Your choices for the likely candidates are probably correct.  There is still enough time for another candidate to get into the game, perhaps Fred Thompson or Newt Gingrich.  Of those, Thompson would be an attractive candidate--an eloquent, popular, conservative with a broad appeal.  I'm still thinking that the ticket will be Giuliani plus some more conservative, Southern figure--maybe Huckabee or Thompson??  I would like to see Giuliani/Romney or Thompson/Romney myself.

On the Democratic side, I am thrilled that Obama is actually making Hillary run a race, and not cruise to her coronation.  She might actually not get the nomination if she makes enough mistakes between now and next year.  She's a lousy candidate--Dukakis in a skirt.    Obama is nothing to write home about either, but I would bet the farm that he will be the VP candidate, if he does not get the top slot. 

Actually, I like Fred Thompson. I would have to look into his record a bit more but he would excite me more than the others.

I'll tell you how I really feel about him tonight after I have looked him in the eye and shook his hand.

Yes, and we want to know if he did sign any bill into law concerning ss marriage...

On Fred Thompson, I am all for him and hope like crazy that he runs.

'Law & Order' Actor Mulls White House Run

By HOPE YEN
AP WASHINGTON (March 11) - Not enough "star" power for Fred Thompson in a GOP presidential field that includes some of his friends? Whatever the case, the actor and former Tennessee senator is considering getting into the 2008 race.

Thompson, who plays district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's drama "Law & Order," said Sunday, "I'm giving some thought to it, going to leave the door open" and decide in the coming months. "It's not really a reflection on the current field at all," he said.

"I'm just going to wait and see what happens," Thompson added. "I wanted to see how my colleagues who are on the campaign trail do now, what they say, what they emphasize, what they're addressing, and how successful they are in doing that, and whether or not they can carry the ball in next November."

Thompson, 64, said he was pondering a run after former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and other Tennessee Republicans began drumming up support for his possible GOP candidacy, citing his conservative credentials.

"I think people are somewhat disillusioned. I think a lot of people are cynical out there. I think they're looking for something different. ... and I think that they're going to be open to different things," he said.

"It will be interesting to me as I listen to people and learn and watch what's going on and what's the reaction, and the poll numbers and so forth, as to whether or not my instinct on that is right."

On the issues, Thompson said he:

Is "pro-life," and believes federal judges should overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision as "bad law and bad medical science."

Opposes gay marriage, but would let states decide whether to allow civil unions. "Marriage is between a man and a woman, and I don't believe judges ought to come along and change that."

Opposes gun control, and praised last week's 2-1 federal appeals decision overturning a long-standing handgun ban. "The court basically said the Constitution means what it says, and I agree with that."

Supports President Bush 's decision to increase troops in Iraq . "Wars are full of mistakes. You rectify things. I think we're doing that now," he said. "Why would we not take any chance, even though there's certainly no guarantees, to not be run out of that place? I mean, we've got to take that opportunity and give it a chance to work."

Thompson said he was not setting a deadline to make a decision and believes he won't be at a disadvantage if he waited until summer. "The lay of the land will be different in a few months than it is today, one way or the other."

He added, "One advantage you have in not ... having this as lifelong ambition is that if it turns out that your calculation is wrong, it's not the end of the world."

So, Arbi, is Thompson a candidate that you and I could both get behind?

-- Edited by fear of shiz at 15:51, 2007-03-13

Cat, here's some information on him.
Shiz, I hate to disappoint you, but I am not terribly excited about Fred Thompson. While he definitely has charisma, projects power, and has the right answers for many political issues, he also is a good friend of McCain, who I would not trust to lead me through a McDonald's Playland.

Chances are Thompson's vying for the VP spot. He'll most likely ride the little political donkey to Bethlehem and then graciously bow out and put his endorsement behind McCain for the sake of political favors... wink, wink, nudge, nudge...

--Ray

Lundbaek asked why I thought Romney would make a lousy president, and here is my delayed answer.
With the forces of immorality and socialism striving to make this country over in their image, we need a president who will be willing to fight the good fight on important issues. We need someone who isn't just an administrator. We need a president who is a leader, a statesman.
We cannot judge a person solely based on what they say. Politicians have lied so often to their constituents that people almost expect it anymore. It is incredibly clear that you must evaluate what a politician says based on their track record.
Shiz has a point when he says that you have to pick your political battles. You can't expect to change the course of a whole nation overnight, and you will fail if you try to correct everything at once. But you have to be willing to fight the important battles, or there's no point to you being in office.
So, to get to the point, it has been amply demonstrated that, unless someone else did all the work and Romney just took the credit, he's a good administrator. People can point out the Olympics or his reign as His Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts (and I'm not being facetious, I believe that was his actual title). But when has he proven himself to be a statesman? When has he ever fought the good fight? When has he ever, against incredible odds, fought a battle for principle, knowing that even if he lost that the battle was worth fighting?
Many people might point out his public statements against ss marriage in Massachusetts. But what did he actually do? What specific actions did he take? Did he continue that battle, long after others declared it to be over? The only evidence I can think of is enforcing the law that says that Massachusetts will not perform any marriage that would be illegal in the person's home state. That's one minor action. What has he done since?
I feel that Romney would make a lousy president because he would allow others to dictate policy for him. He wouldn't push, he would compromise, he would go along to get along, and he would not translate his pleasing rhetoric into concrete action.
So he's against abortion now. What would he actually do to eliminate it, except in the cases he mentions? Appointing justices to the court is a cop out answer. Bush has supposedly one of the most conservative supreme courts in a long while, and no one is even seriously talking about mounting a challenge to Roe v Wade. So Romney is against ss marriage. What steps would he take to ensure that marriage remained only between a man and a woman? Rhetoric isn't going to change it at this point.
So that's why I feel he would be a lousy president. He has some of the right rhetoric, but he would, at best, be a "good administrator" while president. We wouldn't be able to count on him to fight the good fight for us.

Brit Hume on Fox News mentioned this little blurb about candidate Rudolph Guilliani.

"Rudy Giuliani has given up some of his business connections as he mounts a presidential campaign but he remains a partner in the growing law firm of Bracewell and Giuliani.

One of the firm's clients is CITGO, the oil company wholly owned by the government of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The Giuliani firm represents CITGO in Texas.

The Giuliani campaign says the former New York Mayor regards Chavez as "no friend of the United States," but did not answer a question from Bloomberg News about whether Giuliani knew of the CITGO work, and whether he considered it appropriate."

Way to Go Rudy!

If he wins the Republican nomination, you can be certain that the Church will become more widely known and talked about - not only here but world wide.  That is a step in bringing the Church out of obsurity, and a huge step at that.

Where would they disagree?

Would a Mormon not embrace his pro-life, pro-marriage stance?

Would a Mormon not embrace his hope for less government?... perhaps not Harry Reid!

Perhaps there are many Latter-day Saints that are scared that the way they live their religion will be scrutinized with the standards lived by the Romney family... and that perhaps they and their families don't measure up?

Should be interesting to see come March when the results of first quarter fundraising is reported.

Government funding is not the answer. Oddly enough, the best answer is going back to free-market principles. Right now a donor is limited in the amount that they can contribute to any one candidate--$2000 is the limit, if I remember right. If we got rid of the limit, but continued to require full accounting and disclosure, then candidates could raise more money faster, from fewer donors. Keeping the disclosure requirements would let the public be aware that John Q. Democrat got $3 million from Soros, and that could be an issue--do we want a candidate who was so beholden to that individual?? It could be a badge of honor for a candidate to have lots of small donors--like it was for Dean back in 2003/4.

This would make the race much less dependent on early expectations of fund-raising capability. One of the big obstacles right now for some of the lesser known candidates is that they don't get the funds because people want to back a winner. So someone with high name recognition (McCain for instance) has a fund-raising advantage. If Steve Forbes, for instance, really liked a Huckabee or a Brownback, he could fund his campaign more than $2000, to help him have a shot at getting through the early primaries (of course, the primary system is breaking down, too, but that is another thread).

I agree, Shiz, let's go back to the free market system. People bemoan big money buying elections, but big money is always going to find a way to influence elections. Even if somehow you made it impossible for a business to donate to either a candidate or a group campaigning for that candidate, said business could offer a "bonus" to its employees that wanted to donate to someone's campaign. For instance, they could have a "donation assistance" program where if the employee said they wanted to donate to candidate X the company would send the employee $2k and mail a check for $2k on the employee's behalf to the candidate. A lot of employees would go for that, even if they were not wild about said candidate.

Wow. He seems to really have things together. I enjoyed watching the discussion with Mitt. Imagine what would happen if a guy like him were to be a rolemodel to kids trying to decide how to be moral and upright... as opposed to the other fellows currently running. I like his presentation and his level-headedness.

I have to wonder if what some people consider "flipfloppiness" is his ability to show empathy to an opposing viewpoint while still holding to decent personal moral principles.

--Ray

-- Edited by rayb at 16:06, 2007-03-16

Exactly, Jason. How can we measure his sincerity? Sure, he comes across as very sincere. But there have been some very dishonest politicians who cultivated the skill of seeming sincere. If he has changed his opinion, how can we know that it is a genuine change of heart, and not just being blown about by every political wind? Pretty much the only way to judge that is by past performance. Which is why I asked for specific examples of Romney championing those principles that he is now espousing.

His interview with Larry King was wonderful as well as the interview he did today with Sean Hannity.

He is the real deal.

He is not only an administrator, he is a leader.  When he was Bishop and the LDS Church burnt down, he reached out to clergy of other faiths and they embraced the LDS members.  That is a leader.  My good friend served as a full time elder in Boston when Mitt was Stake President and says that he is a true leader.

Hey Jason...not even Reagan was a Reagan Conservative all of the time.

I've changed my mind a few times but never on the core beliefs regarding abortion, homosexualty, gun control, etc. We're not talking about changing our favorite icecream flavors here. This is what is bothering me so much about Mitt at this point. It is still early. I don't know if he actually made a change of heart or not. It may just be politics. I must admit that prior to Harry Reid I would have trusted a mormon candidate more. After Dingey Reid, I look at mormon candidates no differently than candidates from any other religion. I don't give any of them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not anti-Mitt or anything but I do have my doubts because of these huge changes in heart he allegedly has made. It makes me nervous. I feel like I was burned by Bush and am being very careful this time around. I still prefer Bush to Gore and Kerry but I wish we had chosen someone different in the primary.

And Ray: As for Tommy Thompson I was thinking more along the lines of the Thompson Twins. They had that gorgeous long blond hair that I really needed to get more dates in Highschool. The Thompson Twins would definitely have my vote! LOL!!!

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4090 is a link to a transcription of an interview of presidential candidate Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas who is an advocate of limited government and has opposed U.S. military interventions overseas, including Iraq.
 
The interviewer is Michael Shank, the government relations officer at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).

Following are excerpts which I think give a good picture of Ron Paul's position of several issues.

...the executive branch, and particularly the president, always has the bully pulpit. He can say it over and over and over again, and it’s always heard: “If you don’t vote for the money and you don’t support the policy, you don’t support the troops.” And that’s not true because if you’re spending money to support a policy that puts the troops in harm’s way, performing a task that’s unachievable, then you’re doing everything in the world to hurt the troops. You’re doing everything you can to undermine the rule of law because it’s an undeclared illegal war and it’s very detrimental economically. So to argue that you’re unpatriotic because you don’t support the troops, because you don’t support the policy, is a canard, it’s just not true.

(Speaking of the media): They repeat everything the president says and they don’t ask tough questions. They would very rarely give those of us that have opposed the war from the very beginning any credibility. For very special reasons, I think, they aren’t interested in having an anti-war policy. They have other reasons for wanting us to be there and they’re not hesitant at all to continue that policy and they don’t want their policy undermined.

 We finally found out that the Gulf of Tonkin was all fudged, and yet we lost 60,000 men. Now we have the misinformation, that’s a generous term, about getting us involved in Iraq. We’ve lost a lot of people, and literally hundreds of thousands are applying for disability. And it goes on and on.

The media, if they’re not in conspiracy to promote war, they’re not doing a very good job by asking questions. And nobody knows what their intent really is. Sometimes the media and big industry are very often the same company.

.... I’m against military activity in almost every circumstance when war isn’t declared. I recognize there are a few times our president could act but I think I pointed out in one of my speeches that I can’t remember a time that the president was required to act, i.e. that it was so necessary: the tanks were landing, there was a landing on our beach, the missiles were flying. It’s never happened.

Their (the Soviet) system was a failed system, and it failed. The Iranian [system] will fail too if we just leave them alone. They can never become a power capable of attacking us. They don’t have an air force, they don’t have a navy. It’s an unbelievable, hysterical reaction on our part to become so frightened that we have to attack people like Saddam Hussein. It just bewilders me how people can fall into a trap of believing these stories that are put out and that the media propagates.
Once we start to intervene it comes back to haunt us. Osama bin Laden was an ally and now he’s our enemy. Saddam Hussein was an ally, now he’s our enemy.

I think the founders were right about minding our own business. Try to get along with people, trade with them, talk to them. But I don’t believe in isolating ourselves. It’s ironic that they accuse people like me of being isolationist, but yet they have isolated us. Our current administration has isolated us from the world. We have fewer friends and more enemies than ever before. It’s ironic.
 
In the pipeline this year there’s close to $700 billion dollars, supposedly in the defense of this country. Yet if you talk to generals you find that the military operation is in shambles, they don’t have enough personnel, the morale is low, and the equipment is in bad shape. All this money is doing the opposite of what it should be doing: it hurts our defense, antagonizes our allies, and creates new enemies. And it’s very, very costly. We have to depend, literally, on borrowing from countries like China and Japan. And that’ll come to an end.
 
We can’t tax, borrow, and inflate forever. That’s what we’ve been doing, and our obligations are overwhelming.
Even today’s statistics show that inflation is alive and well, probably much more alive than the government will admit. So I think we’re going to have inflation, a weak dollar, interest rates will eventually go up, the economy is going to remain sluggish, and the only alternative here in Washington is to spend more money. And I think it’s going to lead to a disaster.
 
But today, with the war on terrorism…you always have to have a war to frighten the people, to get the people to rally around the flag and sacrifice their liberties and allow the state to do a lot more than they should be doing. That’s why I would say that the war on terrorism looks like it’s going to have a longer life unless somebody can point out the fallacies of the [administration’s] thinking.

For people who like the state to grow during wartime, it’s easy just to declare a war. Whether it’s a war on drugs, a war on illiteracy, or a war on whatever, people say “well, it’s a war; we have to be willing to sacrifice our liberties and let the government take care of us.” It’s a contest between those who want to or enjoy being dependent on the government -- or are frightened into it both physically and economically -- versus those who believe and understand how a free society is safer and wealthier.

Right now, for most of my lifetime, those who want to be safe and secure and believe government can provide have won out over those of us who believe that we would be safer and we would be more economically secure if we assumed responsibility for ourselves.

Who is Bill Maher?

What makes anybody think that I think America deserved the 911 attack?

Before anybody tries to pick apart what Ron Paul stated in the interview, please read Ezra Taft Benson's "The Proper Role of Government", and Andersen's "Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen".   

Glad you don't know who Bill Maher is.

He is proof that garbage happens.

Oh C'mon, Mirky! He's a mormon!!!

--Ray

And so are Chris Cannon, UT Senator Bennett and NV Senator Reid.  I am grateful to The New American Magazine, which 2x annually publishes the voting records of all members of the House and the Senate.  Of course it helps to have first read "The Proper Role Of Government" and/or the US Constitution, or the other books I suggested elsewhere. 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/

 

"Hatch is as phony as a three dollar bill." -coco's dad