What a mess! The two most conservative presidential candidates, three if you include Tom Tancredo, are Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter and the only way they’ll be on the White House steps on Inaugural Day, barring a miracle, would be to by invitation only.
The four remaining GOP candidates, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul, show just how fractured our party is. Let’s go from back to front:
Ron Paul – horrible on the War on Terror…next
Mike Huckabee – wants to give my tax rebate to building roads and bridges and claims to have the Heritage Foundation on his side. Weeeellllll, not exactly Governor. It seems the Heritage Foundation, while true they are opposed to tax rebates, they favor tax cuts and oppose increased spending. It seems the still preaching from the pulpit former pastor pursuing the presidency candidate either got his facts confused or misspoke. Huckabee has gave some great answers to questions such as evolution, his faith, and last night he gave a good answer to the Reagan endorsement question, Huckabee has only 29 delegates so far. Many a pundit suspect Huckabee is positioning himself for a VP spot; in fact my dream ticket was Thompson/Huckabee. It turned out just to be a dream…anyway, Huckabee had one of his patented lines (he’s clever if nothing else) on Joe Scarborough’s channel (Joe used to be a strong conservative)
So, what about Governor Romney? Most conservative pundits are lining up with Romney because he espouses conservative beliefs. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says that Romney has painted himself into a conservative corner and would be hard-pressed to change positions. Tony, I have great faith in Romney’s ability to get out of any corner he’s painted himself into; he’s been quite adroit at that all his political career. Nevertheless, voters wanting to vote for a candidate running on conservative issues are leaning towards Romney. However, Romney’s record, as Huckabee eluded to in the video, is not all that conservative. The folks at MassResistance are not real excited about Romney becoming the 44th President.
Now McCain…Senator, you give the appearance as though you are entitled to the presidency. That really bothers me. You conducted yourself very un-presidential last night and you’ve got more liberals and RINOs lining up behind you than I as a conservative would be comfortable with. You’ve been endorsed by Joe Lieberman, the NY Times, Charlie Crist (um, he’s not a conservative), Mel Martinez, Rudy Giuliani, and Arnold Schwarzenneger. We must also remember that McCain seriously considered becoming John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and reportedly considered becoming an independent in 2001!
I know the Senator from Arizona is basking in the limelight, but his beloved MSM will turn on him the minute the Democratic nomination is secured.
I know some are ready and willing to teach the GOP a lesson, but they didn’t learn in 2006 and this isn’t the congressional elections; the White House is at stake. More on that later…
The reason we do not have a stauch conservative candidate to vote for is because of the primary system. Why do we have primaries? Do the People want primaries? No. Incumbent politicians love primaries — and so does the news media.
Primaries create a situation where politicians do not have to answer to the party rank and file. Instead, the rank and file’s vote is diluted by people who have only a passing interest in what the party stands for. Because much of the public is only barely paying attention, the news media loves this situation. Primaries, particularly open primaries allow the news media to “educate” the public on the candidates. Hence, the campaign of any conservative candidate meets with serious resistance even before it gets started. Doesn’t the news media treat all conservatives as radicals?
Yet consider what the Democratic Party wants to do? Put what that party has done in a historical context. Consider the growth of the welfare state. Look at how we got the “right to abortion.” Then consider the prospect of same-sex marriage. Ask yourself why the very idea of nationalizing the health care system is not consider extreme. Why doesn’t the news media treat Democrat’s goofy ideas to “fix” global warming kooky? Why are Democrats almost never considered extreme? The obvious answer is that the news media has taken sides. Our news media is a business run largely by massive corporations. These corporations have their own agenda, and their interests do not necessarily coincide with the People’s interest.
To solve this problem, this travesty of an election, we need to scrap the primary system. Government has no business telling the People how the People should select candidates for office. The current system violates the First Amendment right of free assembly.