From the right wing perspective, anyone who doesn’t endorse endless tax cuts for the rich by definition knows nothing about economics.
A nitpick, if you’ll forgive me, since the term keeps coming up: it’s “counsel.”
Really? From all I’ve read, it was widely thought that Edwards would be defeated if he’d run for reelection, as he was by that point recognized as being more liberal than the N.C. electorate (this was the state that reelected Jesse Helms over and over again, after all). That even figured into his calculus to run for president that year, rather than run for reelection to the Senate and then have to turn around and run for president in '08.
That was the idea, but I don’t think it would have turned out that way. Erskine Bowles was no less than Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and has the charisma of plywood, and Richard Burr only managed 52% against him. A good candidate might have taken Edwards down, but Richard Burr was not that candidate.
The American Association of Plywood Manufacturers just called and asked for an apology.
In other Thompson news, Fred Thompson now leads the field in the Daily Rasmussen Tracking Poll. He’s up 4 points on Guliani, and has twice the support of Romney or McCain.
It could just be a ‘Tonight Show Bounce’, and doesn’t mean much other than the Republican field is still wide open. In comparison, Hillary on the Democratic side is currently walking away with it, with 43% of the vote as compared to Obama’s 22% and Edwards’ 16%. Note that between the three of them, they’ve got over 80% of the Democratic vote already committed, so there’s not a lot of room for movement.
Obama’s best hope now is that at some point Edwards gets out of the race and throws his support to Obama. The two of them together almost equal Hillary’s total.
The +/- 4% margin of error on those polls makes the “bounce” basically meaningless.
Damned straight. Besides, (a) Rasmussen’s seeing something the other pollsters aren’t, and (b) I remember reading that sort of significance into that sort of bump in the Rasmussen daily trackers back in 2004. Others may go there if they want to, but I sure ain’t buying that T-shirt a second time.
I pretty much said as much. Doesn’t mean anything at this point. Aside from the margin of error, Fred’s in a position where he hasn’t had to debate or make his own positions clear, so people who are dissatisfied with the field can read whatever into him that they want to see. McCain filled that role for a while.
Plus, he hasn’t had time to make any mistakes or take positions that alienate some in the base. He will. How much support he loses when he stumbles will show us a little more about how solid his support is, or whether he’s just getting the, “Please God, anyone but this bunch of snoozers” vote.
Let’s see how Thompson looks a month from now. If he’s gone through a
Oops.
Continuing…
Let’s see how Thompson looks a month from now. If he’s gone through a news cycle or two, been in a debate or two, given more than one or two interviews to friendly outlets, and he’s still on top of the polls, then you’ve got to consider him a serious candidate. Until then, who knows?
Guliani scares me too much. He showed a real authoritarian side when he was mayor of New York. I hope people don’t forget about that. I like McCain more than anyone as a person, but I don’t think he’s got what it takes to lead a country. He’s too old, and he’s not a great communicator. Tancredo is batshit crazy. I don’t mind Romney, except for his pandering turn to the social conservatives.
So that leaves Huckabee and Thompson. I just have a gut feeling that no matter what he says now, Thompson would be a president who’d not as married to the religious right as Huckabee would be. Huckabee’s too much of a ‘movement’ conservative, whereas Thompson seems to be more of an intellectual conservative who got where he is by reading Russell Kirk and Hayek.
But really, none of them are great. At least so far. Democrats don’t really have that inspirational leader either - Barack is trying to fill those shoes, but in the end I think he’s just too inexperienced. It’s gonna be Hillary. And she might be okay, but she’s not exactly Bill Clinton. He could inspire people. I don’t think she can. Or at least, she hasn’t until now. She can scold pretty good, but so far she hasn’t really shown a talent for leading.
Thompson’s just got my attention because he’s an interesting character in what is otherwise a pretty boring race. And it shouldn’t be boring - this is maybe the most monumental election since 1980. With a completely average field of candidates.
Another factor being that up until now, he hasn’t faced the real heat. Candidates save their attacks for other candidates. Now that Thompson’s officially in it (especially as a front runner) all of the other candidates - not least his fellow Republicans - will start pointing out his flaws.
Why have you dismissed Sam Brownback? He’s a conservative and he’s still at least in the second tier of the candidates.
'Cause I forgot all about him. Maybe that’s telling… But I don’t much like Brownback’s social positions. Anti-gay marriage, he’s one of the ‘decency’ police who wants to impose harsh fines and censorship on media and control violence on TV. He attacks the ACLU in the name of ‘religious liberty’, which seems a little strange.
Also, I don’t much like his resume. A law degree from a state school, then straight into politics from what I can tell. I prefer people with real life experience running businesses or working for a living as a doctor, engineer, union worker, or whatever. Bring some experience to the table, man. Some insight into the conditions people face in the working world.
On the plus side, he seems like an honest guy, and I like his commitment to smaller government and lower taxes. But pretty much all the candidates score well on that front. And he just doesn’t stand out in any other way that I can tell.
Mind you, Huckabee may be even worse in terms of resume. Basically, he’s a preacher, with a degree from a religious school, and then straight into the ministry, and from there into politics. So I figure he doesn’t have much of an education, no real work experience, and doesn’t bring much to the table other than he seems to be pretty good in front of the camera and crowds (maybe his ministry experience).
Both of these guys promise to be pretty much retreads of George Bush. They’re not intellectuals, they’re strong social conservatives and low-tax conservatives, but without much else to recommend them. Hell, Bush looks way better on paper than these two. If I was comparing them against a guy with a Harvard MBA, ex-fighter pilot, 2 term governor of Texas and son of a President, I’d think they were distant also-rans. And Bush turned out to pretty much suck, so I certainly wouldn’t pick either of them to be his successor.
Certainly Thompson’s resume looks a lot more impressive. At least to me.
Ummm, you can’t ‘still’ be in a position later, that you haven’t been in yet.
But other than that, whatever. In this GOP field, it doesn’t take much to be a ‘serious candidate’ in the sense of having a legitimate shot at the nomination, so in that sense, I regard him as a serious candidate now.
That’s one big crush you’ve got, Sam. You’re reading things into Freddie that nobody else can see.
The Killers line, “He doesn’t look a bit like Jesus” keeps running through my head. An inspirational leader would be great, but I’d settle for someone who wants to take us in the right direction, who has a decent mixture of competence with respect to policy and political matters.
I guess he’s interesting to some. I’m still clueless as to why. I know - he’s got a great (IYHO) resume, but by that standard, you should be falling all over Richardson, who’s in double digits in Iowa, so he’s not completely dead yet.
I like Richardson. I’m a bit disappointed by the hard turn to the left he’s taken, but I guess that’s what you have to do to win the nomination. If he turned back into the ‘old’ Richardson and won the election, he’d be okay.
Those of us more leftwards of you have been noting just the opposite. He’s supporting a balanced budget amendment, and he’s decided homosexuality is something people choose, rather than something they are.
He’s for getting out of Iraq in slightly more unequivocal wording than Edwards is, but that’s the extent of his ‘hard turn to the left’ AFAICT, and any such ‘hard turn’ on other issues would have to, at a minimum, be a bit more significant than his rightward move, to be a fair characterization.
Just out of curiosity (and lately)- how is support of a balanced budget amendment tantamount to a right-wing lean?
So you won’t vote for him because of his character on L&O. Why is this a better position than the people who will vote for him because of his character on L&O?
Because it limits the Dems to ‘cleaning up after the elephants’ after the recent GOP borrowing orgy.
If there were a version of the amendment that excluded interest from debt incurred while the other party was in the White House, I’d be OK with the idea actually.
Richardson claims his statement about homosexuality being a choice was just a mistake, due to him being overtired and misunderstanding the question and I believe that. For what it’s worth, he did move pretty quickly to disavow that statement. And, with the exception of voting for DOMA in Congress, his general gay rights record has been pretty good. He did push through anti-employment discrimination and expanded hate crimes to include gender identity, and tried but failed for domestic partnerships.
Is Richardson perfect on gay issues? No. But he’s ok.