Another backbencher bails!!!
AP–DES MOINES, Iowa - Rep. Tom Tancredo, who built his longshot presidential campaign on opposition to illegal immigration, dropped out Thursday and endorsed Republican rival Mitt Romney as the best man to carry on the fight.
Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter are the only GOP candidates to go, then the party can get really get serious about choosing a nominee. While both offer unique perspectives, neither has a chance to gain the nomination. It’s been fun, especially hearing from Paul, but time to get down to the serious business of choosing a viable candidate for the awesome task of preventing Hillary’s ‘inevitable’ ascension to the White House.
Interesting that the strongest voice against illegal immigration endorsed Mitt Romney. Who will Ron Paul endorse when he exits the stage?
December 20th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Paul will not endorse any of the other current GOP candidates because many of their positions are anethema to the principles of the Constitution and the message of liberty. And he’s said so repeatedly.
And that goes for his supporters also.
December 20th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
bb, it’s quite sad when you say “its been sort of fun” hearing from the back benchers expressing their “unique perspectives”.
bb, I would suggest the survival of this very Nation hangs in balance. Pat Buchanan comments in his new book, “Day of Reckoning”, that survival of this nation is improbable, if not impossible (paraphrasing). And you talk of “fun”. And I’ll repeat that this blog has missed a great opportunity by not discussing Buchanan’s book and his thesis. There’s a sickness here on this blog! There will be no joy if I later say “I told you so” as I will go down with our nation unless I move first. But where is one to move? That is a legitimate question. And I’m a fighter, not a quitter!
December 20th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Paul’s the only one among them all with staying power, the only candidate whose campaign has continued to grow steadily as the others falter. And we’re carrying this thing all the way to the convention so buckle up Bart, and grab some whiskey and a shot glass if you need some help getting through the next 9 months.
December 20th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Bart, I doubt that even if Ron Paul were elected, Congress would support his agenda unless he won by some landslide that also carried many in the GOP back into Congress and returned them to majority.
The nation has to have reforms that neither the parties nor the voters are prepared for. However, for you to slight the only Republican running that knows what he is talking about, does little to help the party prepare the voters for the crisis the GAO and others in our Government are warning Congress constantly about.
Do you really think Romney or Giuliani or McCain are going to help reform the GOP? Without reform what good are they? The GOP has destroyed the faith of the voters that put the GOP into office and yet, we are hearing the same ol’ tired message from the “leaders” of the party.
Where is the forceful leadership from the “front runners,” about immigration reform, social security reform (with a clear plan), Medicare reform (with a clear plan) debt reduction, foreign policy reform, strong dollar policy (wigh a clear plan), trade reform (free and fair trade with competitive tax and business reform).
All they are doing is “talking,” with no clear plan of reform that tells voters specifically how they will cut spending and where they will cut it. This is not a time for “trust me,” to do the right thing once in office. This is the time for detailed plans of returning to the Republic we founded and getting the Federal Government out of a lot and reforming the rest.
Running on a campaign of “the democrats are worse,” no longer cuts it with voters. They are bailing out of the GOP and want reform, not “sound bytes.” So, while Ron Paul would be hammered by a “same old - same old” Congress, at least he is waking the people up to the need for total reform of our government.
Bart, you said,
the serious business of choosing a viable candidate for the awesome task of preventing Hillary’s ‘inevitable’ ascension to the White House.
——————
What a bunch of BS. Her ascension isn’t “inevitable,” nor is saying that the threat of her being President means we should compromise our founding principles just to get elected. If the voters don’t want “sound Constitutional Government,” then they have the right to not have it. If the GOP is going to join the ranks of those compromising the principles then what good are they. The nation will still go into crisis with them in power.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Jan,
Bart does not care about issues he thinks this is like a football game. Bart wants to root for the winning team!
December 20th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Most of these “anti-Paulites” are simply part of the “ABP” crowd. (Anybody but Paul) And most of them still haven’t picked their favorite candidate (based on the issues) But what gets me is people bemoaning the “negativity” coming from the Paul camp. Look in the friggin’ mirror people. And the “Paulites” are thicker on other websites than this one.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:15 am
Jan Paul,
If you take the time to visit the websites of those frontrunners I mentioned, you will find well laid out plans to address most, if not all issues you bring up:
Fred Thompson — http://www.fred08.com/Principles/PrinciplesSummary.aspx
John McCain — http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/
Rudy Giuliani — http://www.joinrudy2008.com/issues/
Mitt Romney — http://www.mittromney.com/Issues/index
Each has spoken often about the issues on the campaign trail. Mitt and Fred have regular ‘ask the candidate’ teleconferences. What more do you want JP? If you only rely upon the debates, of course you will not hear any plans because candidates are forced into soundbite answers with the time constraints.
Note the word ‘inevitable’ was quoted because I was simply repeating the MSM line about Hillary.
JP, you may not agree with GOP plans put forth by the candidates. But they all have plans.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:18 am
John,
Do you stop and think before submitting your inane posts (rhetorical)?
The issues are exactly why I support who I support and oppose people like Ron Paul.
It boils down to one thing; Paul wants to cut and run (same as your party the dems) while the rest of the GOP field understands the need to stop terrorism NOW!
Do you understand John…it is all about issues.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:00 am
Bart
why do you support the 10 trillion dollar debt if you are conservative?
December 21st, 2007 at 10:11 am
Where did I say I support a $10T debt?
Why do you support surrender in Iraq?
Why do you support nationalized healthcare?
Why do you support government education?
December 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
John
I’m with Bart on this. You ask questions of people in such a way as to make it seem as though they support massive debt when nothing could be further from the truth.
I like Paul. He seems like a nice guy. However, he and his democrat colleagues (I’m ready for the thunder on that line) want to cut and run before the job is finished. In my view, that’s simply not an option.
What really bugs me about this particular issue is that EVERY liberal (including Paul) opposed the idea of a surge “becasue it couldn’t work.” Now that it HAS worked - beyond anybody’s expectations - all we hear is how it’s been a failure.
Paul, like the dems, refuses to admit he was wrong. That goes to character and it should concern anyone who supports him.
Furthermore, Bart’s questions of you are fair. Do you support Socialized medicine? Are you a believer in Government education? What other socialist ideas do you support?
December 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
SgtMac
Did you vote for Bush, Saxby and Price? Did they not run up a 10 trillion dollar debt? Bart was in Party leadership and said and did nothing! In fact Bart supported the pork votes!
December 21st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
As far as the war the only thing working is local rule, which is a short term plan I supported not you guys! This is a containment strategy, which Paul does not support. Yet I do thnk his macro point about nation building is right. I just think we have to deal with the reality of the situation.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Bart
SPIN SPIN SPIN!
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:50 am
Ron Paul is somebody to vote FOR instead of ‘lesser of two evils’ like a choice between Hillary & Rudy would’ve been & neocons can’t stand THAT! For them, it has to be just a choice between two candidates we don’t really want to vote for. The neocons are ’semitic supremacists’ which one will admit to(Kevin McCulloch on Townhall) when I called him on repeatedly referring to a ‘white supremacist’ that contributed $500 to Ron Paul & didn’t give it back. This alleged ‘white supremacist’ is actually a Jew who wants a neocon Republican or Hillary for President. Remember when Rudy was touted as ‘the only Republican who can beat Hillary’ early in the race? I strongly prefer Ron Paul, but right now anybody who isn’t a neocon would be preferrable to letting them continue to push their big government/big spending agenda on us!
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 am
I’m against a continuous war in Iraq or anywhere. Time to either win or get out now that Saddam is gone. What is the point of continuing to keep troops over there? They have an agenda but it doesn’t include more freedom for us or for the Iraqi people. Get the neocons out of government ASAP! They aren’t for the USA First. They’re for their own globalization agenda instead.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:37 am
John,
Did you vote for Bush and Saxby??? Then you also supported the increase in debt.
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am
Cooltruth,
Another great post, your #16.
Although I would suggest we get out of Iraq now. This “war” was false to begin with and I don’t support projects that are based on lies.
The Neo-Cons, are Traitors, in my opinion, as they hold higher allegiance to other nations or concepts!
December 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Hugh,
I would guess that you believe that Iraq was a mess we created. If that’s the case, why don’t you think we have a responsibility to fix it before we leave?
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Hugh, I was inclined to agree that we made the mess with our intervention, but, think we need to look at it deeper.
First, we do have to go back to the original beginning of the war under Bush 1. We were still in that war, under only a cease-fire. We didn’t rebuild the nation then nor did we need to this time.
We won the war decisively as we did the first time but, this time we wanted to do more. We wanted a new government and everything after that followed that goal and then we wanted that government to be an ally and sell oil in dollars again and not do what Saddam did by selling it in euros, weakening the dollar.
Then we wanted an “ally” against Iran that was moving toward the sale of oil in euros. If we were going to go to war with them, we wanted to have a “military presence” next door in a friendly nation to us.
Then there was the advantage of massive defense spending that helped our economy out of the recession that was beginning to shape up before Bush took office.
The thing is, that we didn’t create the mess in Iraq. Saddam did, originally by invading Kuwait, and then by violating the cease fire in every way he could. WMD or not, the violations, like destroying (if he did) WMD stock piles the U.N. had documented, without U.N. supervision. That violation, alone, was enough to “justify” the war. We had no way of “proving” he had destroyed the WMD as required by the cease fire terms.
But, we didn’t have to blame ourselves for the mess. We didn’t have to “fix” anything more this time than the last. Our “fixing” had very little to do with the Iraq people and everything to do with our military positioning and our stimulating our economy.
I don’t believe “war,” should be used for “stimulating” the economy. I also don’t believe that a weakening dollar should be justification for war. Nor do I believe we should be dependent on foreign sales of oil in dollars to keep it propped up.
We do have a responsibility to finish something we started so, yes, I agree we need to finish the job. That is the one major thing I disagree with Paul on although, he would, I sincerely believe, if Congress demanded it, continue to do what is necessary. His major beef is a Congress that authorizes use of force without declaring war and then nitpicks and undermines everything that is done with that authorization for political gains.
It is why I wrote and opposed the war to begin with. I told my representatives that what has happened would happen due to the political war between the parties.
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Bart
I did not vote for Bush the second time! Also I never voted for Saxby, I respect the military.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 am
So you voted for Kerry? and Max Cleland? Or did you just abstain from participation thus making your opinion of both Bush and Saxby irrelevant(assuming it had relevance to begin with).
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I left it blank, I told you that before.