Fred?
Or please God, don’t make me vote for /20~ p@\/1
It’s disappointing. I want Fred to win. But it appears that it’s over barring some miracle. I said the same thing about South Carolina, so it’s time to realize that the miracle just ain’t gonna happen. I hope he can turn it around but that’s unlikely. Fred is not media friendly. He takes complex positions on issues that don’t fit neatly into soundbytes. He doesn’t have catchy jingles. And the media can’t go with that. As Bob Krumm said, Since the media only print sentences don’t talk in paragraphs.
If Fred drops, then who? Err, nobody. I don’t like anyone in the Republican field. So, like I did last year, I’ll waste my vote on the crazy libertarian guy in protest. For the second election in a row, I would rather waste my vote on the crazy guy than any contender the establishment offers.
The only other thing I have to say is I hope it’s not Romney. I mean, a Romney v. Hillary or Romney v. Obama is no choice at all.
Bob Krumm on lessons learned. Additionally, Bob is advocating contributing to Fred and Bob is putting his money where his mouth is.
AC has extensive thoughts as well.
Update: Glenn has more, including: Some people think it’s time to teach the party a lesson. Fine, but I thought 2006 was supposed to do that. Did they learn anything?
Apparently not.
Update 2: In comments, Xrlqy Wrlqy reminds me that this is also a game of longball:
If you think I’m exaggerating when I say the next 20+ years, consider the infamous Ninth Circuit. Nearly all the judges on that circuit who make it so notoriously whack are Carter appointees. Think long and hard about that before throwing your vote away in November.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
I thought it was very telling taht the first report I heard on the South Carolina primary was on the radio, and every candidate got a blurb…. except Fred.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:09 am
Yeah, same here, except my vote (in the general election) won’t be a vote for the Republican as a vote against the Democrat. Whichever one it is, we’ll be in big trouble if they get into office.
At least we have SOME pull with the Republican candidate.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am
The Republican party has pretty much left me.
I fear a Republican party which has, by and large, morphed into the Democratic party (except for abortion and one or two other issues) more than I fear a HRC presidency.
I suspect that I am not alone.
If Fred is not on the ticket as a VP, I doubt that I will vote Republican.
I think that conservatives Llike myself) will have more pull with the Republican Party when it is trying to get our votes back than when it takes us for granted.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Uncle –
I’m right there with you. If no pro-gun, limited government conservative is on the GOP ticket, then I will be researching the third party candidates and effectively throwing my vote away.
Cheers,
Rob
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
For me, that started 1984. There hasn’t been a D or an R nominee worth voting for in all that time.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Add me to that list as well. Without Fred in the running there’s no one left representing my perspective. I simply won’t prostitute my vote again to some undeserving and media pandering RINO.
Que sera, sera.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
At this point, the best we can hope for is Romney or Guiliani. McCain would be OK on the Second Amendment but not the First, and so-so on everything else. Huckabee would be great on the Second Amendment, and horrible on everything else. [Paul would be worse still, but who are we kidding, he isn’t going to win a single state, let alone the party nomination.]
Any of this sorry lot would be far better than either Hillary or Obama, though. As to foreign policy, none of the serious Republican candidates are interested in handing over Iraq to al-Qaeda, which is more than I can say for any of the three Democrat contenders (including the two who voted to invade the country in the first place). Domestically, the next four years may suck more-or-less equally, but given the judicial appointments, the 20+ years that follow will not. Much as I despise John McCain’s speech-control fetish, the chances of that dreadful law being repealed by Congress are slim to none. Indeed, the most likely way to get rid of that law may well be for President McCain to appoint strict constructionists to the bench to strike down his own law.
If you think I’m exaggerating when I say the next 20+ years, consider the infamous Ninth Circuit. Nearly all the judges on that circuit who make it so notoriously whack are Carter appointees. Think long and hard about that before throwing your vote away in November.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
For all the people who want to teach the Reps a lesson by sitting this one ou t:
Sure, vote for some no-chance nut like R.P., or better yet, don’t vote at all, just stay home and hold your breath until you turn blue and pass out. By the time you wake up, HRC or Obama will have signed some UN treaty on civilian disarmament, which their Attorney and Solicitor Generals will argue supersedes the constitution, and the Demo majority in the Senate will ratify. Then you can decide if you really have the brass to haul your AR-15 out of the closet and “oppose tyranny.” My guess, that having folded your tent so quickly on the political front, you will won’t be able to surrender that AR-15 quick enough.
Borrowing from Xrlq, think about what our chances in D.C. vs Heller would look like right now if Al Gore had been the one filling Supreme Court vacancies right now.
If you think somehow that with HRC or Obama in the Whitehouse that the next SCOTUS vacancy will have a chance of being filled with a individual rights judge, or that the ATF is going to start to behave, or the the DOJ won’t flipflop on its individual rights interpretation, or that ALL the US District Attorneys won’t be fired and replaced with leftist, antigun types, or if taxes on ammo won’t be jacked to the stratosphere, or that hunting and concealed carry on Federal land won’t be squelched even further than it is now, or that gunpowder and ammo won’t be regulated as explosives, or that there won’t be licenses required for 5-gun “arsenals,” or for more than X number of rounds of ammo….
Sure, go ahead, punish the Republican party.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
He takes complex positions on issues that don’t fit neatly into soundbytes.
Like what?
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Also, granting that for a moment, think about how that plays out in the general election. I remember a certain Democrat whose “complex positions that don’t fit neatly into soundbytes” made him an easy target for ridicule.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Please, folks: soundBITES. We’re talking about marketing technology here, not computer technology.
Sigh. Are we forever doomed to lesser-of-two-evils elections?
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Are we forever doomed to lesser-of-two-evils elections?
As long as we have a winner-takes-all plurality system, yes.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Oh, and the bytes/bites thing bugs me, too. I just forgot the snarky [sic] tag. 🙂
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Eric pretty much hit the nail on the head. You will never get your perfect candidate. It’s not going to happen. I wanted Fred too, but Fred isn’t looking too good at this point in the race. Ron Paul is a waste, of more than just a vote. Huckabee is done for, it would seem. It’s really down to Romney and McCain. Romney is unacceptable to me, but McCain is “good enough” given my choices at this point. Even with Romney though, Hillary or Obama is a disaster. We’re in trouble if either of those two win, and the Democrats keep doing better in Congress.. The tiger has not changed its stripes, it’s just waiting for us to get complacent and start fighting amongst ourselves.
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
“The only other thing I have to say is I hope it’s not Romney. I mean, a Romney v. Hillary or Romney v. Obama is no choice at all.”
It is so much of a no choice at all that I suspect they could all pass the same exact physical examination.