Category: 2008 Election

John McCain sucks, which is why when I found myself rather happy that he won New Hampshire, rather than Mr. Satan Hair, I soon had to ask myself what this country is coming to, that I’m now happy a man I said I’d never vote for is poised to make a come back. But yeah, I’ll get on the McCain Train if the alternative is Romney or Mr. Jesus Preacher.

You can stick a fork in Fred folks. I say that because New Hampshire voters should have been receptive to his ideas, and it’s not like he ignored the state like Rudy did. Countertop isn’t feeling it for Fred either anymore:

Its sad. I’ve tried hard, I wasted money, I’ve reached out to folks at all levels of his campaign (from Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to former hill staffers, law partners, neighbors, etc) and I’ve been unable to get past any “initial enthusiasm.”

Its a scam. As if he signed all these people up and assumed they would work with no direction.

We are electing a leader, if he wants it, Thompson needs to lead

It’s a legitimate criticism. I like Thompson’s philosophy on government, a lot, but it won’t make a whit of difference if he can’t get his act together. My fear at this point is the non-evangelical faction of the Republican Party fractures on multiple candidates, and hands the nomination to Huckabee, who has evangelicals locked up.

I think the more libertarian leaning factions of the Republican coalition need to start thinking about getting behind a single candidate, otherwise we might hand the nomination to Huckleberry.

Socialism doesn’t work.  Please stop voting for socialism.   Thank you.

After New Hampshire, I think you can stick a fork in the following candidates, even if they aren’t going to drop out:

• John Edwards
• Ron Paul
• Bill Richardson

And it pains me to no end to say this:

• Fred Thompson

… or I could just agree with everything Uncle says.  Yeah, I’m lazy today.

I think Obama’s success has more to do with Hillary Clinton’s deficiencies than Obama’s own strengths. Both Obama and John Edwards lack political and executive experience. Of course, so does Hillary Clinton, but more importantly Hillary lacks the political talents of her husband, and carries all of his baggage too. But that’s neither here nor there. What I mean to bring up is a post from this blogger, which mostly speaks highly of Obama, but tripped over my google alert with this:

Can he still blow it? Yes, he can. The institutional Democratic Party, which has been behind Hillary Clinton, and which destroyed Dean with John Kerry, remains intact. America is filled with gun nuts, and any one of them could turn Obama into Martin Luther King Jr. at any moment.

No one doubts I have strong disagreements with Obama on the topic of guns, as do the rest of us here, but why the implication that us “gun nuts” are out to kill the dark ones? If anything, “gun nuts” have a much stronger disdain for Hillary Clinton than we do for Obama, but I don’t think any of us “gun nuts” want either of them dead. We don’t call people who would do that “gun nuts” we call them plain “nuts”, “murderers” or “assassins”, thank you.

I agree that Congressman Paul got the shaft from Fox by not being invited to the debates.  War on Guns is wondering why too.  Drudge is reporting that Hillary may drop out of the race.  That would leave the race a scrap between Breck Boy and Obama.

According to Thirdpower, there was a march for Ron Paul inside World of Warcraft. He ponders:

I have to admit, that’s pretty inventive. Wonder if the various other politicos are going to try and start organizing cyberspace rallies now.

Inventive, yes. Effective? Probably not. What do you think a WoW player would rather do? Play World of Warcraft? Or go vote? His supporters are to be commended for their dedication, but if there’s one thing we’ve seen in this election and in past ones, buzz online doesn’t translate well into electoral success. Traditional campaign methods still rule the day.

The Ronulans predicted time and time again that Ron Paul was going to win Iowa, and win big; they were going to show us all that the Ron Paul revolution was huge, and would not be stopped.  Well, it didn’t turn out that way, but I don’t think Paul supporters should feel disappointed.

I am not a casual observer of politics.  Some people like hockey, some like baseball, others are football fans.  My sport is politics, and I’ve followed it with an intense interest since I was a wee one.  If there had been Senator trading cards, I probably would have collected them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in years of observing politics, is that candidates like Ron Paul not only seldom win, but seldom draw more than a few percent of the vote.  If someone had asked me a few months ago what I thought Paul would do in Iowa, I would have said 5%, tops.  The actual number was 10%, which in my mind is incredible.  I don’t think that’s so much a testament to Ron Paul, who I think is a quite imperfect vehicle for advancing liberty, as much as it is a testament to how awful and uninspiring party politics in this country has become.

I’m honestly not sure what’s driving the Ron Paul machine.  I’d like to think it’s a love of liberty, but I think he’s become a vehicle for a lot of quite disparate people who have just become disillusioned and upset at the whole political process, and that allows a lot of different groups to attach themselves enthusiastically to his message, which is fundamentally anti-establishment, and about as far away form status-quo as you can get.

Ron Paul’s 10% should be a shot across the bow to both parties that people are fed up.  Even the Democrat who won, Obama, ran as an agent of change.  If Paul wasn’t such an imperfect vehicle, I would argue that this 10% could be the beginning of something larger, but I don’t think Paul has the political acumen to turn his strong showing in Iowa into a real political movement that’s going affect lasting change on the Republican Party.  It’s a pity, because the end result is going to be the folks that pushed Huckabee over the top having all the political power, and liberty minded people having nowhere to turn.

Shoot me now!  Please.  The sadder part is that there are probably at least a dozen other permutations that would cause me to say the same thing.  The only real hope in this whole sad affair is that Iowa often has a habit of not predicting the overall winner.