Thompson Surge Means Conservatives Are Desperate
Many conservatives (including Christian conservatives) seem to be jumping on the Fred Thompson bandwagon. As far as Republican presidential contenders go, the biggest loser of the Thompson surge is Mitt Romney. Many conservatives were supporting Romney only because they perceived him as being the best chance to beat Rudy Giuliani. A Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani presidential election is a conservative’s worst nightmare. Romney has the charm and money and is now saying the “right” things. Hence, he has enjoyed moderate support in the early goings of this campaign season. However, Romney’s liberal track record is very disconcerting to conservatives. In their hearts, conservatives cannot trust Romney.
The entrance of Fred Thompson in the presidential race immediately took a toll on the Romney campaign. Romney’s support is dropping like the temperature in northern Idaho in the wintertime. That trend will probably continue, as more conservatives catch the Thompson wave.
The problem is, Thompson is not a conservative. Worse still (for the GOP), Thompson cannot beat Hillary in a general election. Mark my words, if Fred Thompson is the Republican nominee next November, Hillary Clinton is your next president.
For that matter, I see only one Republican contender who might be able to beat Hillary in the 2008 general election: Ron Paul. Yes, you read it right. Ron Paul.
If Giuliani is the Republican nominee, conservative Christians will stay home or vote third party. (It is past time for conservative Christians to abandon the GOP, anyway. I encourage readers to check out the Constitution Party as a viable alternative. See http://www.constitutionparty.com/ ) A Republican cannot win the White House without widespread support from evangelical Christians. And Giuliani will never have widespread support from evangelical Christians.
Newt Gingrich is toying with the idea of entering the race, but the truth is out about Newt. His infidelities, his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and his past betrayal of conservative principles precede him. Newt is damaged goods. He has little chance of obtaining the Republican nomination, and even if he did, he has no chance of beating Hillary. None. Zero. Zilch.
The only Republican with the potential to pull an upset victory over Clinton is Ron Paul. He is extremely popular among constitutionalists, independents, and many Christians (including me). He is doing very well in fundraising and on the Internet. And if Paul’s message was given a fair hearing, evangelical Christians and traditional conservatives would come to support him.
The only reason that some conservative Christians do not already support Ron Paul is because they, themselves, do not understand constitutional government. Years of Republican chicanery and compromise have taken a toll on conservatives to the point that many of them don’t understand truth when they see it. However, this could change. The more people learn about Ron Paul and constitutional government, the more they like him and it.
On the other hand, the more people learn about Fred Thompson, the more they will dislike him. As with Gingrich, Thompson is a member of the sinister cabal, the CFR, whose principle purpose for existence seems to be the construction of one-world government and the destruction of U.S. independence and sovereignty. This means Thompson will do nothing to stop illegal immigration. (See http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070905/NATION/109050083/1002 )
He will do nothing to stand in the way of the emerging North American Union, and the NAFTA Superhighway, and he will continue the push for globalization.
In addition, Fred Thompson is the personification of a Washington insider-lobbyist. Thompson was a lobbyist for twenty years before being elected to the U.S. Senate. He represented organizations like the Tennessee Savings and Loan Association and deposed Haitian President Aristide. He continued lobbying after he left the Senate, including representing a British insurance company that wants to limit payments to the families of those who died from asbestos exposure. In fact, Thompson’s presidential campaign is literally overflowing with advisors and donors who are lobbyists, former lobbyists or employees of lobbying firms. (See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296339,00.html ) If Thompson was elected President, he would be the country’s first Lobbyist-in-Chief.
On the life issue, Fred Thompson’s record is clearly pro-choice. In 1991 and 1992, Thompson was a paid lobbyist for the pro-abortion organization, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. He also lobbied against the Republican Party’s pro-life plank. According to Terry Jeffrey, “[W]hen Fred Thompson was in the United States Senate, both times he ran for the Senate he ran as a pro-choice candidate.”
One of the Religious Right’s most respected leaders, Richard Viguerie, recently said this about Fred Thompson: “Fred Thompson’s record may appear to be ‘conservative,’ but only by comparison with Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, and a Less-of-a-Big Government Republican is still a Big Government Republican. And given his lack of conservative leadership as a Senator, it would be a grave mistake to expect conservative leadership from him as President.”
However, there is another glaring (and I mean glaring) reason why any Republican presidential contender outside Ron Paul will not defeat Hillary next November: every other Republican presidential contender supports the Iraq war. That means every one of them (except Ron Paul) is completely out of touch with over two-thirds of the American electorate. And the longer our troops keep dying in Iraq, the more out of touch the GOP will become with a vast majority of the American people.
President Bush has already made it clear that he intends for American troops to remain in Iraq for years–if not decades–to come. And it also seems clear that the GOP presidential candidates (except Ron Paul) plan to follow Bush’s madness.
Republicans need to wake up to reality: people are sick of George Bush, and they are sick of the Iraq war. Good grief! In less time than our troops have been in Iraq, our men and women in uniform defeated the combined forces of Germany, Japan, and Italy during World War II. In Iraq, we have not been able to secure the city of Baghdad.
When America’s top military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was asked if all the efforts in Iraq–including the latest surge–make America safer, his answer was an astounding, “I don’t know.” That is an incredible statement. After more than four years of combat in a country approximately the size of Texas, more than one-half trillion dollars in cost, and the sacrifice of thousands of American lives, our top military commander cannot honestly say that America is any safer. Yet, Bush says we are “winning,” and he wants our troops to stay in Iraq indefinitely.
I dare say that by the time November 2008 rolls around, support for the Iraq war could be so low that the Republican Party may be lucky to even be competitive in the national elections, no matter who their candidate is (unless it is Ron Paul). This is because every single one of the other GOP presidential contenders (including Fred Thompson) is on record as supporting a continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq. In addition, most of them are on record as supporting an expansion of the war into other parts of the Middle East. (Interestingly enough, however, none of them wants to discuss–much less threaten–the real sponsors of terrorism: Russia and China.)
That Fred Thompson is surging to the position of Republican presidential frontrunner means that conservatives are desperate. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be desperate enough to look at their own erroneous policies. Neither are they willing to look at the recipe for their own recovery: principled, constitutional government.
I already hear the fat lady warming up.
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September 25th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
You posit an interesting dilemma. I too like Ron Paul: he’s a little nuts, but not McCain nuts, and his platform is dead on. But is the Paul vs. Clinton scenario realistic? Paul has no chance of a GOP nomination. None. Zero. Zilch.
You may have heard of Unity08.com which is running primaries parallel to the DNC and RNC; Ron Paul was expected to do well there, and I really hoped he would. So far he hasn’t cause much of a stir there or anywhere. Which brings us to what this article drives at: win the nomination on the shoulders of the Christian base, but lose the election over Iraq. Or, conversely, win the election opposing Iraq, but lose your base. Put that way, sure we’ll get a song from the fat lady.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Although I have my doubts about Ron Paul’s ability to defeat Clinton, I completely agree with Chuck’s assessment about Thompson’s inability to compete. I don’t know how Thompson garnered so much support on such a weak platform and record. Republicans will really hurt themselves if they nominate Thompson, although the Democrats would sure be happy. Earlier today I read a blog (www.forget-fred.blogspot.com) that made a couple good points on why Republicans shouldn’t even consider Thompson.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:00 am
There are two BIG problems with Ron Paul:
1) The Jihad really does exists and serves as a motivation independent of anything we or the Israelis do, and any day to day grievance the Islamofascists may claim.
We thus ignore this at our peril.
2) Ron Paul has been thunderingly silent on the total rape of the Constitution that is family law and divorce practice.
He would have a great deal more credibility if he would just apply his principles of constitutional government to family and divorce law.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:31 am
It could be that the Jihad really does exist, but Ron Paul also has a valid point that the reason that they are willing to come over here and attack us, is because its there perception that we are over there not only attacking them, but in their minds we are trying to spread our culture too. They know who Britney Spears and Maddona are, they know about queer pride Parades, abortion on demand and all the other crazy leftist nonsense that goes on in our Culture. Dinesh Di Souza wrote a great book blaming the cultural left for the September 11 attacks. I think that both he and Ron Paul are right.
If we back off, then the Jihadists will turn against their own governments, they will be less likely to come over here and attack us, and more likely to antagonize Europe and Russia, when we are out of the way.
Will they never attack America ever again? I cannot answer that question, but they will be less motivated to attack us.
Roger Knight, I must confess that I am totally ignorant of the current state of Family Law in respect to the constitution. Thankfully I have never had to deal with that branch of the legal system, but it does not seem like any candidate is making it an issue, so what can you do?
Ron Paul is the only candidate in the Race that has staked out the popular position on both the Iraq war and illegal immigration. He is a man of impecible personal integrity, he’s always been against abortion, he’s serious about reducing the size of the government and has the record to back it up.
I agree that Ron Paul is the best candidate that we have to win the national election, not only that I think that Ron Paul is the only candidate that can win the national election. The Party “base” can be counted on to turnout just to vote against Hillary, additionally many of the 60% of people who usually don’t vote can be expected to turn out to support Ron Paul because of his message.
Ron Paul is not the best choice, but he’s really the only choice for conservatives.
September 26th, 2007 at 5:02 am
Mark my words, if Fred Thompson is the Republican nominee next November, Hillary Clinton is your next president.
For that matter, I see only one Republican contender who might be able to beat Hillary in the 2008 general election: Ron Paul.
I can’t imagine any two statements that have less basis in reality. Plus, Hillary has to contend with a 48% hatred factor. Hate is a great motivator, and all 48% of these people will get out and vote against her. Do you really think Fred couldn’t pick up another three percent somewhere?
September 26th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Ron Paul’s problem, IMO, is a lack of understanding about militant radical Islam – reflected here in at least one post. The radicals aren’t going to leave us alone because we withdraw far enough away that we aren’t on their minds constantly. There’s always a reason to kill the Kafir (all of you) – be it Britney, Support of Israel, the Crusades, not giving Spain back, or (best one I’ve heard) not adopting Sharia as the law of the land in the US. On this issue, Paul is wrong. I’ll give him 90% positive on the rest of the issues, and probably after some Islamists cracked some kind of major explosive off in another of our cities, he’d “figure it out.”
The problem with rapid withdrawl, is that these loony toons will see it as a massive victory for themselves and with that encouragement and $trillions of petro dollars available, the bad guys will follow us home one way or another.
I don’t see Thompson beating Hillary – to the point of the post, I think most conservatives just leapt at Thompson because he was something other than Rudy G, Mccain and Romney.
I don’t see Paul going anywhere – the press and RNC don’t like him, so no money and no Air time. The gaffe about them (Islamists) going after us because we were there is going to stick in the minds of a lot of people althrough the election.