Predictions

If my political predictions are at all like my football ones, then Fred Thompson is probably going to have a stroke tomorrow. But, because I still hope, and because I was right about the last two elections despite massive ridicule and disbelief (no, I have no proof for this, thus the need for this post), I'm going to jump on this bandwagon while it is still somewhat daring to do so.

Some of you know I started out supporting Giuliani, and I still have the cheesy cut-out membership card to prove it. It's not so much that Giuliani's changed as that I have, becoming more comfortable in my conservatism. And while I think Thompson has all of Giuliani's foreign policy toughness, he also has the cultural confidence that Giuliani lacks (or, as Giuliani would see it, that isn't all that important). Perhaps most importantly, unlike other social conservatives (genuine and phony) in the race, Thompson doesn't pander and he recognizes conservatism for what it is - a cultural movement - and not as a rhetorical tool, a political weapon, or a government program.

That Thompson isn't already a frontrunner is a mystery to me [UPDATE: see here], and extremely disappointing. If things will not soon change as I predict, and people like Huckabee, McCain, and Romney continue to stay ahead, then there is something seriously wrong going on here, people.

Incidentally, unlike some others, I don't think the presence of those three awful frontrunners highlights a major problem within the Republican Party - I think it highlights a major problem within the Democratic Party! No, bear with me for a sec, please. Huckabee is an absolutely perfect Democrat. Not that long ago, people like him - folksy, charismatic, populist, Christian, big-government types - were the leaders of the Democratic Party. The only reason he's a Republican is that the Democratic party has changed so much, become so morally bankrupt, that they don't care how big-government, how liberal, a person is - if he thinks that killing babies might be wrong, he must be mocked and excommunicated. McCain, too, would make a wonderful Democrat, were he not staunchly pro-military. Again, the Democratic party has become so twisted of late that this position, which until very recently came standard for Americans, is enough to disqualify him outright. As for Romney, well, he's just slimy, nothing to say there. To recap, in an only slightly different, slightly less crazy alternate universe, Huckabee, McCain, and Lieberman would be slugging it out for the Democratic leadership and the chance to face Thompson in the general. Instead, in this crazy mixed up world of ours, we have the best Democrats facing off againt the best Republican in the Republican primaries (and, as an inevitable result of the Democratic party's decline, three completely unqualified nobodies facing off in their primaries). So really, the only way to fix the Republican party is either to fix the Democratic party first or, the more likely scenario in my view, for the Democratic party to fade into America-hating irrelevance and the Republican party to split up into two or three new parties. Or, most likely of all, none of this happens and I'm exposed as clueless yet again.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments here, to get an idea of until just how recently it was that Democrats were actually, you know, not totally deranged, see Charlie Wilson's War.

The Wrong Way

What amuses me most about Hillary's baby bonus scheme is that, even for such blatant political bribery, it's too understated. Hillary should take a page from Duplessis. He never bribed voters - he outright threatened them! He told them, to their faces, that if they didn't vote for him he would make sure that no new road, bridge, or school ever got built in their town. And it worked! So, Hillary, as far as the nation's newborn go, should get less charitable and more Biblical. And the Republican candidate should promise, if elected, to make it his sworn goal to personally tase every single college student who didn't vote for him. After all, why simply mock their paranoia when you can also capitalize on it? Now that is my kind of politics.

A Profane Post on Politicians

(like the title says, profanity warning here. sorry, but when it comes to talking about politicians, to borrow a line from the Trailer Park Boys, if I can't smoke and swear, I'm, well, you know).

Scrolling through all the C-SPAN video of the immigration debate at HotAir, it strikes me quite clearly that these congressmen are the exact same a-holes who run Harvard's undergraduate government and the various major campus political clubs. A few years older and a few pounds heavier, perhaps, but the exact same love for the sound of their own voice. I'm actually very much in favor of student government, because my take on it is basically that it keeps all the douchebags busy. If they're lobbing points of order at each other in three-hour long meetings every day, that means they're not around to annoy the rest of us. The problem is that, as this immigration debate has shown, the time will come, if only decades down the road, when they emerge from irrelevance and their idiotic bloviating actually has an effect on all of us. I can't figure out a solution. Sure, you can send the worst ones to stay harmlessly full-of-themselves at the UN (every overtaxed penny Americans spend on that disgusting jew-hating organization is worth it to keep the likes of Kofi Annan out of real government*), but there will still be far too many left around with nothing to fulfill their egos except a run for congress and a quickie with the intern. Really the only thing to do is to fight for a smaller government. The nature of politics guarantees that only the pompous jerks end up as politicians, the best that the rest of us can hope for is to limit the reach of their self-important, sonorous stupidity. Except I suggest that this smaller government come with really fancy robes and required Latin, like Harvard Commencement. We have to be clever about this, you see, and I suspect that we will only be able to limit their power if we do so after first flattering their grandiloquence.

*well, okay, maybe not. I really do think we should end all funding ASAP, and kick 'em out of New York while we're at it. And if they then do get involved in local governments and start cooking up some real trouble, bomb 'em or something.

Hillary's Greatest Weapon

I usually stay away from talking about political strategy, because I don't know a thing about it. Still, humor me to forward a theory. I think the absolute greatest thing to happen to Hillary's chances is the candidacy of John Edwards. I used to think I was the only one who despised Edwards - I mean, I harbor for him a digust I've never felt for any other politician. But, as Hot Air proves today, I'm not alone. He's %100 pure sleazebag, and folks just can't stand the s.o.b. Why does this help Hillary? Well, lots of Republicans used to hate her. It used to be Anybody-but-Hillary. But now I think a lot of that energy has been taken up instead by Anybody-but-Edwards. I myself would much rather have Hillary than Edwards. At least I know she would have the balls to bomb something, even if it was only to distract us from the latest scandal. Anyway, that's the extent of my strategical insight into this matter, sorry for rambling!