For Illinois Republicans used to coalescing early around an easy presidential winner, 2008 is turning out to be a different kind of year.
Even before Mitt Romney’s win in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, Illinois’ business and GOP establishment was dividing its money and support among no fewer than four candidates, with a fifth, Mike Huckabee, appealing to social conservatives, if not LaSalle Street lawyers and bankers.
Read More...Every day I meet Republicans who believe somehow that things are as good for them today as they were in the hey-day of the Reagan years…so they allow that if McCain is nominated, they would “hold their nose’ and they cannot abide Huckabee and Romney is a issues shifter.
They should understand that 2008 may well be 1974, the Watergate year, and they shouldn’t be so cocky but be glad that anybody of any quality decided to run for president on their party’s line. Americans regard the Democrats as more competent than the Republicans by a margin of 5 to 3, more ethical by 2 to 1. They prefer Democratic policies to Republican ones from healthcare to taxes. The economy may be tailing south. The Republicans have a Rudy Giuliani with too much personal baggage plus prostate cancer. Fred Thompson is the first actor candidate to pout people to sleep ... Read More...
This odd stew of a Republican with a pinch of libertarianism, a soupcon of conservatism, a dash of racism and a whiff of crypto-fascism was not supposed to make it this far this long.
On September 10, 2001, Rudy Giuliani, like George W. Bush, was sliding downhill. New Yorkers were tiring of his high-handed antics, such as trying to cut off funding for an art museum because a painting displeased him. His race relations were disastrous, then came his very public marital high-jinks, trying to move his girl friend into the mayoral mansion while his wife was still living there.
The careers of both Rudy and W, needless to say, were saved the next day.
Giuliani talked tough—to millions he was inspirational—though city firefighters complain bitterly about his deeds. He actually tried to extend his mayoral term by fiat because of the attack, but couldn’t get away with it.
Nevertheless ... Read More...
The GOP has one chance of winning back Congress and holding on to the Whitehouse, and that is to embrace the war on terror and not run from it. I know the conventional wisdom is to pretend that President Bush and the war don’t exist and to admit it was wrong, but that is the recipe for disaster. The American people are taking a second look at the war in Iraq, but if there is no alternative presented to the anti-war “mainstream media” bias, that bias will paint much of history’s picture. The GOP has a chance to take the initiative if they get behind the most popular part of the federal government, the military!
In a New York Times poll—the day before General Petraeus gave his report to Congress—an overwhelming majority of the American people voted to trust the military to handle the war over the congress, ... Read More...
