http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk5NmI0YzU0YWRmZDAwZTRmZThhNTFlNWMzMGQ3ODE= [rquoter]It hasn't gotten much comment yet, but in his interview on Fox last night, Fred Thompson rather emphatically told Focus on the Family chief James Dobson to take a hike. Host Sean Hannity asked Thompson about Dobson, who has attacked Thompson and made it clear he would not support a Thompson candidacy. "Don't read too much into the Dobson thing," Thompson told Hannity, continuing: A gentleman who has never met me, who has never talked to me, I've never talked to him on the phone. I did have one of his aides call me up and kind of apologize, the first time he attacked me and said I wasn't a Christian… I don't know the gentleman. I do know that I have a lot of people who are of strong faith and are involved in the same organizations that he is in, that I've met with, Jeri and I both have met with, and I like to think that we have some strong friendships and support there… Hannity then asked: "Would you want to have a conversation with Dr. Dobson? Do you think that might help?" I have no idea. I don't particularly care to have a conversation with him. If he wants to call up and apologize again, that's ok with me. But I'm not going to dance to anybody's tune.[/rquoter]
And then he said "Forget Dobson, the real threat is the Soviet Union!" and begged for applause. Man, you guys have some crap candidates.
Wow...after reading all of the response posts in this thread, I can't imagine why anybody would ever assert that libs are snotty. Sheesh.
Ref, seriously. Thompson doesn't know where he falls on Terry Schiavo, refers to Russia as the Soviet Union and bores his audiences so deeply that he finished a speech yesterday to total silence and had to ask them to applaud. And this was the guy that was supposed to inject excitement into the race on the GOP side. He is clearly not ready for prime time. He doesn't seem to know what year it is, he's woefully uninformed on the issues and, worst, he is deadly boring. Then you've got Rudy whom the family values groups are nearly unanimously promising to oppose through a third party candidate on account of his continued support of abortion rights. Not to mention his weird ass behavior answering phone calls from his wife during speeches, the 9/11 workers that are waiting in the wings to do to him what Swift Boaters did to Kerry (likewise negating his greatest strength) and the more than awkward details of his personal life (three marriages including one to his cousin, alerting his wife that he was divorcing her via press conference, estranged children, co-habitation with a gay couple while in office and those famous pictures of him in Marilyn Monroe drag) that shouldn't matter but do on account of the GOP's obsession with "family values." But in my opinion Rudy's greatest weakness is one that's gone totally unmentioned thus far: the disturbingly weird bugged out eye effect. Have you guys seen him in an interview? What is that? It is freaky as hell. He looks alternately calm and horrified. And you've got Mitt Romney who promised to be better for gay rights than Teddy Kennedy, who said the NRA didn't represent his values and who said abortion should remain safe and legal. And those are your frontrunners. Meanwhile, McCain has been spit up and chewed out by the GOP on account of his support for amnesty for illegals and will experience the same treatment in the general (if by some miracle he made it there) for his unparalleled support for a war that over 70% of the country opposes. Oh, and he's not just broke, he's 2 million in debt and he has seen virtually his entire campaign staff desert him. The only candidate in the GOP field that frightens me as a Democrat at all is Mike Huckabee. He's the best speaker of the bunch. He's smart, charming, likeable, has plenty of crossover appeal, has executive experience equal to Bill Clinton's when he first ran and is even "from a town called Hope." And he's running fifth and raised only 1 million dollars in the last quarter when he was supposed to be breaking through on his showing in the Iowa straw poll. He's the only truly strong candidate in the mix and he's being passed over in favor of the five fatally flawed candidates above. And on the other side you've got Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd and Biden, whose combined problems don't equal those of any in the group above (sans Huckabee). This is a worse mismatch than the NBA's East and West. If anyone can screw this up the Democrats can, but in my lifetime I have never seen such bad prospects for a major party leading up to an election year.
Like I said, if anyone can screw this up the Dems can. They have a spectacularly bad record of selecting their nominees. Even so, barring a miracle for Huckabee, I'd take any of the top five Dems over any Republican running. p.s. I left the following out of my assessment of the field above: The only candidate on the GOP side whose fundraising went up in the last cycle was Ron Paul -- the anti-war one.
that's the type of attitude that got the current idiot in the white house. he isn't the smartest guy but he likes to clear brush from his ranch. I do have "higher" standards for my president than good ole billy bob down at the service station. I don't care about billy bob one way or the other, I just don't want him running the country. edit: you do realize thompson really wasn't a da in nyc don't you?
Maybe Joe Lieberman should consider running for the Republican nomination. (I know, it's a cheap shot.)
Agree and disagree. The Dems are superb at blowing elections but Bob Dole had no hope of beating Bill Clinton. After he was nominated and Clinton machine-gunned him the one time, it was over and out. He was the safe choice the Dems wanted the GOP to nominate. I won't bother listing Dole's flaws, which were monumental and compare favorably to any of the GOP candidates you mentioned above. Mondale was another. He wouldn't have won even if Reagan had died a month before the election. If you are including the congressional picture, I agree. The character change in the Senate is going to be radical. For me it's scary because the Dems might wield too much control.
We disagree about Dole and Mondale. Maybe you know of some core flaws I'm unaware of, but my understanding is that they were both pretty well respected statesmen that were up against powerhouse incumbents and didn't generate any special enthusiasm. Compared to Giuliani, Thompson and Romney, well... I just don't even know how you can compare them. The other difference is, again, there is no incumbent in this race let alone a popular one as Clinton and Reagan both were. Even with Bush's popularity in the cellar, any credible Republican could make the case for being a change candidate and make it credibly if they weren't dead set on continuing unpopular policies. You know who could win? Hagel. John Warner. Dick Lugar. Jack Kemp. Even Gingrich -- his negatives are high but so are Hillary's. He's smart enough to be competitive and he doesn't possess the fatal flaws of the top four candidates in the race currently. And if I thought about it I could probably name five other superior GOP contenders. Instead, in an unprecedentedly wide open race (as there is neither a sitting president or VP running), this is what they came up with? This field is unbelievably weak. I think B-Bob had it right. The most comparable situation I can remember was 1988 when the candidates with the best chances on the D side all sat out. 92 looked that way too until Clinton surprised us all, but with (again) the possible exception of Huckabee there just ain't a Clinton in this bunch.
Dole was very well respected, but nobody could imagine him as president. He was too old (an obvious one-termer which he didn't deny), too dull and appeared too out of touch with average people (part of which was due to his age). I can't think of any nominee that aroused less passion in his party. After Dole was nominated, Bill Clinton ripped on him hard and it nuked his candidacy completely. The election was over right then. Clinton even semi-apologized for it afterwards because he realized it was unnecessary. Nominating Dole was like conceding defeat. But with Lamar Alexander as the alternative, maybe it was the lesser of two lessers. Mondale was totally out of touch with the general voting public. Of course Reagan's popularity was a big part of it, but Mondale was much too liberal to have any chance of winning. Like Dole, he was respected as an experienced statesman but wasn't even a tiny threat to be elected president. He only got the nod because he was Carter's VP and the Dems knew they were going to lose anyway. When you look back at Dole and Mondale, history has been kind to them. Romney, McCain and maybe even Rudy (ugh) haven't had that opportunity yet.
But-but-but he's SO great to have a beer with, other than that he's a god squadder who doesn't drink beer and enjoys belittling people in his presence (allegedly)
This has zero to do with my post. I wasn't saying one thing about Bush...good or bad. I was merely pointing out one thing a lot of arch-conservatives complain about with the libs. edit: Thanks for again illustrating my point about being snotty.
I know who you were talking about, and that attitude has this country where it is. excuse me for expecting my politicians to be a little more polished. edit: okay, I see, you're saying I'm making fun of people who like politicians like this, as if conservatives never make fun of politcians on the other end of the spectrum for being "snotty" to use your own words. don't be a fool, you'd think the liberals were "snotty" anyway.
