Tag: Republican

Keeping the Race Alive

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Ever since Romney ended his bid for the Republican nomination I have seen much commentary on how Huckabee would need to end his bid soon to preserve his chances at being selected as the VP on the McCain ticket. I have seen one article suggesting the reverse. The logic is interesting and plausible:

How can a longer primary campaign good for Mr. McCain? So long as it’s civil, it keeps him in the news as a winner in Republican primaries, and provides a forum for Mr. McCain to continue traveling the country and spreading his message in a relaxed, unthreatening political environment. Think of it as the heavyweight boxing champion drawing TV coverage for workouts with his sparring partner. . .

And why would Mike Huckabee want to run such a friendly campaign? Because he knows all this, and would like to spend the next few weeks building the case for his selection as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee.

Tags 2008, national candidates, Republican

National

The Real Standings

I can’t stand the way that the media has been talking up the Republican race is if it’s McCain’s to lose. The facts point to a race that is far from decided and less favorable to McCain than the news lets on. The current delegate counts are 97 for McCain and 92 for Romney with 1191 needed to win the nomination. It’s also rather pitiful to read the professions of the Huckabee campaign that they are in a close race with the front runners – they have 29 delegates.

Of the 8 nominating contests so far the results for each of the 4 remaining candidates are:

McCain
- 3 wins
- two 2nd place finishes
- one each of 3rd, 4th, and 6th place
- delegates from 5 of the states
Romney
- 4 wins
- three 2nd place finishes
- one 4th place
- delegates from 6 of the states
Huckabee
- 1 win
- one 2nd place finish
- two 3rds, three 4ths, and one 5th place finish
- delegates from 5 of the states
Paul
- one each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th place
- four 5th place finishes
- delegates from 2 of the states

Don’t be fooled by the message of the media – Romney has every bit as good a chance at the nomination as McCain if not better. And don’t be fooled by the bravado of Huckabee – his best opportunity is to be a spoiler for Romney (those who still support him are unlikely to support McCain).

Tags 2008, media, primaries, Republican

culture National

Right Thinking

Townhall is not a place I have linked to before because much of what I see there is more partisan than I would care to pass along. Surprisingly today there are two articles there that give me hope that there are still active Republicans who stand for something besides being not Democrats (there are also Democrats who are more than not Republican, but I discovered that a while back).

In the first column, the author rejects the most famous sound bite of the second Republican Presidential debate where the media latched on to the sound bite from Rudy Giuliani and allowed him to twist the words of Ron Paul about terrorism and 9/11 to the detriment of this less popular candidate. Ron Paul gave an insightful answer about the situation we are in but the media covered the sound bite response. Typical.

In the second column, the author reminds us what the Republican party used to be known for and what they claim to represent. By the time I was done with that I wanted to ask the current Republican party which is worse for our economy and our future generations – a spend and don’t tax leadership or a tax and spend leadership? The answer should be obvious. We need to be talking less about funding welfare and saving social security and more about helping people get off of welfare and helping them not be dependent on social security. More importantly we should be doing things to reduce the perceived need for such programs.

So my point is, it’s no wonder that things aren’t looking good for the GOP right now – their words (especially historically) and their actions are inconsistent. That is bound to inhibit people from trusting them even if they like their rhetoric. When people don’t trust them they are less likely to make an effort to vote for them.

Tags government, media, parties, Republican