Following my endorsements of the ill-fated campaigns of, first, Tom Tancredo, and second, Duncan Hunter, I’m not sure any presidential candidates are losing sleep trying to figure out how to get my political blessing.
My endorsement to date has proved to be something of the kiss of death!
And that’s fine, since I’m not prepared to endorse anyone else at the moment – at least not a single candidate. I do believe there is a clear distinction between some.
Before I get there, though, I do want to say how deeply disappointed I am in the field.
It is absolutely stunning to me that a nation of 300 million, a nation that has produced giants like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and, more recently, Ronald Reagan, could do no better in 2008 than the current crop of politicians.
We’re at the point now where presidential politics, never one of my favorite sports, becomes an essentially defensive activity.
The choices run from repugnant to horrible to I-guess-I-can-hold-my-nose-and-vote-for-this-least-of-all-evils.
There’s no need to examine the Democratic candidates at all. They are all dangerous demagogues who don’t have the slightest concern for the limits of constitutional government. They all believe in seizing private property and redistributing wealth. They all believe right and wrong are ultimately determined by unaccountable judges.
So let’s look at what is left of the Republican field.
I have previously stated that I find the following candidates wholly unacceptable, no matter whom they might run against: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain.
Some of my friends tell me we must be willing to compromise because it might come down to a choice between Hillary and one of these guys. I disagree. To me, the election of any one of them could actually serve the nation worse than the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama.
Let me give you an illustration.
Had Al Gore been elected in 2000, I believe his radical policies would have been thoroughly discredited long ago. We might not have been forced to face the bad choice in 2004 of Bush II vs. John Kerry. With the public recognizing the Democrats’ policies just don’t work, there was at least a chance for a strong Republican alternative.
Instead, we got saddled with George W. Bush, who represented himself as a Republican but governed like a Democrat.
This is the worst of all alternatives. Better to have Democrats govern as Democrats than Republicans.
Trust me, Giuliani, Romney and McCain will all govern like Democrats. They’ve each got a lot of experience doing it.
So what about the rest – Ron Paul, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee?
I’ll be honest with you. I’m not excited about any of these candidates. However, each of them is clearly better than the aforementioned trio.
I’ve been critical of all three before. I’ve never said anything particularly positive about the candidacies of Ron Paul, Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee. I’m troubled by positions taken by each of them. Not one of them represents my views on all the major issues of the day. Each has significant deficiencies in his record and/or in his program for the future – at least according to my worldview.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson are each infinitely better men than Giuliani, Romney and McCain.
In other words, we still have a chance to have a reasonably good nominee from the Republican Party – someone for whom freedom-lovers can feel good about pulling the lever.
At the same time, I caution my friends obsessing over presidential politics this year as if it is the only way to effect change in the direction of our country. It is not.
Read “Taking America Back.” There is much more we can all do than elect people to rule us from Washington. Each of us makes important decisions in our daily lives that may be significantly more important than our vote for president every four years.
But if you want to defend yourself against the kind of creeping decline we’ve experienced as a nation in the last 20 years, my strong advice is to defeat Giuliani, Romney and McCain – as well as Hillary and Obama.
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