If you didn’t already have enough reasons to vote against Hillary Clinton here’s another: Nobody but Aunt Bee should dress like Aunt Bee.
UPDATED to add the real Aunt Bee.
Comments (2)I just caught a couple minutes of Ralph Bristol’s radio show this morning. He was interviewing local Congressman Jim Cooper. Cooper is the only member of the Tennessee House delegation to have voted against the stimulus package. He thinks that adding another $150 billion to the deficit isn’t how you stimulate the economy. He’s right.
Rep. Cooper has been a spending hawk during his second stint in Congress. He is deeply disappointed at the presidential field, saying that the only candidate who was even talking about the cuts needed in entitlement programs was Fred Thompson, and “You can see what that got him; people don’t want to be told the truth.”
What makes Cooper’s favorable remarks about Fred even more notable was that Jim Cooper was the six-term Democratic Congressman and son of a popular former Tennessee Governor who in 1994 blew a 20-point lead to a novice candidate running for his first elected office: Fred Thompson.
Comments (3)It’s all over talk radio. Local host Steve Gill excoriated the Arizona Senator all morning. The Big One himself has waged a pitched battle against him for days. I even heard the usually GOP-fawning Sean Hannity take McCain to task today.
I don’t get it. Sure, John McCain has disappointed me on some issues. But what elected official hasn’t? Besides, we’re Republicans, not loony Kossacks who froth incoherently every time one of their party doesn’t behave exactly as they demand. No one is going to vote precisely as I would all the time.
John McCain is far better than either of the Democratic candidates, and better even than some of the Republican ones–perhaps even including the one whom all the “conservative leaders” seem to be rallying around.
Here’s James Taranto today on that very subject:
The chief rap on Romney . . . is that he is not a man of conviction–that in his two runs for statewide office in Massachusetts (U.S. senator in 1994 and governor in 2002) he expediently took positions that are very liberal by GOP lights, and that differ drastically from the views he now espouses.
The conservative defense of Romney, we suppose, is that he didn’t really believe those positions, whereas when McCain has departed from the conservative mainstream, he has been sincere and committed. Fair enough. But who is going to be a more loyal supporter in the long run–someone who agrees with you on everything, but insincerely, or someone who agrees with you on some things, disagrees with you on others, and is clear about which is which?
I’m not at all implying that Mitt Romney is dishonest. But I will say that his conversion to conservative principles is so recent that I’d like to see more evidence . . . particularly when, as one blogger pointed out recently, when he was in Iowa he was promising more money for ethanol, in Michigan he supported expensive jobs programs for autoworkers, and was cozying up to the AARP in Florida. That just seems way too contrived for my tastes.
So is this an endorsement of McCain over Romney among the two remaining Republican contenders? No. But I am looking more and more in his direction.
ALSO:
I looked at every post I’ve written in the last three years that mentioned John McCain and I drug up this one from October of 2005. Included in it is a strategy, still valid today, that gives him a great advantage over Hillary.
. . . not having a member of the administration on either ticket changes the usual dynamic [of a presidential race]. It frees both sides to run against the status quo. However, the advantage is still to the incumbent. Democratic challengers . . . will likely be forced to run against everything Bush has done. While a Republican outsider can pick and choose from the President’s policies more selectively.
If, however, a key administration member is the Republican nominee, it may hamstring him or her in blazing a new course. Condi Rice, Tom Ridge, or a close ally like Bill Frist would effectively be campaigning as a sitting vice president looking to succeed Bush. On the other hand, John McCain would be free to run against Bush’s bad policies, while he promises to pursue his good ones. In effect, he could run against the worst of both parties. (Lest that be construed as an endorsement of John McCain, there are less conspicuous—and less acerbic—choices as well: Fred Thompson, Halley Barbour, and John Kasich, to name a few.)
Also note the Fred Thompson reference. I had completely forgotten that I had named him as a presidential possible so long ago. After tonight’s debate, I sincerely wish that he were still in the race.
UPDATE:
An emailer writes that the animosity is due to McCain being “a real prick, which was on evidence tonight.”
The emailer is right. Paul Shanklin does some great parodies of McCain for the Rush Limbaugh show. They all seem to capture that “prickish” sneer.
MORE:
John comments below about how personality as much as position may make McCain anethema to many conservatives. He also adds this:
. . . McCain’s FU attitude towards the party’s core will be a much bigger factor in the upcoming month, but we’ll have to see if voters opt to go with McCain based on his better polling numbers in the general election.
Keep that in mind when you consider that John McCain has not yet received a majority of the vote in any state.
Conventional wisdom is that Mike Huckabee is in the race to “sabotage” the conservative vote in order to help McCain. I think that the opposite is true. While it might help McCain in “winner take all” states, Huckabee’s continued third-wheel presence might just peel off just enough delegates to keep this race from being decided before the convention. While Huckabee probably hopes to make himself kingmaker of either Romney or McCain, I’m obviously hoping for a different king to be crowned.
AGAIN:
While there are many Republicans upset with McCain over policy, it is clear from the comments below that there are almost as many upset with his personality. That’s not a small thing. It’s been more than 30 years since the more likable candidate hasn’t been the winner of a presidential election.
By that standard it doesn’t matter who the Republicans nominate. Either Romney or McCain bests Hillary, while neither could hope to beat Obama.
OTHERS:
Jonah Goldberg is similarly bewildered:
. . this disaster talk leaves me cold. McCain wouldn’t be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he’s the nominee or the president is pretty absurd.
And I find such claims odd coming from some people who’ve insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign.
Jonah adds that he thinks the anti-McCainiacs are either pro-Romney and looking for any hand grenade they can lob, hate McCain and looking for any hand grenade to lob, or that it’s really all about immigration.
If one studies carefully the Clintama answers on the war on terror, illegal immigration, and Iraq then the magnitude of Republican infighting seems surreal. The gulf between Hillary and McCain is Grand-Canyon like. . . If McCain gets the nomination, I would have to believe that the Republican sit-out would only last midsummer until they could not take Sen. Clinton no more, and thus like Lancelot at Camlan belatedly enter the fray.
(ht:GR)
Comments (62)Andrew Ferguson pens a good read about Fred’s doomed campaign. A taste:
My guess is we’ll be missing him dreadfully by spring.
Actually, it’s more a story about us than it is of Fred.
Comments (1)New York’s NOW chapter is outraged that Teddy Kennedy has “betrayed” women by endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.
As James Taranto might say: Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment about which candidate she supports in the Democratic primary.
Comments (1)Various pundits are writing about a possible McCain-Huckabee ticket. I disagree with many of my conservative brethren about John McCain. I’d vote for him over either of the two remaining Democratic candidates. But I do understand that McCain has a lot of baggage with many conservatives. Therefore, it’s important that he choose a strong conservative to allay those concerns. Someone like a Fred Thompson, JC Watts, John Kasich, or Sarah Palin. But NOT Mike Huckabee. He has even less conservative support than does McCain.
So a thought occurred to me: If Hillary wins her nomination through trickery and a McCain-Huckabee ticket opposes her, do you think that we might see the lowest voter turnout ever?
Comments (3)Two weeks ago I asked this:
How do you think Detroit’s largely black population is going to react when they go to the polls tomorrow and learn that
(a) Hillary Clinton is on the ballot
(b) Barack Obama is not on the ballot
(c) Write-in votes are not counted?
Let me add another:
(d) After not voting because their votes weren’t going to count, learning that Hillary’s delegates could be seated at the convention . . . but none for Obama.
After “winning” Michigan and while being ahead 2:1 in Florida four days before the election, Hillary Clinton now wants the votes in both states to count, even when no-one else was on the ballot in Michigan and no one else campaigned in Florida due to a “gentleman’s agreement” between all the Democratic candidates. Ezra Klein calls it “the sort of decision that has the potential to tear the party apart.”
Glenn Reynolds saw this coming a month ago:
[If Hillary wins] by smears, or by clever insider manipulation, then she may lose not only Obama supporters, but black voters who are generally supportive of the Clintons.
Having spent forty years to build to the point where more than nine out of every ten black votes is cast for the Democratic presidential nominee, the Clintons apparently would gladly tear that all down just to win the nomination.
Liberal pundits are starting to take notice. Frank Rich sees the coming Democratic catastrophe, saying that a Hillary nomination through trickery “will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril . . . ” The liberal Newshogger says, “I look at Hillary Clinton’s campaign and I see people lacking in goodwill, overcome by raw ambition, and devoid of principle. Another liberal site says that if Hillary’s shenanigans in Michigan and Florida push her over the top at a divided convention it would produce an “unimaginably acrimonious” result in the Democratic Party.
Not everyone agrees. Media Matters which was founded (by Clinton) to expose conservative media bias (snicker), engages in psychological profiling. (emphasis in original) I really think the evidence-free bias against the Clintons in the media borders on mental illness. The Left Coaster also blames the media and makes the preposterous claim that in the entire history of the Clintons there has been only one actual “scandal,” the one that he dismissively calls the “National Fellatio Crisis.” Tom Watson calls it a “sexist anti-Clinton media onslaught.”Buck Naked Politics even goes so far as to blame Obama’s supporters for the dustup in the primary. Her defenders, incredibly, are being just as divisive as she is, saying that the half of the Democratic Party that doesn’t support Hillary are crazy, lying, misogynistic victims who were asking for it. For all the Republican division this year, even Rush Limbaugh hasn’t gone so far as to attack the supporters of the two GOP candidates he thinks aren’t deserving of the nomination.
Ultimately widening the racial divide in the Democratic Party is a good thing, not just for Republicans, but for blacks and the nation. For too long Democrats have taken blacks for granted while Republicans haven’t taken them seriously. There was nothing the GOP could do to get the black vote while Democrats knew that they could get away with doing nothing and still keep their vote. Perhaps after Hillary “steals” the nomination through trickery she thinks that there will still be time to put the pieces back together. Hopefully, she probably thinks, a black church burning or another black man being dragged to death by a redneck will give her an opportunity she can exploit. Certainly she can depend on Jesse and Al to inflate a crisis out of nothing.
Hillary, ever the product of the sixties, is just following the example of a popular Democrat from that decade: George Wallace. Late in his life the five-term Alabama governor was once asked why he resorted to a racist message. He answered, “You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about [n------], and they stomped the floor.”
Hillary’s Michigan message to Obama and black Democrats is that she’ll stomp on them to get whatever she wants.
Comments (9)Why? Because, just like when voting for president in the general election you’re not voting for the candidate, you’re voting for a delegate. In the absence of my candidate, I have chosen to delegate my vote, my principles, my goals to some people I know and trust.
In Tennessee one can vote for up to twelve delegate who are apportioned statewide, and up to three additional delegates in each of the state’s nine congressional districts. I know many of these people. I can trust them to select the best person for the job when they gather in Minneapolis later this year.
My statewide delegates are Ron Ramsey, who says that he will still support Fred Thompson from the floor of the convention, along with Jim Bryson, Glen Casada, and Mark Norris Dolores Gresham. My district delegates are Beth Campbell whom I know and trust, and me. I wrote in my own name. I don’t expect to go to the convention any more than I expect Fred to win the nomination, but I haven’t wasted my vote. Instead I’m voicing my support for the principles that Fred Thompson espoused.
If you’re a Tennessee Fredhead who hasn’t yet voted and you want to send a message, deliver that message through a trusted delegate. I encourage you to vote for Fred and then select the same delegates: Bryson, Casada, Gresham, Ramsey, Campbell, and Krumm.
*Thanks to Glen in the comments below for pointing out my error. I don’t know what I was thinking. Different West Tennessee Senator, or soon to be senator.
Comments (5)This makes two debates in a row where Fred Thompson was by far the strongest candidate. What do you want to bet that after this snoozefest, Fred’s numbers actually go UP in Florida.
Okay, Rudy gets a consolation prize by virtue of the fact that the New York Times hates him so much, but myself and Stephen Green are probably the only ones still awake at that point . . . and Green probably won’t remember it by morning.
UPDATE:
Andy McCarthy agrees:
Fred will look better and better the longer this process goes on.
Maybe that was Fred’s plan. He was doing better before he was a candidate anyway.
Comments (1)