That’s what happens when you have someone like Fred Thompson run a fraudulent, stalking-horse campaign solely to fracture the southern white/ evangelical vote.
People don’t just “take” a limitation of choices, as Thompson inflicted upon the party. They stay unhappy.
Voters may be dumb. Just not as dumb as GOP strategists think. Black turnout across the South will be through the roof, and white evangelical turnout will be depressed. November will bring nasty surprises for the GOP, not least of which will be a crippling “blue shift” in North Carolina and Virginia.
That said, considering idiotic posts like this, I don’t blame the GOP strategoi for appraising the Republican grasstops as the useful idiots they are:
This morning, Senator John McCain speaks at Wake Forest University. The speech begins at 10:00 a.m. Present with him will be Senator Fred Thompson. That’s important.
We’ve seen already that Thompson has been more visible in recent weeks. Why? Well, he’s decided to come out and support his friend. He is for conservatives what Joe Lieberman is for moderate squishes — a reassurance that John McCain will hear us. And given Thompson’s track record of getting McCain to listen to him, which is very good, we should take comfort in his presence by McCain today and on the campaign trail.
No, I don’t think this signals “Thompson as Veep.” In fact, I’m positive it does not. What I do think this signals is that Thompson is the guy McCain will listen to on conservative issues — Thompson will be the judge sherpa, making sure there are no Harriet Miers moments and plenty of John Roberts moments. …
I can practically hear the DCers laughing from here …
McCain’s problem isn’t Thompson, McCain’s problem is McCain’s policies, he is too far to the left for most Republicans. The only issue most of us agree with him on is the war in Iraq
dcbarton: I completely agree — I am convinced that backroom skulduggery denied southern whites a real choice in this election around which to coalesce, to represent their brand of conservatism, which is very far to the right of McCain’s.
The master plan was to nominate a centrist candidate, and carpet bomb us base voters with scaremongering bloody shirts (Wright, Ayers, etc etc) so that we would forget about McCain’s support for Kyoto, milquetoast judges, and general TR complex come November.
I think McCain’s been pretty good overall on judges. Ted Olson thinks the Gang of 14 incident was probably tactical - anyway, by any measure, the judicial appointment question is probably the best (domestic) reason to vote for Mac.
wittgenstein1:
1) sorry about the loss of your avatar. I think it has to do with WordPress’s recent face lift, although that still doesn’t explain why my avatar is working and yours has been replaced by an annoying kaleidoscope/ fractal ish image.
2) Did you catch McCain’s words at a *Federalist Society* fundraiser a few months ago where he said that “Alito was probably too far to the right?