The Republican field of presidential candidates has been narrowed to three serious contenders, Chris Cillizza says on his Washington Post blog, The Fix. He writes:
“Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and George Allen (Va.), along with Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (in photo), are the three Republicans who are constructing the organization, raising the money and attracting the early buzz necessary to win the Republican nod. While it’s impossible to predict what the field will look like a year or two from now, we are extremely surprised that there aren’t more top-tier Republicans in the running — especially since the nomination is wide open.”
He also noted that there is room for a socially conservative candidate such as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to move into the mix.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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58 Comments
That is about right. Those three are the top contenders. Although Rudy Giuliani might still get in.
Mitt Romney is a Republican in a very blue state. Republicans think he can be a concensus builder amoung the two parties. But I feel he will have a very tough time in the Primaries. Because he is Mormon and Evangelicals are not kind to other Christian religous sects.
I would like to see John McCain win the primaries. But my bet is on George Allen. He has the conservative creditials to win the Primaries, although both McCain and Allen have one thing against them. They are Senators.
A Senator hasn’t won election for President since JFK and even that election is questionable.
When it comes to Presidential Elections, people like Washington outsiders. That is why governors have been consistantly elected. Mitt has a chance in that route. But if he doesn’t win the Primaries then I doubt that a Republican Senator can win a General Election.
But the question is. Why are there not any top tier Democrats in the field? Looks like it’s just Hillary “Carpetbag” Clinton. Any choices on the Democrat side?
Joe,Mitt should not have a big problem with Evangelicals, when it comes to “family values” the Mormons, although not Christians, hold family very dear. They are a very “moral” and neighborly people.I see the whole election going to the party that can “centralize” better. The extremes, right or left are not going to cut it next election.If the Democrats are sharp enough NOT to run Hillary, and find someone more moderate they have a good chance. If they run a good, moderate Christian, the Republicans will not have a prayer. They would attract more moderate Christians if they dumped Pelosi and Dean as well!
Allen could be interesting with aanother Virginian hopeful on the other side. Romney will be pilloried by the f ight for being Mormn. McCain will likely be similaly hit for not being quite loyl enough to Bush. Maybe Rove will bring up his “illigitimate child” gain.
Joe mkes good points about Govenors – I have been saying the same thing.
Doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me. These people are familiar to anybody who follows politics, but I wonder how many average voters even know who they are.
Let Brownback run and get the nomination.
Oh happy day for Democrats . . .
Don’t count out Rudy.
XXX. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were virtually unknowns before they ran for President.
We will have a share of who these people are in 2008.
Anyone, democrat or republican, will be an improvement over Bush.
Dear Ben,
Do you know who financed the ‘push poll’ that insinuated McCain fathered an illegitamte child?
No. It has neer been determined who financed the poll.
Do you know how extensive the ‘push poll’ was?
No. No body knows how many people were contacted. Evidence shows that there were very few people actually contacted. Just enough to claim foul by the injured party.
There is some evidence that this might have been a campaign ploy by McCain. It was a good way to foment outrage against Bush and Rove. It was a good way to explain what a good guy McCain was by adopting a child from Bangladesh without appearing to toot his own horn.
McCain was in big trouble in the South because of remarks he made about Bob Jones University. This ‘push poll’ was a great way for him to get the Christians back on his side without having to retract statements he made.
Evidence has shown that very few people were ever contacted by the so-called poll by Carl Rove. No evidence has ever been found that connects Rove or any Bush supporter to the poll.
Now I realize that there is no evidence that shows McCain sponsored the poll, but there is no evidence that shows any Bush supporters sponsored it either. In the long run, who has benefited most from the poll? Bush or McCain?
McCain.
Who has been hurt the most from the poll? Bush or McCain?
Bush.
I submit to you that it is more likely that McCain’s people were behind the poll. Instead of a plan of Rove’s that backfired, I believe it was a sucessful plan by McCain.
Hank
John McCain is a Republican???
Except that at least 2 other vets were also similarly slimed, Max Cleland and John Kerry. A 3rd, John Murtha, narrowly avoided it.
What do all these vets have in common with John McCain and viral campaigning techniques (including push polls)?
ANS: they were all political opponents of Karl Rove and President Bush at the time of their sliming.
Hank, you can’t pull McCain’s data point out when it’s part of a trend.
EXACTLY, Flike, well-done!
With Al Gore, it was “the man said he invented the internet.” Bush used that line in the first debate with Gore, even though it was patently untrue.
What Gore DID was help fund early development of an academic fore-runner of the internet (ARAPnet) that led to the internet.
George H. W. Bush morphed Michael Dukkakis’s face with a convicted killer-rapist Willie Horton.
The SC push-poll incident is a perfect example of a Rove smear–just like the Swifties, like the Valerie Plame payback, the firing of gov’t officials that tell the truth about the cost of the war in Iraq or the unaccounted for money paid out to Halliburton, the planting of gov’t shills in the media and the use of gov’t made propoganda sent out as “news,” the jamming of Democratic HQ’s phones on election day, etc. etc.
It all fits a pattern of dirty tricks that has “made by BushCo” written all over it.
flike,
Murtha and Cleland were not ’slimed’. The Bush administration pretty much stayed with the facts. Now I admit that people outside of the administration brought out some unflattering facts about them, but Bush has never spoken badly of them. He has jst said they were wrong.
When was Kerry ever slimed by Rove or Bush? Truth is, Kerry was a traitor. I think the Bush campaign was very easy on him.
The only trend I see is that most liberals are dispicable.
Hank
Funny Hank, for someone who was born yesterday you write very well.
Hank says that you can say anything as long as it is true.
Okay, Kerry came back from Vietnam and told the truth–our soldiers were committing war crimes. They were killing civilians.
Kerry’s testimony was just one of many thousands of pieces of evidence that leads to the dead obvious conclusion that our soldiers committed atrocities against civilians in Vietnam. Exhibit A is the My Lai Massacre in which the commanding officer said, “sometimes you have to destroy a village to save it.”
That makes him a truth-teller, Hank, not a traitor.
IMHO, the entire Vietnam war was a war crime, but that’s just me.
LH,
Gore said he invented the internet.
Gore also was the one that came up with the Willy Horton/Dukakis add you mention. In the primary.
Swifties? No connection to Bush. Most aren’t even registered republicans.
Valerie Plame? She entered politics when she sent her husband to Niger. Fair game. No foul.
Sorry flike, you’re full of it.
Hank
And, Hank, your disingenuous naivete about “Bush didn’t actually DO it” isn’t going to fly anymore, if it ever did.
Fitzgerald is building a case against top Bush officials that they knowing outed Valerie Plame as political payback.
If Bush “didn’t know,” he could still fire them. Clearly, they were doing what they always do in this situation.
And of course BUSH couldn’t attack Kerry’s war record directly, given that Bush 1. made sure he never saw actual combat, 2. can’t account for about two years of his service and 3. never flew again and never took a physical after the TANG instituted drug testing.
LH,
Almost every thing that KErry and the other VVAW claimed was proven to be a lie. There is evidence that there was a connection between the VVAW and the Viet Cong. It is a fact that when Kerry went to Paris he pretty much lobbied for every one of the Viet Cong’s demands.
Kerry is a lying traitor.
I agree, Kennedy’s and Johnson’s war was a crime. Mostly in the way the democratic leadership set it up for us to fail.
Hank
“Gore said he invented the internet.”
Prove it.
Hank–
You’re coming unhinged. Why would VAW go to Vietnam and see their buddies buy the farm, fight and put their own lives in danger and then come back and lobby for the Viet Cong, UNLESS WHAT THEY SAW IN VIETNAM CONVINCED THEM THAT THE US INVOLVEMENT WAS IMMORAL?
Not too many returning vets argued against WW2 or Korea . . . why was Vietnam different?
Because Vietnam was essentially a nationalist fight against colonialism. The Vietnamese weren’t even communist until the Western powers like the United States refused to help them expell the French.
The Chinese were willing. And the rest is history, tragic history.
Hey.. I DID invent the internet!
NOT!
http://sethf.com/gore/
Mc Cain IS a Republican Heckler. He is also a pandering glutton for punishment.
Mc Cain also has no chance of being President. He can’t win the nomination. To the vilest of the vile GOP. (And they ARE a vile party) Mc Cain just is not a big enough A…….
Same is true for Rudy.
Allen or Romney could win the nomination. But they’d have to deny they ever knew bush to win the office.
America is through with Republicans. The next President will be a Democrat with the advantage of a Democrat controlled House.
Say it with me Repukes
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi!!
Choke on that did ya?GOOD!!
Let’s have some REAL fun!
Run Condi Rice. Give the south a black woman! Their heads will explode before they ever GET to the polls!
Al,
That’s a good link–Mr. Gore said exactly this:
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”
This clearly means he was part of the push to create the internet.
To which people who DID invent the internet support–
Al Gore’s support of the Internet, by V.Cerf and B.Kahn [ I second this djf]Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, seconded by Dave Farber, Sep 28 2000″Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet.”
Aw, Fitzgerald, the great liberal hope!
No evidence yet. No crime yet.
Don’t ya think he could come up with something in two years?
I’ll bet tht even Scotter walks!
Hank
Actually JR,
Condi is beating Hillary in the polls in the south.
The average redneck is not as racist as the average liberal. Go figure.
Hank
The internet was ‘invented’ prior to Gore’s first term in congress.
The man is an idiot.
Hank
Having met Allen, I can tell you the guy is the real deal… the first true conservative since Goldwater I could support–against the wrong Democrat.The guy can even use “free market economics” in a sentence CORRECTLY!At this point, I wonder if either Hillary or Brownback will run… my gut tells me at least one of those two might just look over the precipice and walk away.
Boy, watch Hank Price (”Bush is Jesus, everyone else is the devil”) melt down. It’s like Hal at the end of “2001″–equal parts tragic and pathetic.
Dear editors,
You may want to remove the above list of links to Francophone porn.
mrcontroversy,
Was Allen as numbskulled in person as he is in interviews?
mrcontroversy
I believe George Allen is a very good choice for the republicans. He’s conservative enough for the base and good looking enough for the women democrats.
If Hillary gets the democratic nomination then it would be certain that the next president would be a former senator. Takes the senate curse out of the mix.
Hank
Dear CF,
You’ve attibuted something in quotes to me that I’ve never said or believed. Now that’s what I call ’sliming someone’.
‘Melt down’? You wish.
Hank
“The internet was ‘invented’ prior to Gore’s first term in congress.”
Hank, LH already refuted that nonsense, on this same thread. Go read.
As much as anyone, Vint Cerf can claim to have “invented” the Internet (something Gore did NOT say).
“NSF’s interest in high-bandwidth attachment was ignited in 1986 after the start of the Supercomputer Centers program. NSF paved the way to link researchers to the Centers through its sponsorship of NSFNET, which augmented ARPANET as a major network backbone and eventually replaced ARPANET when ARPANET was retired in 1990. Then-Senator Gore’s 1986 legislation calling for the interconnection of the Centers using fiber optic technology ultimately led the administration to respond with the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Initiative.”http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/cra/networks.htmlhttp://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/cra/networks.html
Cerf has spoken more bluntly in Gore’s defense, but this was from a general article on networking, where he didn’t HAVE to mention Gore at ALL.
He did anyway.
—–
“Dear editors,
You may want to remove the above list of links to Francophone porn.”
Ooh! Our first spam!
We ARE getting noticed!
ATTENTION EDITORS–
Catherine / Andy is linking to porno sites.
Please remove the post and spank this idiot for us.
Thank you,
Thinking people everywhere
Thanks, Rage–
I forgot that Hank isn’t swayed at all by reality.
Reality to Hank has a “left wing bias.”
George Allen has been in big oil’s pocket for years. His record on race relations isn’t that great either. I’m not sure about this guy. He seems like another sold out insider to me.
Yes, since this is a dysfunctional family post, porn is neither wanted nor needed. Please remove the garbaaage asap.
Mitt Romney appears to be a centerist. He seems to be able to balance his personal beliefs with those on the federal and state level. He is against abortion personally, but supported it as Governor. He supports gay rights, but not gay marriage.
His record on the war is basically non-existant, as is his take on international matters. His thoughts on homeland security, at least so far, haven’t been voiced yet. He is going to have to answer some very tough questions, I hope, and his answers will decide his fate. Gotta take a wait and see attitude on him.
John McCain is probably the best out of the three. His blasting of Falwell, Sharpton and the rest of the neocon religious freaks took some guts. His war record is exemplary. His thing with Keating bothers me, but not enough to make a difference. He has been wishy-washy on many issues. I don’t know about him either, though. I don’t see much of a real change in any of the three.
I disagree that America is through with Republicans. Democrats think they will win back Congress, but I don’t see floods of people being converted over the Democrats.
Even though many Republicans are not happy with Bush and the current Congress they sure in the hell aren’t going to vote for Democrats.
Democrats are not growing their base.
Hank – Gore NEVER claimed to have invented the internet. He stated correctly that he had been involved in the funding of the ARPAnet; which I used beck in the early 70s at UCLA. And this all took place AFTER his first term in the House.
Hank- Don’t confuse Hank with facts.. they make him surly, and besides, facts don’t exist in his universe.
Make that Ben don’t confuse, etc.
Most liberals are dispicable? Funny, that’s how I feel about most fundamentalist, hate spewing, arrogant, judgmental, holier-than-thou, war loving, hypocritical, pseudo-christians.
Bush isn’t worth the mud on McCain’s boots. When you compare the moral dilemmas they faced during their military service and the choices they made, McCain is so superior to anything Bush ever aspired to.
Apparently the editors don’t actually read the posts once the blog is on-line.
Oh, well . . .
Maybe they’re getting more hits. . .;-)
Editors, in all seriousness, if you don’t scotch the porn links pretty soon, their number of hits–from HERE–will encourage more. Make it happen, SOON, please. Thanks!
“I used beck in the early 70s at UCLA. And this all took place AFTER his first term in the House.”
Wow, Ben, did they have Gopher? I was just a kid playing around with a Trash-80 back then.
Rage,I just sent a email to Lou and evidently he has taken the porno spam off.
THANKS LOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
McCain is a traitor and a scumbag, no wonder Damoon likes him so much!
And what’s my beef with Senator John McCain?
Consider this e-mail I received on March 9 from Peter Gadiel, regarding the recent “adventures in D.C.” of his 911 Families for a Secure America (FSA) group.
Gadiel wrote:
“At the end of a week of lobbying, we accidentally met Sen. John McCain just outside the Russell Senate Office Building. Joan [Molinaro], Bruce [De Cell] and I approached him [and] identified ourselves as 9/11 family members. We told him we opposed his amnesty bill, and of our promise to hold accountable members of Congress who vote for it for the acts of violence that result. The following conversation resulted:
McCain looked at Joan [Molinaro] and said: ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’
Joan Molinaro: ‘No, we’re not kidding.’
“At this, McCain started screaming and pointed his finger in our faces: ‘After all I’ve done for you people! I welcome you to come to my state. I’ll debate the issue with you. The people of Arizona trust me…I got 77% of the vote last year. Who do you think they’ll believe?’
Peter Gadiel: ‘Yeah sure. You won that race by getting 85 % of your money from out of state.’
McCain: ‘It’s people like you who make my job so hard. I got 77% of the vote….
Gadiel: Oh sure, but you needed 85% of your money from outside the state. What kind of confidence is that?”http://www.vdare.com/mann/060313_mccain.htmhttp://www.vdare.com/blog/111004_blog.htmhttp://www.vdare.com/blog/011505_blog.htmhttp://www.vdare.com/sailer/mccain.htmhttp://www.vdare.com/roberts/blown_it.htmhttp://www.vdare.com/mann/arizona_amnesty.htm
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!!
Rage – I accessed through an IBM 360 Model 91 mainframe. It took up an entire floor in the Engineering building. My joke was that when I inverted my big matrices the lights in WestWood would dim.
I crashed the entire Net a few times – really pissed off the people up at Stanford.
31%.
NOW can we impeach the motherfucker?
Wow, Ben. That sounds about right for the time. Hehe!
BTW, I think I misspoke earlier. In the *EARLY* 70’s, the hottest technology I handled was my dad’s UNIVAC four-function calculator!
I used the big honking mainframe out at WSU before they semi-retired it, but, of course, they didn’t have any Net access until they got the VAX machine hooked up in ‘87. Gee, funny thing, the year after Gore’s legislation passed. . .
P.S. CF, do I detect a theme? :) Though I suspect they’ll be selling sunscreen in Dante’s stomping grounds before the current “leadership” goes there.
Rage, thank you for admiring my handiwork. Call it the new meme. Let me know what you think. I’m considering offering it to Pelosi for the Fall campaign.
Current ‘leadership.’ Nice one.
CF, you go!!!!
Hank says “his guys” “pretty much stayed with the facts”
heheh. Pretty much stayed with the facts? Isnt that like being “kinda” pregnant?
Close is good enough for the truth in hank’s universe. Truthiness at its finest.
NO INCUMBENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ksfarmgrrl,
Indeed. When Hank Price insists on pushing the Big Lie and shouting down anyone who dares to challenge it, the only response is the global ‘No’. As in, everything you claim to be ‘mostly’ true is phony and concocted. Every bit of it.
But CF, rummy says we should trust the gummit, no? He says it is SAD that we dont trust our gummit.
Reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown one more time.
“Really chuck, I wont pull it away this time”. hehe.
Ranks right up there with the check’s in the mail and I wont do anything in your mouth. heheh.