I live in the Left Coast Land of NYC and Guiliani is running behind McCain, one would think the moderate/independents here would at least get behind the man who turned around the self-created Liberal hellhole after he took office and who managed to keep NYC from plundering into madness days after the attack on 9/11.

For me that fact that NYers (most of whom believe that anyone right of Stalin is a Nazi) are gunning for McCain tells me that McCain isn’t as moderate as he claims to be; I suppose McCain’s argument that America uses torture at Gitmo, trashes Rumsfeld, trashes Big Parma, trashes hard-working legal citizens as lazy people, voted against ANWAR, sides with Kennedy on just about everything, hates talk-radio along with freedom of speech and supports Al Gore’s Greenie-banning regime attracts so many ‘moderates’ in NY to McCain’s campaign.

Let me say right up front that I’ll support any of the GOP contenders who is nominated. To argue that any of them is no different than Hillary or Obama is absurd. Get out and meet some people on the left if you think that. Even Giuliani is 100 times better than Hillary or Obama.

I also want to say that I would support a limited government conservative if there was one in the race (other than Ron Paul, who loses me on the gold standard and foreign policy). There isn’t. Fred Thompson could have worn that mantle, and won my support, but he jumped into the pool with a belly flop and then couldn’t swim. In fact, I would like nothing more than to see McCain grab Fred’s position papers when Fred drops and adopt them. Plus put Fred in the cabinet as AG (along with Phil Gramm at Treasury).

But, as a famous columnist wrote recently, you gotta run political campaigns with the politicians you have. We have four: McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani.

The “enthusiasm” of conservatives for Romney just baffles me. He’s been on every side of every issue. In 2007 he denounced the health care bill he pushed in Massachusetts in 2006. Where will he be in 2009? Huckabee is a solid social conservative but has a very Bushian view of the role of government (i.e., he likes it too much) and appears to be ignorant of foreign affairs. Giuliani is pro-choice and has a history of being very fond of government power, at least when he is exercising it. He is also very close to the folks who got us into Iraq to promote “democracy”.

Yeah, I disagree with McCain on campaign finance reform. I disagree with some of the positions he has taken on environmental issues (being from Minnesota, I’m used to disagreeing with Republican elected officials on those issues). And I disagree with his decision to work with Kennedy, rather than with his fellow Republicans, on immigration (which he has now recanted). But I agree with McCain on the need to fight jihad both forcefully and intelligently, and the need to avoid bankrupting our government over the next 30 years. Those are the central issues. And he is an honest and courageous man. I’m not looking for a guy who can check the right boxes on a survey or who is buddies with the GOP power elite — we’ve had that for seven years. I’m looking for somebody who will get the big things right and get something done about them.

I agree about Dave on the conventional wisdom, especially this year. In two weeks there may be a “stop Giuliani” or “stop Romney” effort underway. We won’t know who the nominee is going to be until long after Feb. 5, and we won’t know who the next President is going to be until at least election night.

Here’s the scenario:

We go to convention with no apparent leader. Delegates are split everywhere. There are anti-McCain people everywhere (even though he’s the favorite, but not the clear majority), the conservatives will never support Rudy, and Mitt may put some Southern states at risk (although he has a shot to regain Michigan), so Mitt can’t be the candidate. Huckabee’s support from the social right weakens over the spring and he carries very strong support from a very small minority of delegates.

One other thing to consider is that the Rush Limbaugh’s and Mark Levin’s will beat the living daylights out of McCain over the next six months if he becomes the favorite. McCain will be a weakened candidate with his own base to the highest degree.

There’s one person that most everyone likes (except maybe some Huckabee people), but he wasn’t dynamic enough and he didn’t campaign as hard as others. Fred comes back from the dead because he at least is someone every else can settle on and he’s able to counter Hillary/Obama on every issue (as opposed to be on the same side of the Dems with immigration, abortion, etc.) and up to this point, he can handle debates better than the others. If he has stayed in through SupTues, he also may have been able to win a couple small Southern states.

I know this may sound like wishful thinking from a FredHead (which I am), but I also think it’s a possible as anything else as I think a brokered convention is very, very possible (I was thinking this before Christmas, even if Fred had done well).

One other thing I think that no one else mentions is Bloomberg will probably run. I’d bet it’s at least 50/50 if not closer to 75/25 he’ll run. His ego is too big not for him to run and the last time I checked, he has a little bit of $$ to throw into a campaign. In doing this, he weakens the Democrat candidate severely (especially if it’s Hill) and the Republicans aren’t as weak as predicted.

Does anyone else think either of these are possible or am I whistling past the graveyard?

One thing I do know is that recent elections rarely finish the way they start and the races are very fluid. Conventional wisdom today will probably be completely different in six months. If that wasn’t true, we’d already have settled on Hill vs. Rudy for the general.

Just the opposite actually. Supporting McCain when you’re already marginalized is simply throwing in the towel. The only way the establishment RINOs will be stymied in their influence against conservatism is to throw their preferred candidate under the bus — as often as it takes (and it won’t take long with what we’ll get with the D’s in charge all around).

If McCain or Huckabee are the nominee, I’ll not vote for them — I’m not quite to the “pulling a Dem lever” yet, but November is a long way off still. Indeed, as I think about it, a 70% plus win by the Dems would just about run the RINOs out on a rail for good.

I will be waiting.