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December 31, 2007
I'm With Fred
I'm back in State College now. I haven't gotten much sleep the last couple nights, so I didn't feel much like going out and partying at Shawn's for New Year's Eve. Instead, I figure I may as well get all unpacked and settled back in and whatnot (I already made a monster grocery run to Wegmans to replenish my empty shelves), so I can get to bed at a (relatively) decent hour tonight and hit the books tomorrow morning.
I haven't talked a whole lot about politics on my blog lately, but with the "Hawkeye Cauci" happening on Thursday (finally...), I figure it can't hurt to announce who my horse is in this wide-open race. Like most conservative voters, I wasn't thrilled with any of the original top-tier candidates (Giuliani, Romney, & McCain) -- while each of them have areas in which they're pretty solid, I just can't trust any of them further than I can throw them, based on their records and positions in other big areas. Same thing now goes for Huckabee, who's nothing but a liberal who happens to be pro-life. When any candidate is running purely on identity politics ("I'm a woman, vote for me!", "I'm a minority, vote for me!", "I'm white, vote for me!", or Huckabee's virtual slogan, "I'm an evangelical Christian, vote for me!"), that's a major black mark in my book. Sorry, but when running for public office (especially when this isn't a theocracy), you need to run on ideas, not identity. I'm sure Huckabee would make a fine pastor, but he's done nothing to convince me that he'd even be a competent president. In fact, I have to say that I'd prefer *any* of the other Republican candidates over Huckabee. He's really rubbed me the wrong way since he busted his way into the top tier. Ron Paul is intriguing, because while I strongly disagree with his stance on the Iraq war, I respect the bulk of his views, because they're almost all about limiting the power of the bloated federal government.
The candidate that most closely represents the majority of my political views in this campaign, however, is Fred Thompson. While it's true that he hasn't done the best job of explaining himself and getting his views out there since he threw his hat in the ring late last summer (which has been disappointing to me), he's proven himself to be a calm, deliberate, thoughtful candidate who isn't going to pander relentlessly to interest groups like everyone else. And that's precisely the sort of person we need in the White House. He's also the only Republican candidate who has outlined specific proposals for tax reform, social security reform and immigration reform. So while there might be a couple issues here or there where I might disagree with Thompson, by and large I agree with him on most of the big stuff, certainly far more than any of the other candidates.
Here's to hoping Thompson can put up a strong showing in Iowa on Thursday, and thereby gain momentum heading into the other states' primaries. I'm with Fred!
Posted by Jared at December 31, 2007 09:53 PM
Comments
I agree with you on Huckabee. I have thought he had a great chance of being on the ticket (Pres or VP) since I saw him on the Colbert Report a year and a half ago. However, this whole "I was going to run a negative ad, but now I decided not to, but to prove the ad existed I'm going to show it to a room full of reporters, and gee, I hope they don't wind up playing the negative ad for me anyway, meaning that I would get to go negative and to look like someone who has chosen to be above playing negative" thing might have hurt him in Iowa. I hope so anyway; it was a pretty lame stunt.
Congrats on picking a candidate, and happy new year!
Posted by: Kate at January 1, 2008 10:34 AM