What I’ve learned in the last 24-hours
Back on January 16th, Curt at Flopping Aces posted a Pajamas Media poll that showed a 67% support for Fred Thompson among bloggers. I was one of them and I figured that with that kind of support on the internet, how could Fred lose? Well, he has quit now and bloggers on the Right are thrashing around looking for someone to support for President. Well, I learned the same thing that the Kos Kids learned when they tried to unseat Joe Lieberman last year – bloggers don’t have the influence to pick winning candidates that they think they do. Yet.
Well, I’m looking for a candidate to support and expressed my dismay last night. Spree from Wake Up, America even stopped by here to give me some much-appreciated advice on how to pick a candidate in the comments of my “Fred’s out” post.
Before Fred dropped out, The Anchoress, gave us some good advice; that we should just accept the candidate that the Party chooses for us and stop looking for the “perfect” Republican and threatening to stay home if “our” guy doesn’t get the nomination;
You get the government you ask for. Not voting at all may be a request for a different sort of candidate, but it is impractical and self-destructive.
Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy takes it a step further and quotes Ronaldus Maximus himself;
I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’
I’ve taken care not to dis any Republicans here (except Ron Paul a few times and Rudy once) because, well, I don’t want to appear inconsistent. Many of my friends, who are also bloggers, are writing things about Republican candidates they may not be able to take back. Other bloggers have asked me to announce who I’m supporting with them. Well, here’s my announcement;
The three Democrats are so scary, I’ll support anyone who is a Republican. I have my preferences, but it’s immaterial. I have hopes that I don’t have to support certain Republican candidates, but I’m keeping that to myself. I support any Republican. Period. The Democrat Party has become such a destructive force politically and socially, I stand with anyone against them.
While I fully understand what you are saying, that is how we (Californian’s) ended up the the Austrian RINO as our governator…
Tom McClintock was clearly the BEST republican candidate during the recall of Gray Davis, but, Arnold had the BIG NAME. There are CA Democrats that are, believe it or not, to the right of Schwarzenegger. Oh, and I would like to add: Holy crap! I spelled his name right!
Shoot, Larry (Hustler magazine)Flynt had a workable plan for governance…
While I fully understand what you are saying, that is how we (Californian’s) ended up the the Austrian RINO as our governator…
Tom McClintock was clearly the BEST republican candidate during the recall of Gray Davis, but, Arnold had the BIG NAME.
It’s possible that we were so fed up with Gray Davis, that McClintock could have won. But it’s possible we could also have lost. I, for one, am happy that Schwarzenegger had the “big name” draw, to pull voters aside from just conservatives, to oust Gray Davis.
Half the country does not lean rightward. I do not get conservative voters who want to put forth the uber-conservative as their dream candidate, with no consideration with whether or not that candidate has enough charisma and appeal to attract independent voters and cross-overs. It is no victory to have your guy win the primary, if he is incapable of winning the general election.
I’m with Wordsmith on this. Clearly there were better choices than Schwartenegger – just like there are people I consider better choices than Romney, Giuliani, McCain and Huckabee. However, any of those four would be a better choice than ANY of the three Democrats. If we hand them even two years of control on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, they’ll have this country more dicked up than it’s ever been.
Remember that the only reason we don’t have the first Clinton national healthcare plan is because many Democrats thought it wasn’t socialist enough back in 1993 when they did control both the White House and Congress. They won’t make that mistake again.
As Anchoress said, the next President may have the opportunity to nominate THREE new Supreme Court judges which will impact the court for decades to come…and adversely so.
A week or so ago, one blogger (forgive me for forgetting which one) said, paraphrasing Don Rumsfeld, of course, “You go to an election with the candidates you have, not with the candidates you want.”
NOTE: I just remembered it wasn’t a blogger, it was Bill Kristol in last week’s The Weekly Standard and the quote was; “ You fight an election with the politicians you have”.