Redstate

Posted at 9:27pm on Jan. 23, 2008 Ideas Don't Run For President; People Do

A Timeless Truth. Repeat As Often As Needed.

By Dan McLaughlin

With the failure of the Fred Thompson campaign, there has been predictable and understandable wailing and gnashing of teeth in conservative quarters about the state of the GOP and what this all means for the future of conservative ideas. Fred ran as a full-scale, across-the-board movement conservative, and he went nowhere. Among the four remaining major candidates, we have two who are genuine conservatives on some core issues but basically apostates on others (Rudy and Huck), a moderate who is generally if not as dramatically out of step on a large number of issues (McCain), and one candidate (Romney) whose positions have changed so much from his past positions and record that nobody really knows for certain how trustworthy he might be if he actually won the general election. Conservatives are asking: has our party abandoned us? Have GOP voters rejected our ideas?

No, it has not, and they have not. Remember Article II, Section 1 of our Constitution: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." President, singular, individual. Flesh-and-blood human. That's who holds the job, that's who gets elected to the job. No perfect vessel, no incarnation of ideas. And that fact must be repeated again and again until people understand that winning and losing elections and choosing leaders is about picking the right person from the available choices. Ideas don't run for president, people do.

We got the field we started with because these were the men who were willing to ask for the job and able to raise the minimum amount of money and signatures and staff to initiate a campaign. That limited our options to the people who had - or thought they had - the qualifications and the right political moment to run in 2008, not some other year. We got the field we have now because along the way, some of the contenders failed to promote themselves well, or made a bad impression, or ran out of money, or found better things to do with their time. That leaves the four men who remain, plus of course Ron Paul. We have no choice but to take each them as a whole - platform and record, experience and character, skills and resources. And it is just one of those remaining men, as a whole, with whom we will go forth to battle in November.

An awful lot of angst could be avoided by remembering this simple truth. And an awful lot can yet be spared if the folks who live in this big and querelous tent we call a political party - which we would all like and hope to see function as a majority party - would remind themselves of it: we have been asked to choose among men, not ideas. While our choices certainly reflect our view of the ideas each man champions, it is deeply mistaken to read the choice of one man over another as the final and definitive statement of what ideas we truly support. I, for one, as a Republican would like to know that the candidate we settle on - or settle for - has more people behind him than just the ones who agree with every one of his ideas.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | conservatism | Fred Thompson | Libertarians | Ron Paul | Schism — Comments (54)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:28am on Jan. 23, 2008 And So It Ends

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Sadly, Fred Thompson has pulled the plug on his campaign. One could see it coming but his supporters--and yes, I proudly was one of them--feel a sense of loss. Thompson was the only candidate in the GOP race who consistently advocated a small-government, free market, federalist message and his departure leaves a hole in the race for the GOP nomination. Neither one of his competitors articulated the message of Reaganism as closely and as eloquently as Thompson did.

I suppose that there are things to learn from this episode in American Presidential history. We learn that getting in the race for the Presidency early is now an imperative. We learn that untraditional campaigns fail. And we learn that however much a candidate is ambitious for his ideas, it won't matter to the electorate unless he is also ambitious for himself or herself.

This appears to be the reality of the day and it is to that reality that we supporters of Fred Thompson have to reconcile ourselves. But we don't have to like it. We may tut-tut at Thompson's disregard for Presidential electioneering conventional wisdom. And we may be right to do so as well. But I don't believe that Fred Thompson departed from that conventional wisdom merely because he was "lazy." Lazy people don't get to where he has gotten in life. I think that he saw a better way to elect Presidents and his way was not shared by the electorate.

Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson | Turn Out The Lights — Comments (42)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:23pm on Jan. 22, 2008 Fred Thompson is Out

By Ben Domenech

According to Fox News.

Suggested goodbye remarks are here.

Open Thread.

Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson — Comments (97)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:50am on Jan. 21, 2008 Of Nevada And South Carolina

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Hillary Clinton and John McCain got what are perceived to be the big prizes yesterday, with Clinton's win in Nevada and McCain's in South Carolina. but despite Clinton's win in Nevada, it is worth noting that Obama got the most delegates in the state. As for the actual votes at the caucus, it is worth noting the fact that the Obama people are crying foul:

And now, according to Jon Ralston, allies of the Clinton Campaign may be planning to challenge voters at the at-large precincts. It is a sad day when Democrats start trying to suppress the vote of other Democrats.

Read on . . .

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Fred Thompson | Hillary Clinton | John McCain | Mitt Romney — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:31pm on Jan. 20, 2008 No Way I'm Disco Dancing

Or, Taking A Dump Without A Plan

By Dan McLaughlin

Having squeaked to a third-place finish in South Carolina with 16% of the vote, Fred Thompson has failed to do even the bare minimum he needed on highly favorable turf to remain a viable presidential candidate, and will soon either drop out of the race or remain in mainly as a spokesman rather than a serious contender. The "Big Five" is now down to four, and shrinking, as Mike Huckabee's second-place finish has wounded him in what had been hoped to be his Southern stronghold, and Rudy Giuliani's own do-or-die moment in Florida - and the test of his unusual "hang back and let them bruise each other" strategy - rapidly approaches with the specter of John McCain, the guy whose appeal overlaps most with Rudy's, as his primary obstacle (although Rudy may draw a few supply-siders from the beaching of the Good Ship Fred, and is calibrating his attacks accordingly).

Fred will be remembered as the Mycroft Holmes of presidential candidates. You will recall that Sherlock Holmes said that his older brother Mycroft would have been the greatest detective who ever lived, if that could be accomplished without leaving his armchair. That's Fred in a nutshell - indeed, the high watermark of the Fred phenomenon was his hilarious video response to Michael Moore, delivered ... from an armchair.

Fred's diehard supporters will complain that the mainstream media done him wrong, but as I have explained before, there were any number of full-scale conservatives one might have tried to draft into the race (we had serious and experienced if not quite as across-the-board conservative contenders running already in Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter); the reason people settled on Fred was precisely because his background as an actor and trial lawyer suggested a guy who, like Reagan, could work around and over the heads of the media. His failure to do so effectively was what doomed his campaign.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson — Comments (31)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:58am on Jan. 20, 2008 Peter Robinson on FDT

By Ben Domenech

Peter Robinson had to be waiting to break out this little anecdote. That said, it really does fit.

Watching the returns come in this afternoon I found myself recalling my great uncle, who was a harness racer, and a horse named Schuyler Hall—maybe because the commentators kept talking about the political "horserace." Schuyler Hall's first owner raced the horse as a trotter, with mediocre results. My great uncle retrained Schuyler Hall, racing him instead as a pacer.

The gate would open, the other horses would launch onto the course…and Schuyler Hall, at first attempting to trot rather than pace, would rear up and throw his head from side to side, going nowhere. My great-uncle would talk to the horse, calming him. And then Schuyler Hall would find his gait, starting to pace. The rest of the field would by now be approaching the first turn. But Schuyler Hall would settle into one of the fastest paces my great-uncle ever recorded, closing on the other horses with every step. The spectators would cheer, and then, as Schuyler Hall began passing one horse after another, jump to its feet. After having begun to race four or five seconds after the rest of the field, Schuyler Hall would always finish in the middle or better.

“The horse never finished first,” my great-uncle would say. “But when Schuyler Hall found his gait, you never saw anything more beautiful.”

Posted at 1:32am on Jan. 20, 2008 Well, that was a kick in the teeth

By Neil Stevens

Boy, it was a rough night for us fans of Fred Thompson. So many of us had so many hopes wrapped up in him. He seemed a rare and special candidate; he was a conservative's conservative. Mix equal parts Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge, and you get Fred Thompson, ready to swoop in and carry us all to victory in November.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the inauguration: the party was not there for us. We thought that everything would pull together since Thompson represented the ideals of two of the most admired Republicans of the 20th century, but he was not even close. Where we thought the party should be is decidedly not where it is.

And worse than that is that a dream many of us have had even before Fred Thompson was drafted for President, has failed. Republican Conservative mythology centers on the great conservative captivating the party with his ideas, taking the nomination, and leading the country with him. We talk about Goldwater, we talk about Reagan, and we sigh wistfully. But we now see that in at least three tries, we have only actually taken the Presidency once. Our plan just will not work.

So what do we do about it? We could quit. We could decide that caring about politics just is not worth this. But, I have to assume anyone who quit will not be reading this, so that option will not be discussed further. So we have to act, but what can we do?

Read on...

Posted in Activism | Fred Thompson | Republicans — Comments (169) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:20pm on Jan. 19, 2008 Not with a bang, but a whimper

A campaign haunted by the hollow words "What might have been....?"

By Jeff Emanuel

So long, Fred; we hardly even knew ye.

Well, that's not entirely accurate -- we knew you far better than we've known many a politician who's thrown his hat in the Presidential ring in years past (or even this year; see "Hunter, Duncan" or "Gravel, Mike" for examples).

We knew you well enough that, when it seemed that the Republican field needed a White Knight to ride in on a shiny steed and save it (and us) from itself, we didn't call on Newt Gingrich or Jeb Bush; we called on you.

We supported you through the flirtations with running for office. At first, it was understandable. After all, you're a family man, with young children and a comfortable day job, and it would have been far too much to ask for you to simply shelve all of that for the high-stress life of the Presidential candidate without giving the matter a second thought. Whatever your decision, though, you knew that rank-and-file Republicans the country over were calling out your name, and were ready to pledge their support to you should you agree to throw your hat into the ring for the nation's highest office.

We waited with bated breath, as expected announcement date after expected announcement date passed by, with little or no action on your part. As the summer wore on, and gave itself over to autumn, though, the game became a bit less enjoyable for the rest of us.

Like the townspeople who tired of hearing the young sheepherder cry "Wolf!" over and over again when there was no such threat to his flock, those who had supported you wholeheartedly at the beginning of this process began to waver in their commitment, and the field of "FredHeads," as so many of those enthusiastic supporters called themselves, began to dwindle.

Read on.

Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson | Presidential Primary | Republicans — Comments (387)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:38am on Jan. 19, 2008 Clueless Columnist

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

That most unheroic of conservatives--if he can still be called a conservative--Michael Gerson, gives us yet more evidence for the proposition that he is auditioning to become the Kevin Phillips of the 21st Century. In this column favors us with his insight that because Fred Thompson looks askance on the proposition that government exists to do God's work, he "lack[s] moral seriousness." Specifically, Thompson was asked if "as a Christian, as a conservative," he supported the Bush Administration's global AIDS initiative. Gerson records Thompson's response was as follows:

Posted in Fred Thompson | Michael Gerson | Policy | Small-Government | Unheroic Conservatism — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:23am on Jan. 18, 2008 Fred Thompson On Energy Policy

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Behold. Genuine reality-based voters will appreciate the following:

Appearing on CNN, Thompson was asked whether, as president, he would turn to Saudi Arabia for help as Bush did.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said the problem was a "little bigger" than Saudi Arabia.

Posted in Energy | Fred Thompson — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:32pm on Jan. 16, 2008 A Fred Reality Check [Comments now open]

By Dan McLaughlin

I like Fred. Strategically, I'd like to see Fred win South Carolina on Saturday. Concerned as I am about his performance on the trail thus far, I would have no quarrel with Fred as the nominee.

But let's face facts. Having failed to make a dent with a late run in Iowa, Fred needs to win South Carolina, or at least finish a very close second there, to have any reason for staying in the race (I know some people hope that Fred could ride in on a white horse in case of a brokered deal - but frankly he would have a better chance of doing that if he stops losing primaries and stops criticizing other candidates, neither of which can be done as long as he is still running).

And it's three days until the voting. And the RCP polling average still has Fred in fourth place in SC, with only a hair over 10% of the vote. Even factoring in that the more recent polls give him some momentum, Fred is really going to have to do something surprising to top 20% of the vote. And I can't see any possible justification for him staying in the race if he can't pull 20% of the vote in a Southern state with one of the nation's most conservative electorates when he has thrown himself into the fight there.

Fight on to Saturday, Fred. But if Saturday comes and goes without a major shocker, Fredheads are going to have to accept that the Big Five will have dropped to the Big Four by dawn on Sunday.

UPDATE: I opened this for comments, but please try to anchor your comments to facts about (1) why Fred will get more than 20% of the vote in SC or (2) why he would stay in the race if he does not. We all get by now why Fredheads love Fred, and frankly I don't really disagree with a lot of it. But comes a time when you either have the votes or you do not.