That’s the sum of it. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for the offerings in your primary, or if the eventual nominee is somebody you can’t stomach, don’t sit out, and don’t vote for the Democrat. Write in Fred Thompson’s name.
Why?
By doing so, you send a message that can’t be mistaken or spun. It is a message that says:
“I am a Republican who wanted to vote for a conservative GOP candidate, but wasn’t able to do so. I can’t vote for a Democrat, but I can’t vote for any of the Republicans, either. So I’m writing in the name of the candidate I wish I could have voted for, because he is the kind of candidate I could support.”
They have to learn that if they want conservative votes, they have to nominate candidates conservatives would want to vote for.
This strategy is the only one that offers any hope of changing the leftward move of the GOP in the future. Sitting out won’t do it - they can spin the reasons why you sat out. Voting Democrat won’t do it, they can spin it that the GOP candidates weren’t liberal enough. Even voting “None of the Above” won’t do it, because that doesn’t specify what you want instead of none of the above.
I’m pretty sure that if this notion starts to get traction, Fred Thompson will publicly oppose it. Don’t worry, and don’t listen to him. This isn’t really about Fred Thompson. It’s about the future of the Republican party. Fred ran because he hoped to influence that, but he failed. Now it’s time for the rest of us to take a crack at it.
So remember: Just write in Fred Thompson’s name when it comes time to cast your vote. (There’s nothing stopping you from writing it in for other offices, either).
And ignore all the squalling that you have to vote GOP because it is marginally less evil than the Democrats. Given the rate of decay we’re seeing now, even that won’t be true (if it really is even now) in a couple more election cycles.
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You have nailed it, the only thing that will make any sort of impression on them is someone from outside that has stated views that do not fit their mantra getting some traction. I had already come to the conclusion that this was the only way to get any attention.
I planned on doing so in the primary as well as the general election for far to long I have been voting against someone instead of for, I am past being tired of it.
Bill, I already planned to vote for Fred in Alabama’s primary and then write him in, but good for you, getting the word out. Thanks
I hope enough of us do it that we make a noise so loud no one can ignore.
Assuming our latest keyboard voting for write-ins allows enought space, I plan to enter Fred Dalton Thompson, to assuage any doubt about who I mean.
Fred is still on the ballot here in California, and I’m debating whether to vote for Fred even though he has withdrawn, or to vote my second choice, Ron Paul.
Because, frankly, while Paul won’t win the Presidency, if he gets enough votes it will rattle the GOP bureaucracy’s cage enough to shake them up.
That’s a great idea! In fact, why not write in Ronald Wilson Reagan while you’re at it. Like the conservative movement, he’s dead and has no chance of winning anything after time has proven that the policies they espoused can only lead the country to debt, violence and the brink of collapse.
Nice job, guys.
I might do this if it ends out being Clinton vs. McCain in the general election. But you’ve got bigger problems than the ideological direction of the GOP if you can’t bring yourself to vote for Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee, Paul, OR McCain in the primaries.
Hear Hear!!!
Does anyone actually compile the number of write-ins?
It only sends a message if someone reads it someday.
Nothing like planning a mass protest just stupid enough to hand McCain the nomination…
And I say this as a former Fredhead.
I’ve donated to both Mitt and Fred, and now that Fred has bowed out, Go Mitt!
“That’s a great idea! In fact, why not write in Ronald Wilson Reagan while you’re at it. Like the conservative movement, he’s dead …”
Hate to break it to you all but Morton is probably right. Well except for the ‘violence’ crap he added to his reasonings. Have you ever thought that the reason the Party is seemingly drifting away from your insular orthodoxy, is that the mantras are becoming ever more threadbare and meaningless in a changing world, and that the Party feels it has to move or perish ?
Apart from Security, ‘conservatives’ have really nothing to say to a world that is moving rapidly away from them. You can just be thankful that the ‘opposition’ is usually so completely deranged as to make you look ‘ acceptable.
But as Obama is now showing —– not forever. In fact, not for long. If you think things are bad for you now, wait another 10 years. You will be looking back at the ‘golden age’ of 2007.
Write in whoever you want. It’s your funeral. And it sure beats actually examining the reasons behind the intellectual collapse of ‘conservatism’.
I think I beat you to the idea, but you’re welcome to take the credit!
If war in Iraq and threatened war against Iran isn’t violence, then I stand corrected. A lot of people have lost their lives, and it wasn’t in their rocking chairs on the front porch.
And security? If walking around with an endoscope labelled “Department of Homeland Security” makes you feel more secure, well then you can row that boat as long and far as you want. Don’t blame me when you tire out and can’t make it back to shore.
A lot of people have gotten rich off this war. And they get richer from it everyday. My guess is if no one made money off it, our troops would be back home inside a week.
it will be a while before we in WI get to vote but I always thought I would write in Fred’s name after reading he bowed out. I must agree with Justin though - I would hate to think I helped hand the nomination to McCain.
As I live in Illinois, which will almost certainly go Democratic in any case, I may do just that.
dougf wrote,
As opposed to the wholly logical and philosophically supported Democratic tenets of unspecified “hope” and “change”.
Yeah Morton pull the troops back and we will all be safe. What the hell idea do YOU have that is going to counter the Islamist. Sounds like your envious because YOU haven’t gotten rich off this war.
The conservative movement is dead because the majority want the government to assume responsibility for some things. They will willingly trade away their rights for being taken care of. We can only wait until SS, Medicare and the like consume so much of the budget a decision is forced.
No thanks. I prefer Romney at this point, but would still vote for McCain over Clinton if that’s all that’s there.
Fred doesn’t want it. He was auditioning for veep. Writing his name in is a waste.
In some states, Colorado is one, for write-in votes to be counted, the candidate’s name must be registered with the jurisdiction’s election official, usually the county clerk or secretary of state. There may also be a small fee, maybe $10 or so. Call them and find out.
Because, frankly, while Paul won’t win the Presidency, if he gets enough votes it will rattle the GOP bureaucracy’s cage enough to shake them up.
That’s exactly what I was thinking back in ‘92 when I voted for one Ross Perot.
What I got was 8 years of Bill Clinton.
I’m not gonna make that mistake again.
“Yeah Morton pull the troops back and we will all be safe. What the hell idea do YOU have that is going to counter the Islamist.”
Why are we fighting them? Those countries don’t belong to the US. If they want to live their lives in a twelfth century theocracy, it’s their business. Dumb ideas will keep them weak enough to leave us alone.
Besides we have to husband our resources so we can repel all those Vietnamese who stormed our shores after we prematurely left southeast Asia.
We’re living in the age of blowback. We funded the Shah against an elected Iranian government in the sixties and seventies. We funded Bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviets. We funded Saddam against the Iranians in the eighties.
The money spent on war could have been used to move us away from oil. But don’t expect a bunch of sleazy oil men (and women — don’t forget the mighty Chevron tanker, the Condoleeza Rice) to do that. There’s too much money to be made on smooching Abdullah’s heinie.
Here — let me make you feel better.
Liberty. Freedom. Personal responsibility. We’re #1.
There. Is that better?
Yes, that’s better Morton, but you can top it, keep on digging.
I’m doing it. Screw the GOP if they can’t get the Conservative message.
The problem with writing in a candidate is that write-in votes are rarely counted unless the candidate is a registered write in.
Throwing away your vote on a Thompson is, frankly, silly.
Vote for Rudy or Romney.
http://freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
Excuse me, but writing in Fred! sends the clear message: McCain wins! All writing Freds name in does is pull votes away from Romney, so that we get the proud author of McCain-Feingold-Kennedy-Edwards-Leiberman as head of state deciding how next to please the NYT.
I got the notion from Joe over at Cold Fury - who beat you to the idea, Kevin. But I don’t think either of us are looking for credit. We’re just looking for somebody we can be happy voting for.
I see the usual squalling from the “power over principle, lesser of two evils, you’ve got nowhere else to go but the GOP crowd” is here in force.
Amazingly enough, I intend to ignore them as being the major part of the problem, and contributing nothing to a solution.
As for the hate-conservative lefties, why would you suspect your lunacies would have any traction here whatsoever? Oh, that’s right. Because you are crazy.
I stand corrected!
But as to “somebody we can be happy voting for,” there’s about 10% of the voting population out there willing to write in Ron Paul.
I wonder exactly what that message would be?
As for the “lesser of two evils” vote…
“The conservative movement is dead because the majority want the government to assume responsibility for some things.”
Your darn tootin’ the government should assume responsibility for some things. The government is supposed to “provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty”, etc.
Unless it’s been hijacked, democratic government merely reflects the predispositions of its citizens. It neither grants nor takes away freedom of its own nature. Right now the citizens are predisposed toward a leveling of the playing field.
Yes, the American people want the government to assume its responsibility — to keep things fair — a responsibility that’s been abdicated for about thirty years now. And that’s why they’re killing the conservative movement before your very eyes.
Do what? “Yes, the American people want the government to assume its responsibility — to keep things fair” I’d rather the government just leave things alone for the most part. Did you mean to post at Dailykos?
Richard Cook said “The conservative movement is dead because the majority want the government to assume responsibility for some things. They will willingly trade away their rights for being taken care of. We can only wait until SS, Medicare and the like consume so much of the budget a decision is forced.”
Richard has it right.
The only question seems to be, which version does the majority want: Big Daddy (Republicans) or Big Mommy (Democrats)? And because of the monolithic black Democratic vote, and the emerging female voting majority, we can expect Big Mommy (unless the Democrats self-destruct on the rock of identity politics.)
Liberty is over, I think, except for those who are willing to live outside the law.
That’s totally idiotic. Write in the name of someone who has declared that he does not want to be President. Why not just participate in the electoral process by voting for someone who took the trouble to gain your vote even if he is not your clone or alter ego?
“As for the hate-conservative lefties, why would you suspect your lunacies would have any traction here whatsoever? Oh, that’s right. Because you are crazy.”
I don’t hate conservatives. I was one myself for a while. But when conservatives stopped conserving things, I started re-examining things.
It’s amazing what you can learn if you throw away your pre-judgments and actually look at the world for what it is. And I found out that I had been fed a load of BS for a long time. The more I looked, the more falsehoods I found. After a while, the dissonance between reality and ideology was more than I could stand.
I changed my mind.
People of good conscience can come to all kinds of different conclusions. But in the end, if you want to know why things are done, you can never go wrong with a simple motto: “Follow the money.”
But I’m tired of money being the single organizing principle for this country. I’d like to see a little more than lip service given to the value of a human being.
Someday, I hope, people will be able to stop salivating when the magic words are spoken, and find a way to agree on an objective reality. That reality should be the basis for identifying and solving problems. Not loopy buzzwords and and emotional manipulation.
Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy » The Greatest News Yet in the Battleground Poll
And…
Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy » The Christmas Gift in the Battleground Poll
Conservatism doesn’t have a problem, except that it doesn’t have a major political party representing it.
Voting write-ins for Fred is an excellent step in the direction of changing that.
Morton, go buy a puppy or something. It’s gonna be ok.
That’s just silly. The only “message” you would be sending would be to President McCain, which is: “We couldn’t get the perfect conservative in office, so we decided to roll over and let you slide into office unopposed.
No need to fear us or our voting block, you see. Just keep doing what you’re doing.
P.S. Who you talking to, anyway? And who’s the GOP? If Thompson had a gnat’s ass of support from Republican voters, he wouldn’t need to be written in. It was the individual Republican voters who rejected him.
“I’d rather the government just leave things alone for the most part. “
I agree, Tom. But they don’t. They spend money on big defense contracts, and then send soldiers to places where they shouldn’t be to expand money-making opportunities for certain folk. I wish government would stop doing that. My kids and grandkids are going to be paying taxes out the wazoo for that stuff.
Not to mention the fact that there might actually be significant near-term economic consequences for all of the corporate abuse that’s occurred since the decision was made to let the financial foxes run the hen-house. But that doesn’t involve tax policy. That’s just going to drive people out of their homes and onto the street.
Unless they disable the entry, Fred will still be on the ballot here in the VA primary, and I intend to vote for him, or write his name in if need be. Since I live in a majority-Democrat district (5:1 ratio) my vote in the general election carries as much weight as a gnat’s dandruff, so I’m free to “waste” my vote any way I choose. I’ll vote my conscience and for someone I agree with, because it’s what I believe, not because I want someone with an (R) next to his name in the White House. If the majority of Republicans want to elect someone just because he’s “electable”, just so they can “win”, then that’s fine, they can be just as bereft of principles as the Democrats are bereft of logic, and we can all go down the toilet together, but I’ll be damned if I help pull the handle. You can call me all the names in the book, but it won’t change anything, if you don’t stand for something, you fail, even if you “win.” What does it help to elect someone whose only principle is their own ambition, regardless of party?
“Conservatism doesn’t have a problem, except that it doesn’t have a major political party representing it.”
There were, what, a dozen republican candidates and only Fred Thompson was conservative enough? If conservatism’s so darn popular, then you’d think that these professional politicians would be beating down the door to come on for the ride.
But, movement conservatism and what an individual thinks when he calls himself conservative are really two different things. My guess is that I’m closer to being a true conservative than the movement guys are. That’s why ol’ Fred didn’t get raised to heaven on the wings of angels.
Bill, you’ve already stated you would vote for Romney. Has this changed? Hillary and Obama’s goals are surely differant. Come back to earth.
From which springs most of the sillier paranoias in American history. Why, yes, the civil war was entirely a matter of economics, with the money of the northern industrialists winning out over the poor slaveholding south.
And the US intervention in WW I was all about the money - the only reason we went over there was to protect our market share.
And FDR’s entire career - nothing more than a puppet of the monied interests.
And Ronald Reagan - nothing motivated him but his monied master of - um, sorry, I forget, who was pulling his financial strings, the Elders of Zion?
The entire cold war: Just a plot to make money for the Skull and Bones boys.
And - well, yes. Every event in human history can be properly figured out by “following the money.”
Sorry, pal, you’ve just traded one ideology for another one - and yet you still manage somehow to be a classic example of Eric Hoffer’s true believer.
And just so you know - I don’t think you have ever been even remotely a conservative in your life.
This is NOT what Fred Thompson would want you to do.
He wants you to vote and he wants you to vote for the person who is most acceptable to you.
Some years we get people super great to support and some years we do not.
Let’s be grown ups and vote for the best person for our country and show the Demcrats the Republican Party is STRONG.
“And just so you know - I don’t think you have ever been even remotely a conservative in your life.”
Late here on the East Coast. I have to walk my puppy and go to bed.
All I can tell you is that Dwight Eisenhower, who was a hell of a man, warned the American people about the military-industrial complex before he left office. My mother and father got it, and even though I’m too you to remember him, I understood what he was talking about.
Now that paranoid, socialist rat-bastard Ike may not have been hitting on all cylinders when he talked about it, but here we are nearly fifty years later, and have we been at peace for five minutes since then?
You know, Bill, maybe you’re right. I probably never was a conservative at all. I had just talked myself into trying to be one.
Liberty. Freedom. Personal responsibility. We’re #1.
Good night.
Ah, yes, the typical GOP-bot (complete with a stuck caps-lock key). I suppose it would be to much to expect a commenter of your attention span to read the entire post before splattering up your little blob of canned kneejerk, eh?
I was 14 years old when he made that speech. He meant something different than you seem to mean today, though. In fact, he originally intended to call it the “military-industrial-congressional” complex
Of course, back in his day, military spending as a percentage of US discretionary spending was nearly 75%, and today it is about 50%. And the 9.3% of GDP it represented back in Ike’s 1960 is now less than 4%.
Funny how that military-industrial-congressional “threat” keeps shrinking, isn’t it?
I figured out those numbers by “following the money,” by the way. And “the money” says that the influence of the “MIC” complex has greatly decreased since that guy who was before your time was so worried about it.
The thing is, the Republican party is not strong. Do you think 2006 happened because of the strength of the Republican party? Is the point of a political party to win elections or to govern under a certain ideology? This is not like Liberman’s excommunication where the candidate is out of step on just one issue. The most conservative guy in the bunch is probably McCain, who has said that he prefers clean government to you know, actual liberty, unless you’re talking about the liberty of people who broke the law to get here in which case he’s all for that. You have Huckabee, who apparently is a conservative because God rather than Marx that told him that socialism is the way to go. There’s Mitt, who became a conservative roughly 1 day before he declared his candidacy, and will probably revert back to his natural center-right-only-in-Massachusetts one day after he has secured the nomination. Finally there’s Rudy, who’s like McCain only instead of speech he’s against guns, and like Mitt except that his measure for center is NYC instead of Massachusetts.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, but which of these is supposed to be “the good?” Is it McCain’s clean, efficient country without all that dirty, money soaked speech mucking things up? Is it the hope that Romney/Rudy isn’t saying anything he can to get elected? Huckabee’s Socialist Republic of God?
The only reason that they are preferable to Democrats at this point is that they won’t raise taxes (though that’s highly questionable with regards to McCain and Huckabee) and the size of their socialist fiefdoms will probably be not quite as large as the ones invisioned by Obama or Hillary. Hell, I have no reason to believe that Huckabee’s won’t be BIGGER than the Dems, who at least are guided by the faux-science of socialism and not “the love God says we should have for each other.” A guy who says “I didn’t raise taxes, I raised hope” is flat out NOT A CONSERVATIVE no matter how Christian he is. Isn’t compassion with no brain exactly what conservatives ridicule liberals for?
If conservative ideas are truly dead then it doesn’t matter who we vote for because no candidate will get elected that will give us actual conservative government. The only choice is how quickly we decend into socialism, especially since once the government giveth, the government can never taketh away (they aren’t called “entitlements” for nothing). And in my opinion, we might as well as hit rock bottom sooner rather than later so we can go back to all those outdated concepts that actual work like markets and freedom that much quicker.
Do you have any idea how many ballots don’t even allow write-ins?
Given that the vote one casts in the general election for Pres/VP are not actually cast for them but rather for electors, the votes are not counted by the state agency responsible for holding elections since there are no electors to vote for.
You might as well vote for a third party candidate that actually achieved ballot status. At least then there are electors to receive the votes and get them tallied.
Bottom line - the system is rigged by the major parties in all 50 states. So your choice is Democrat Socialism or Republican Socialism
“This is not what Fred Thompson would want”
Who cares? He ran on being concerned about the future of the party and the country. I gave him a thousand bucks because I can’t stand the other ones period.
If he was snookered by letting the political hardballers run his campaign or in on the snookering himself, then he was either naive (I highly doubt) or disingenuious.
If he was sincere, he won’t care if I write his name in.
If he was in on the snookering, then the GOP deserves what they get for trying to bamboozle those in this country who would stand up and die to defend her, while the others talk a good game about doing it, so long as we do their fighting for them, to clean up their mess.
I will either write in Thompson or write in Paul. If by election time, I feel Thompson just got in it to pull votes from “others” and then once it became clear he had inflicted the blow needed to do it, I will vote for Paul.
I am sick and tired of politicians taking advantage of my good intentions. I just hope that Thompson wasn’t put into do the bidding for “who they really want in there”.
He pulls out after three primaries that he actually placed in, while Giuliani hasn’t even registered on the bar graph?
Obviously, he got out so “the real” candidate “they want” gets what votes would have gone to Thompson.
It is going to blow up in the GOP’s face.
There is not one bit of difference between Hillary and the remaining crop still in the race for the GOP, except who they have chosen to pander to and which foreign interests are filling their coiffers.
dougf, I recommend you read Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings
The near term (06,08,…) death of the GOP was engineered by the “former” tie died hippy from Texas (AKA Karl Rove) from 01 – 06. Rove did a good job or making the 21 century GOP the “new” party of the New Deal. The current leadership (?) of the GOP are liberals who have proven over the last 5 years to be deaf to criticisms from the Goldwater/Reagan wing of the party.
I will write Fred in but I expect it will do no good. The lefties in the RNC consider conservatives to be a bunch of redneck yahoos,
But I don’t think either of us are looking for credit. We’re just looking for somebody we can be happy voting for.
Exactly so, Bill. As you put it so well,
I’m pretty sure that if this notion starts to get traction, Fred Thompson will publicly oppose it. Don’t worry, and don’t listen to him. This isn’t really about Fred Thompson. It’s about the future of the Republican party. Fred ran because he hoped to influence that, but he failed. Now it’s time for the rest of us to take a crack at it.
I’m not sure why supposed conservatives see much difference between the two parties these days. But if we hope to see any difference remain at all, we need to stop accepting the shit sandwich. Unlike certain dead weights, I don’t find that the extra helping of sanctimony covers the bad taste at all. We need to start demanding a new menu, and we can’t do that unless we send a message that’s impossible to spin.
Bill, does this replace your plan to vote Democratic if Huckabee is the nominee or will you write in Thompson regardless of who the nominee is?
Errr, that last comment didn’t really make sense, did it? What I mean is, will you write in Thompson regardless of the nominee or will you vote Democratic if Huckabee is the nominee?
Can’r do it until McCain is eliminated. After McCain drops out maybe.
I’m in Florida. The current polls (which haven’t been particularly accurate in any of the prior races) show Romney and McCain in a statistical tie. Since Fred’s dropped out, I have little choice but to vote against McCain by voting for Romney.
It stinks, but that’s the way it is.
If either McCain or Huckabee end up the GOP’s nominee, I’ll be writing Fred’s name in come November. In my eyes there’s not a lick of difference between the two of them and any of the Dem’s candidates.
I like and appreciate this post… To a True Republican the principals of ‘by the people and for the people’ hold strong… And (regardless of the media-spin) this is ONLY reason why Thompson dropped out of the race.
If my history serves me, this is not the first time a Republican candidate held his ground. If we look back to 1860, we see a candidate who sought to avoid raising controversy and the chance of dividing the party, so he opted out from making speeches.
The Democratic Party was divided with the North wanting Stephen A. Douglas and the South wanting John C. Breckinridge…
But during this particular campaign he stayed in Springfield; and the rest is history…
Quiet and calm Abraham Lincoln, was elected first Republican president.
The media tagged his toe; now, fellow Republicans, go NOW and get him if you are to make these last principals of history, true.
God Bless You All.
If eveyone that thinks Fred Thompson would be best for this country and would vote for him, be it check his name if possible or write it in,it would make a difference .The news media can not ignore large amounts of votes for Fred,or can they ? I would think they would have to report the true total of votes .If you are just voting to vote for who ever they say you should good luck.I would rather vote for a true republican conservitive who tried as best he could knowing he had a news media doing what ever they could to hold him back.Some may say you are throwin your vote away,I don’t beleive that.VOTE FOR FRED THOMPSON and speak your own mind.while you can still do tis.
Voting in Fred for the primary isn’t the end of the world, but doing so in November could lead to a lengthy case of Perot-itis, like in the 90’s
LISTEN UP BOYS AND GIRLS!
Fred didn’t “fail” jackshit! WE, the people, failed him.
We’ve been whining for decades for an honest candidate with brains that produces results and what do we do when he shows up?? We listen to pundits and the MSM instead of using the internet to find out what the truth is and buy into their lies and misinformation like a bunch of idiots!
He bypassed them all and came right to us with an unmistakably clear and honest message with instructions of what conservatism is but, now I see drivel abour HIM failing?? Don’t try to excuse us by placing the blame on him, this is OUR loss, not his.
If the morally corrupt and uninformed majority want populist panderers I say let them have the full dose of socialism instead for four years to get a real good taste of it and we’ll see what they say then.
What, the revolution in human nature came and I missed it?
What they will say then, Winghunter, is that they want more of the same.
Ben Franklin said that we had a republic, if we could keep it. I’m afraid we can’t.
Winghunter point is one we miss all too often.
How susceptible are we to the MSM drumbeat?
I watched FOX call it a good night for McCain when he came in behind Fred in Iowa.
That was when I realised that Fred was going to get no support whatsoever–regardless of his position at the polls.
If the MSM says it often enough apparently we believe it.
As I have said before on Fred08.com, The Repiblican party is splintered.
We have to take back our party!!!!
I’m voting for Fred on February 5th in Oklahoma.
I agree. Writing in Fred Dalton Thompson makes the message absolutely clear. Give us a true conservative and stop moving to the left. It is not conservative voters ruining the Republican Party. It’s the Left-Moving Republican Party ruining the Republican Party.
For 20 years the Party has said, vote for the candidate, you’ll get something better in the next election. What do we end up getting? A handful of Democrats claiming to be Republicans. I do not believe the Republican Party spin anymore.
www.pinnaclecascade.com see “Fred Thompson is as Dumb as a Fox” article
We visited for two hours and he answered every question, outlining plans for a campaign that would be notable for its boldness.
David Broder - Real Clear Politics
What boldness did Fred mean?
The notion that Fred Thompson got into the race to take away votes from other candidates is on the wrong track.
If Fred got into the race to Help McCain, or anyone else, he did it at a very hefty cost to his personal income. Thompson dropped contracts and commitments that were a steady flow of personal income. Some he could probably regain but some are probably foregone opportunities.
It would be ludicrous to drag Miss Jeri and the children all around snowy, sub-zero Iowa, just to help another candidate, or just to make a statement. Those who live in Iowa, and those who have visited in December and January, will tell you that the Siberian climate is more tolerable.
Then there is gulping down greasy fast food everyday while sleeping in uncomfortable motel rooms with toddlers. Any of us that have travelled with toddlers for a week will attast that caring for children on the campaign trail to help someone else get elected is absolutely absurd.
Fred Thompson dropping out of the “race” (”I’m not going to play by the phoney rules”) is actually part of Thompson’s campaign strategy. See “Fred Thompson is as Dumb as a Fox”.
And by ‘re-examining things’, what you really meant was ‘let go and let the MSM do all my thinking for me,’ right? Because every single one of the arguments you’ve presented have been that so-called propaganda you’ve been patting yourself on the back for supposedly rejecting, and all of which displaying a blatant ignorance of history.
Bill’s right…the only thing you’ve done is trade one blind allegiance for another. That doesn’t make you a ‘free-thinker’; that makes you a sheep that’s simply had its wool dyed a different colour. You have all the credibility of a three dollar bill.
I’m game. 2004 Presidential General Election Results - Open ‘Other’
I have no idea what you think you’re talking about. The word “other” appears nowhere on the page you linked.
Everyone below the Libertarian candidate is “Other”. His link must have already expanded it (If you click the election results button at the top of the page, you’ll see the “Other” option)
I miss Fred
Fred Thompson is on our ballot in Oklahoma. I know a lot of folks who will be voting for him including me on February 5th.
McCain may have joined as a foot soldier for Reagan, he is now AWOL
I’m doing it. I’m not a “conservative” - I’m more of what some have dubbed a “neo-libertarian”- in favor of a much smaller government that isn’t afraid to kick ass in foreign affairs when necessary.
Fred came was not my ideal candidate but he was close, and none of the remainder is remotely acceptable.
So, write in it is.
I just voted in California. Fred was still on the ballot. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Romney or McCain unless it was vs. Hillary or Obama, so I voted for Fred.
If you’re in California and plan to write in Fred, don’t just write in Fred’s name, fill in the oval too, or it won’t count. That happened in the San Diego mayoral election a few years ago, when the write in candidate got the most votes, but enough were disallowed to give the incumbent the win.
The wierd thing there was that many voters checked or put an X in the oval, and the registar filled in the ovals so they could machine count the votes. That was justified by the registrar because the improper marks were considered the “intent of the voter”. Going to the trouble of writing in a name without any mark in an oval was not considered the intent of the voter by the registrar, and a court agreed.
I voted for Fred Thompson in the California Primary (absentee ballot before Fred withdrew), and have been thinking about writing him in for the general election as well. Bill Quick sums up my reasons very well.
There are other names that could be written in, but none that make more sense. I have heard plans to write in Jesus Christ, but I don’t think he is interested in being demoted. Writing in Ronald Reagan would certainly send a message to the RNC, but they would would just dismiss it as living in the past. I could even vote for Ron Paul, but that would send the incorrect message that I am against the war in Iraq. Fred Thomson is the only reasonable choice.
I realize I could be handing the White House to one of the Democratic Candidates, but in a couple of election cycles there will be no other choices. John McCain will loose this election (with or without my help), and I hope the RNC will go looking into the reasons why. I have been holding my nose while voting for too long. In true conservative form, I am willing to delay gratification to achieve greater results in the future.
Herb, it’s good to hear from you. I’m pleased to know that the lesser evil rationale doesn’t resonate with a lot of thoughtful conservatives.