nominee understands that conservatism is an integrated political philosophy, not a checklist of unrelated issue positions to be taken as necessary for pandering to particular interest groups.
Romney’s entire life history demonstrates that he doesn’t subscribe to or even understand what conservatism is all about. I would rather have an overt liberal in the White House so we can all be wholeheartedly in opposition than a covert liberal some conservatives will feel constrained to support. Yes that means I would prefer Hillary.
Don’t talk to me about judges. I expect more Souters from Romney and more Breyers from Hillary. Who cares? In fact, I’ll go for what’s behind door #2. At least Breyer has a brain. Souter is scary. He’s Norman Bates with a law degree.
Don’t talk to me about the “War on Terror.” Romney couldn’t even confront three raving lunatics on the MA SJC and tell them that the MA state government wasn’t issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples as long as he was Governor. Is that the sort of guy who can defend America against the nutjobs who want us all dead?
Mitt’s got nice hair. He wears beautiful suits and wears them as well as anyone since Cary Grant. But he is a weenie and a liberal weenie at that. Who’s going to be more agressive in the world, Romney or the harpy from New York via Arkansas and Illinois? My money’s on Hillary.
If Romney is the nominee I won’t vote. Ditto Giuliani. Either McCain or the Dogpatch dipstick would drive me to vote for Hillary. Neither one of them has the minimal intellectual equipment necessary to be an adequate POTUS. Hillary may be evil but she is not stupid. Evil can be contained, stupidity in the White House right now could easily prove fatal.
I would rather have an overt liberal in the White House
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so vote for Huck
sadly the republican party does not have anyone running that can win
sadly the republican party does not have anyone running that can win
I wish John Bolton was running for Pres, he seemed pretty good from everything I read about him.
Who’s the Constitution party running?
Romney or Rooty just plain can’t win without the pro-life and pro-gun voters and they will never get them.
There are just too damn many former Dem voters that switched to Republican over the gun issue. Take that issue away and they will go back to voting RAT!
McCrazy isn’t that great on the gun issue now but he has been in the past.
Rooty and Mutt just flat suck on the gun issue and have a solid record of gun grabbing.
Huck is good on those issues but he will turn off the fiscal parts of the base.
Mutt or Rooty nomination = landslide loss in Nov.
I’m not going anywhere. Fred’s still on my State’s ballot and I’m gonna vote for him!
If Paul hadn’t gone moonbat on the war, I’d be right there with you. On everything else, he’s spot on.
Do you really believe the 2nd Amendment and social issues are divisible from the rest of the conservative catechism? Huckabee is a populist. He clearly believes that it is the government’s job to care for us all and to make our lives easier. Hence the smoking ban and all the horse manure about equality. Nobody can be an effective advocate for life or marriage if they also believe in the nanny state.
A government that treats its citizens like children can’t simultaneously demand that they shoulder adult responsibilities. If you buy into the leftist view that we are all hapless victims who need constant protection from the state you can’t indefinitely support rigorous moral views designed for responsible adults. Leftism will move you inexorably toward accepting a “right to choose” and a moral equivalence between marriage and any sexual alliance some people may find gratifying.
Lots of Catholic leftists have turned away from pro-life views over the years (Kennedy, Gephardt, Kucinich)largely because the internal logic of their leftism forced them to. Huckabee is just a bit behind them on the same road. He is busy destroying the social fabric that makes traditional morality possible. He isn’t good on social issues at all.
Similarly, do you really believe that our 2nd Amendment rights can be secure in a society that adopts the Huckster’s view of the proper relationship between the state and its citizens? No government that treats us like children is going to trust us with weapons indefinitely. It doesn’t matter what a candidate says about the 2nd Amendment. If he promotes dependency on the nanny state he is moving us toward the kind of weapons confiscation we have already seen in the socialist UK. Huckabee’s statements about constitutional law are particularly insignificant because he understands as much about the Constitution as a pig understands about Sunday.
Huckabee is a disaster for everything conservatives hold dear. Conservatism is not divisible. It is an integrated theory of government. You are either a consistent conservative or you are no kind of conservative at all, as Pastor Mike is showing us every day on the campaign trail.
It is, however, a fair point that all the other candidates are showing us pretty much the same thing. This Fredhead is securely in the stay home and sulk camp.
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