Nation-Building

I actually think this would be a good idea : Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee, and said in an interview Wednesday that he will launch another presidential bid if he's convinced he can raise enough money to appear on the vast majority of state ballots this fall. Nader, who ran as an independent candidate in each of the past three presidential elections, told ABCNews.com that he will run in 2008 if he is convinced over the next month that he would be able to raise $10 million over the course of the campaign — and attract enough lawyers willing to work free of charge to get his name on state ballots. Nader makes a good point that the truly "progressive" candidates - Kucinich, and to a lesser extent, Edwards - have dropped out. Nader making a run would basically be an outlet for the far left. By bleeding off some of that fringe, Nader would actually free the Democratic nominee to tack back from the far left and settle more comfortably in left-of-cen...

I couldn't resist highlighting this one . John McCain will create 20 million new Democrats by jackbenimble The damage to conservatism of a McCain win will be irreversible. We can't just keep importing poor, ignorant people from the third world and expecting them to vote anything but Democrats and socialism. Poor ignoarnat people ALWAYS vote for socialism. Prior to the Reagan Amnesty California had voted Republican in 9 out of the 10 prior elections. The Reagan Amensty turned California irreversibly blue and the McCain Amnesty will be 6 to 10 times larger. We can't lose anymore Red States and expect conservatism to ever win again. A win by John McCain would be a tactical victory and a strategic loss that would doom conservatism. I'd rather have a tactical loss and have conservatism survice to fight another day. What do rich "ignoarnat" people ALWAYS vote for, then?

Predicting the outcome of Florida was not really that difficult. Romney and McCain were battling for the prize, with Rudy a distant third and Huckabee off the radar. As it turned out, McCain pulled off the upset, partly because Huckabee bled Romney of the evangelical vote, and partly on the strength of military voters . In winning Florida, McCain literally flipped the coin; had he lost, he'd be bankrupt , whereas now he's the front runner (especially with Rudy's endorsement). McCain's next move is to free himself from federal matching funds, which he must do lest he be utterly crippled against the Democratic nominee in the general election. He has already been forced to embrace lobbyists on K-street to get this far - as others put it, "embrace the same moneyed interests he's declared are among the biggest problems facing America." And the silver lining for all of us is that the authoritarian, egomaniacal, and thoroughly corrupt Rudy 9iu1liani is never, ...

I know my track record thus far is dismal but I'm going out on one of the remaining limbs and calling SC for Edwards today. This won't help Edwards much on Tsunami Tuesday in February, but what it will do is keep him viable enough to survive beyond it. I assume that Edwards will have a solid bloc of delegates going into the convention, maybe not for kingmaker, but enough at least to influence the policy platform. Is he angling for Veep? I don't think he can appeal to either Hillary or Obama for that, and he is in a sense somewhat damaged from 2004. Let's see how it goes today.

Mick Huckabee doesn't have enough money to play in Florida: "The money simply hasn't come in at the rate that we expected," says the [Huckabee Campaign] aide. "Florida is a $7 million commitment that we can't meet, and if we did, that leaves us exposed for Super Tuesday, where we have a lot of states and a lot media buys. We had to make tough decisions." With Fred! out of the campaign today , that leaves Florida as a three-way race between McCain, Rudy, and Romney. No matter how the votes break, this doesn't look good for Rudy. Huckabee's socon support is going to switch to either Romney or McCain, deprived of the Fred option as they are. And it's doubtful that everyone supporting Fred is going to go the Rudy route. It's much more likely now that McCain takes Florida and that Rudy drops out before MegaTuesday. I think that by the time we hit February the GOP nomination will be a two-person race between Romney and McCain, and I'm pret...

Somewhere, a million conservative voices cried out in agony and were abruptly silent : "Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people." Succinct. Luckily for Fred, there's already a suggested farewell speech pre-written for him courtesy of Fredstate. So ending his campaign should be even less work than running it. When - not if - McCain wins the GOP nomination, watch for him to pick Fred as his running mate. Then all the gnashing of teeth from those who argue that McCain is absolutely unacceptable will promptly be forgotten as the inclusion of Fred! on the ticket suddenly demonstrates McCain's genuine commitment to conservative ideals, or something. Oh, and Fredstate assures us, it's not the end for Fred Thompson . Stage 1: denial...

It's starting to look like John McCain is this cycle's John Kerry, at least as far as the electability argument goes. Since all the putative front runners are unacceptable to at least one segment of the GOP base, McCain is increasingly seen as the only "viable" alternative who is "acceptable" - and his South Caroline victory pretty much seals that view in the GOP mainstream (something that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire could have provided him). No one else has as much momentum as McCain now. GOP primary results for South Carolina were at last count, 92 percent of precincts reporting McCain 137,000 (33%) Huckabee 123,117 (30%) Thompson 65,108 (16%) Romney 62,367 (15%) Paul 15,235 (4%) Giuliani 8,518 (2%) Hunter 991 (0%) Huckabee is the Dean of this cycle, pulling in a close second and thus far still second fiddle to McCain, though of all the others, he's got the broadest support. The one ticket that I think can present a strong challenge to Clinton or O...