My latest Pajamas Media column is up. I detail the process by which Fredheads are being wooed by the various campaigns.

A sample:

Being wooed in this manner would be flattering if the attentions were wanted. I guess now I know how Britney Spears feels. Well, I would if I were an ex-teenage pop star with mental health issues and an impulse control problem. Perhaps a better analogy would be woman being pursued by several suitors, who, while uninterested in spending the rest of her life with them, doesn’t wish to hurt their feelings to the point that they would forego giving her the expensive presents and nights on the town she has become accustomed to.

For most who supported Thompson, there is that all-important second choice. And to analyze who will probably benefit the most from Thompson’s pullout, you must look from where Thompson’s major support was coming.

My oh my, I feel like the Belle of the Ball all of a sudden. Email after email from my internet friends hitting me up to support this candidate or that one. With Fred dropping out, my buds must think I am searching frantically for some candidate to latch on to – as if I were lost without tying myself to one of the current crop of GOP con(pre?)tenders.

Believe me when I say I’m flattered. I haven’t gotten this much attention since I lost my bathing suit halfway through a 500 yard freestyle race while swimming competitively in high school.

But I must confess to being totally uninterested in who gets the Republican nod for the nomination from here on out. I will, like Bob Krumm, vote for Fred in the Super Tuesday primary in Illinois. I will then be able to sit back and watch with amusement as the party turns handsprings trying to make John McCain acceptable to most of the rest of us.

By the time the convention rolls around, McCain will be seen as a savior, just the right man to defeat Hillary Clinton. We can then be further amused as McCain loses handily to Clinton, admittedly as a result of factors largely beyond his control but which could have been mitigated by nominating someone who didn’t deliberately (and with apparent relish) piss off conservatives for much of his career. McCain’s questionable stands on core conservative issues are expertly covered up by his campaign. But Mark Levin exposed the senator’s record in a devastating piece in NRO that included these legislative measures with McCain’s name on them:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportation of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety…

McCain’s disdain for the party and for conservatives will almost surely come back to haunt him in November if he is the nominee.

Or let’s say the unexpected happens and Daddy Warbucks outlasts McCain and buys his way to victory. Here’s a guy who wouldn’t be able to remember what he said previously about an issue, the end result being he would end up flipping and flopping so much the media would have to keep a scorecard as to where he stood on an issue on any given day. This is a man who, in his only spin at elective office, governed as a center-left politician. And now we’re supposed to take his word for it that he had, as John Hawkins calls it, a “road to Damascus conversion to conservatism?”

John made the conservative case against Romney pretty convincingly:

When Mitt ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994, he came across as a squishy RINO of the sort that you typically expect to be running for office in states like Massachusetts. Yet today, he sounds like a cross between Newt Gingrich circa 1994 and Rush Limbaugh. Did Mitt have a road-to-Damascus conversion to conservatism during that relatively short period of time or is he just pretending that he did to sucker conservatives into voting for him? The problem is that it’s impossible to really know. The idea, I suppose, is that conservatives should get him into the White House and then we’ll find out where he really stands.

And this is not just about abortion, where Mitt’s position seems to have radically shifted, it’s about a whole host of issues. He used to try to disassociate himself from Ronald Reagan and the Contract With America, but now he assures us that the Gipper and the Contract are close to his heart. He used to be pro-gun control and wanted nothing to do with the NRA, but now he’s against gun grabbers and thinks the NRA is peachy. He came across as a member of the open borders and amnesty crowd whose position wasn’t much different than that of John McCain on illegal immigration—until it became a hot political issue—and now he’s running ads that make him sound like Tom Tancredo on the subject. Then there are the Bush tax cuts, embryonic stem cell research, and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. There have been so many flips that the flops are still running about two blocks behind, trying to catch up.

Are these shifts genuine? Are they purely for politics’ sake? Is Mitt Romney a conservative or is he a squish telling us what we want to hear while planning to take 3 or 4 steps back towards the middle once he feels less pressure to pander to the base? Probably the former, but there’s no way to really know the truth. Do we really want a nominee in 2008 that we have this sort of questions about?

I have little doubt that to please the inside the beltway commentators and pundits, Mitt would revert to his centrist “squish” style of governance – hardly what many of us believe is needed in these perilous times.

And then there’s Rudy. Suppose lightening strikes in Florida and Rudy wins while McCain is outed as a transvestite and Romney’s stock portfolio is drained by his 5 sons who take a weekend trip to Aruba to have a good time – a REALLY good time. Rudy sweeps to victory and is crowned at the GOP convention.

Aside from giving James Dobson apoplexy, the prospect of pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and a great big flip flopper on immigration Rudy Giuliani being the standard bearer sends our southern brethren shrieking for the exits in St. Paul, swearing they’ll never vote for that Yankee in a million years.

Yeah, but at least Republicans will take New Jersey.

Finally, there is just one scenario where Mike Huckabee can win the nomination and it has to do with his buddy Jesus coming down from heaven and campaigning for him.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I would say quite honestly there is something to hate in each of the remaining candidates for the nomination. You don’t even have to try very hard to find it either. So I will say to all my concerned friends who have taken the time to invite me to join in supporting one candidate or another that I’m embarrassed by all the attention but you really shouldn’t have bothered.

I will pick my own loser in my own time, thank you.

This election should be a cakewalk for the left. I mean the GOP is handing this contest to liberals on a silver platter.

Dispirited, disorganized, hating their choices for president, wrangling over whether the Reagan coalition is dead, many conservatives threatening to stay home on election day – what more could a political party ask for when it comes to an opponent? From the looks of things, they might as well start measuring curtains for the Lincoln bedroom right now, save themselves the trouble.

The Democrats should also be trumpeting their ideas to the skies, speaking in glowing terms about how their liberal agenda will turn the economy around, end the wars, make the US respected in the world again, promise health insurance for all, a college education for anyone who wants it, a chicken in every pot and a Studebaker in every garage…

Got a little carried away there…heh.

But they’re not doing that, are they. They are being very, very cautious in proposing anything at all that would reveal their ideology. Why? Because they are ashamed of being liberals:

One possibility is that Obama would get everyone inspired, but not inspired about a specifically progressive agenda. That would be bad. A second possibility, however, is that he’d manage to convince the public that his liberal agenda isn’t really “liberal” — a word that’s been successfully demonized by the right — but just common sense. So he gets the public support he wants, but he gets it by repositioning liberal ideas not as ideology, but as post-partisan problem solving. That would be good. The question is, will it work? Or is the direct approach more effective?

“Liberal” being “demonized” by the right? I hate to inform Mr. Drum but the fact of the matter is liberals did very well all by themselves in demonizing that word. They didn’t need any help from conservatives to destroy black families, devastate the inner cities, create towers of hopelessness in public housing, expand the size of the federal government until it became a behemoth, run away from international challenges, destory federalism, poison the culture, and generally make an absolute mess of this country.

Conservatives were out of power and in the wilderness during the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s when liberalism, triumphant and drunk with power destroyed the national polity by creating identity politics and cataloged people according to their age, race, sex, national origin, cultural heritage, and sexual orientation. They demonized white males as the perpetrators of all evil. They destroyed our heroes, denigrated our myths, belittled patriotism, and promoted and made amorality acceptable.

And Drum is saying that conservatives “demonized” liberalism?

No wonder Kevin wants Obama to hide his liberalism. No wonder they can’t even call themselves liberals any more. And that’s why Democrats may win this election but there will be no “realignment” to the left. Any ideology with which its adherents are ashamed to associate is not a successful ideology.

They don’t even try to hide the attempted subterfuge:

But I think it’s increasingly clear what Obama is actually trying to do — put a moderate face on a liberal platform, in the hopes of expanding the Democratic pie. Maybe that can work, maybe not, but I think the suggestions that he’s some kind of triangulating, Gingrich-loving closet-Reaganite are misguided.

Why not try to “expand the Democratic pie” by standing up and proudly proclaiming your liberal principles? Why not try to further define those principles so that all of America knows exactly who you are and what you stand for?

Instead, what we have in Obama is a candidate willing to sneak around, hiding his true ideology while packaging his agenda in vapid platitudes so that no one can glean his true intent.

Strategy is one thing. Lying to the people and trying to fool them into thinking you’re something you’re not is something entirely different. Conservatism may be in disarray. It may be exhausted and suffering from poor leadership. But if the day ever comes I write something like Kevin Drum wrote above I would hope some liberal calls me out for such incredible cynicism.

Rather than give my own take on Fred’s campaign, I will direct you to Bob Krumm’s excellent and thorough critique which leaves us all wondering what could have been.

Jim Geraghty has a source inside the Thompson campaign:

He’s still with his ailing mother. “He’s just being a good son.”

He has not spoken to any other campaign or any other candidates, nor does he intend to at this time.

He will not endorse, I am told by this source close to Thompson.

I am also told, “he has no interest in a vice presidency or a cabinet position.” At an “appropriate time” he will outline his plans for the near future.

This source believes that the race has demonstrated that whatever happens from here on out, the GOP has to stand for consistent conservative policies across the board.

Geraghty also reports that Fred has dropped out of the Florida debate.

So the writing is on the wall and we are left contemplating why such a substantiative candidate failed?

Krumm lists the familiar reasons but I think it goes a little deeper than that – or at least, there is a more basic reason Fred failed; he was not entertaining.

I am amused by the laughter on the left over “Grandpa Fred” and his laid back demeanor. Perhaps if they examined their own fascination with the celebrity candidates on the Democratic side – an empty suit of a man running a campaign of cotton candy platitudes and half thought out policies along with a ruthless shrew whose grasp for power and influence is only slightly less nauseating than that of her philandering husband -they wouldn’t be quite so dismissive. Given that their likely candidate has a personality that makes Leona Helmsley look like a civic saint, one would think a little less gloating on their part might be in order.

After all, Fred thought about government and the relationship with the governed more than 10 Obama’s and 5 Hillary’s put together. Next to Fred, the Democratic party candidates come off like game show hosts. Democrat Bill Bradley comes to mind when looking for candidates who had given what to do after being elected so much thought. But Bradley too, was forced to run against a game show host in Al Gore and lost in the 2000 primaries. This current crop of small minded sophists on the Democratic side remind me of auctioneers bidding for votes among a grasping electorate who refuse to pay for government programs they already benefit from while begging for more.

Could Thompson have changed this dynamic? It’s an interesting thought experiment in that many conservatives in the think tanks believe that enacting federalism would impose a certain kind of civic discipline on Americans that would make most of us stop and think about whether a program or a benefit is really worth having. That’s because once responsibilities like that are returned to the state and local government, there is little doubt that people would be forced to pay for the benefits they desire. It would make both government and the citizens responsible adults when it comes to government spending at all levels.

No Democrat would ever contemplate such a radical shift and a Democrat controlled Congress would very likely not given Fred much of what he wanted if he had been elected. But even the Democrats can’t avoid the issue much longer. Fred literally wrote the book on the near future catastrophe at hand unless reforms in entitlement spending are initiated. In Government on the Brink (Volume II here) Thompson shows with a clarity lacking in so many of the superficial debates over “government spending” that there will shortly come a time when servicing the debt and paying for entitlements will eat up so much of the budget that it will not be possible to adequately defend ourselves or fund other, much needed domestic programs.

At any rate, this is what excited conservatives about Thompson in the first place and why I mourn the end of his campaign today. Fred Thompson talked about these and other issues that no other candidate would dare address. He didn’t speak in apocalyptic terms but rather explained his concerns in a straightforward, no nonsense, “Look people, this is the way it is and the way it’s gonna be” kind of way.

Krumm said that Thompson spoke in paragraphs when he needed to speak in sound bites. I don’t disagree strategically but I question whether Fred would have ever been able to do it and, given the substantiative subject matter, whether it was possible or not. I called him “The Anti-Soundbite Candidate” and indeed, it may have been a part of his undoing. But as I mentioned earlier, soundbites were only part of the problem.

Fred was running for president in a world where the selection process for the highest office in the land is conducted like auditions for American Idol. And the Simon Cowells in the media and punditland just didn’t think Thompson would ever become a star.

UPDATE

Just received this email from the campaign:

Statement from Sen. Fred Thompson

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson today issued the following statement about his campaign for President:

“Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”

Thanks, Fred.

UPDATE II

Allah, playing it straight, has a point I don’t believe I’ve seen elsewhere:

So I’m chalking it up to disorganization. The alternative, that Bush killed the Reagan coalition dead and left Thompson types inviable no matter how efficiently their machines might run, is simply too terrible to contemplate.

Romney will certainly try to claim Reagan’s legacy but we all know that’s a crock. It would have been interesting to see Fred try to bring the factions together but Allah is suggesting that it may not have been possible to begin with.

One more thing, this may be bad news for Giuliani. Thompson was only pulling 6% in Florida but I think most of that will end up in Romney’s column. I wonder if Thompson’s national security conservatives who refuse to vote for McCain will end up in Rudy’s corner? That’s got to be a fairly small number of voters, however, and Rudy must be hopng that Huckabee discovers some cross over appeal to traditional conservatives in Florida.

A very interesting and in the end, a very depressing article in The Guardian this morning about some recommendations by a blue ribbon panel of ex-military leaders in NATO who believe that the organization is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the security interests of its members.

In short, they conclude that NATO is not addressing the fundamental security threats facing the organization in a rapidly changing world and that there is a real danger that NATO itself will not survive many of the challenges facing it.

The headline grabbing part of the article is actually the least surprising – that NATO should maintain its nuclear first strike option. This has always been NATO’s unstated doctrine going back to the cold war given the huge perceived disparity in conventional forces the organization was facing from the Soviets. It was always believed that the US would have to abandon Western Europe in the face of a Soviet attack or launch its missiles. Maintaining this doctrine then is not surprising when faced with the possibility of rogue states or terrorist organizations threatening a launch against a NATO member.

The authors of this “manifesto” are an eye opening lot and “paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.”

General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato’s ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany’s former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato’s military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK.

And this distinguished group of dedicated soldiers did not create this document in a vacuum; they discussed their findings and got recommendations from a wide variety of current and former civilian and military leaders.

Here are some key findings:

The five commanders argue that the west’s values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The “dark side” of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential “environmental” migration on a mass scale.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

So is this a call to action? Or the last gasp of a dying organization that is making a final attempt to reconstitute itself in order to become relevant to its members and the security of the world?

As peacekeepers, NATO is doing a pretty good job in Bosnia and Kosovo. As warriors in Afghanistan, the organization is losing the war to the Taliban.

Now diplomats and the military fear unless something is done to revitalise strategy against the Taliban, Western governments will also lose their will and pull out their troops. Without Western backing, Karzai’s government may not last very long.

“If we cannot show progress in the next year or two, or at least show we are moving in the right direction, we will have serious difficulty in keeping some of our partners engaged in Afghanistan,” said one senior Western diplomat.

Six years after the Taliban were ousted following the Sept. 11 attacks, support for the war is waning and Canada, Germany and the Netherlands could withdraw troops by 2010, leaving a big hole that other NATO nations may be unwilling or unable to fill.

But it isn’t just support for the war at home that is the problem. The fact is, according to Defense Secretary Gates, that not only are NATO soldiers not trained for a counter-insurgency mission but that NATO governments themselves are reluctant to commit their troops to combat:

“I’m worried we’re deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I’m worried we have some military forces that don’t know how to do counter-insurgency operations … Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap [NATO’s Cold War battle lines in Germany].”

[snip]

Gates warned the NATO mission “has exposed real limitations in the way the alliance is, or organized, operated and equipped. I believe the problem arises in a large part due to the way various allies view the very nature of the alliance in the 21st century, where in a post-Cold War environment, we have to be ready to operate in distant locations against insurgencies and terrorist networks.” He solicited help from US Congressmen for “pressuring” the NATO capitals “to do the difficult work of persuading their own citizens [in Europe] of the need to step up to this challenge.”

Gates again spoke forcefully at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 14. But “no one at the table stood up and said: ‘I agree with that’,” he later lamented.

Only the Dutch, Canadians, British, Australian, and American forces engage in combat operations in Afghanistan (the French have several hundred special forces operating in the north). For the rest, there are “caveats” – legal loopholes in the NATO charter that allows nations to avoid the fighting – and according to the manifesto, are contributing to NATO losing the war in Afghanistan:

In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato’s future is on the line in Helmand province.

“Nato’s credibility is at stake in Afghanistan,” said Van den Breemen.

“Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure,” according to the blueprint.

Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country’s performance in Afghanistan. “The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner.” By insisting on “special rules” for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to “the dissolution of Nato”.

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as “a wake-up call”. “This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we’re in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges.”

To put the caveats used by a majority of NATO countries in Afghanistan in perspective, one Canadian officer was quoted as saying ““How many battalions does it take to protect Kabul airport?”

Recommendations in the manifesto are pointed and specific:

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new “directorate” of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU “obstruction” of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:

· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.

· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.

· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.

· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when “immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings”.

The European left will not support any of these changes. In fact, the commitment of troops in Afghanistan by most NATO countries is opposed by a majority of their own populations. And if Afghanistan is a red line that NATO must prove its worth or perish, then I fear the entire alliance is in mortal danger of collapsing given the recalcitrance of large NATO member states like Germany and France in committing more of their troops to the fight.

NATO wanted this job. They criticized the US mercilessly for “going it alone” in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now that the Taliban has been reconstituted (thanks largely to Pakistan’s inaction in the border provinces and US inaction in tamping down poppy production) several member states are looking anxiously at their domestic political position knowing full well that increased casualties as a result of them allowing their troops to engage in combat operations will almost certainly drive the left into the streets demanding a withdrawal.

This is something those countries never bargained for when they allowed their troops to be deployed under NATO’s banner in Afghanistan. At the time NATO agreed to the Afghan mission, it appeared to be mostly a reconstruction and peacekeeping operation. And now that they are desperately needed as combat troops to assist the Canadians and Dutch in the south in fighting off a growing number of Taliban fighters, they feel their hands are tied by a domestic opposition that opposes anything NATO does to help the United States.

If NATO won’t fight in Afghanistan, where will they fight? As Russia grows in strength and confidence under Vladmir Putin, the former satellites of the old Soviet Union who are now NATO members may start to wonder if the countries of western Europe will confront that menace if a showdown were to come. With western interests and credibility at stake in Afghanistan and member states failing to answer the call, it is a legitimate question whether NATO would fight in the Baltic states or even in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

NATO has had many crisis in the past but perhaps none that threatened the organization in such an existential way. NATO is struggling to find a reason to exist. And unless its member states can overcome their reluctance to commit to the idea of collective western security, it is possible that NATO will pass into history as just one more alliance that unravelled due to its own internal contradictions.

UPDATE

Most of the buzz on this article is centered around the pre-emptive nuclear strike aspect of the story. As I mention above, this is nothing new – just a recommendation to continue a long standing policy that NATO was forced by default to follow once the perceived superiority of Soviet conventional forces became so overwhelming.

However, as Dave Schuler points out, announcing such a policy may defeat its purpose:

In the end I’m left with a number of questions. First, does strategic ambiguity enhance or diminish deterrence? Is it a political necessity that undermines the strength of deterrence? Second, does a supernational organization like NATO increase the strength of the nation state or reduce it? How does the majority rule provision of the report influence that? Finally, what is the role of NATO today? U. S. defense expenditures are around 4% of GDP, Britain’s around 2% and under substantial scrutiny at home, France’s somewhat lower, and Germany’s below 2% and falling. If NATO’s members, accustomed to the U. S. military aegis, elect to have armed forces incapable of projecting force beyond Europe, of what practical use is the old military alliance?

Excellent questions all that the report (James Joyner found a PDF link here) fails to address.

Allah wonders whether the report’s nuclear option is aimed at Iran or Pakistan and if this is evidence of NATO’s growing irrelevancy:

I’m guessing this is aimed more at Iran than Pakistan, although a confirmed report of nukes loose in the tribal areas would naturally warrant a “strong” response. It’s not clear if they’re referring to pinpoint nuclear bunker busters to destroy underground weapons facilities or some sort of larger, make-an-example decapitating strike (the ambiguity is probably intentional), but the fact that they’re willing to rattle this particular saber publicly shows how helpless they feel re: other deterrent options. The west can roll back proliferation, they say, but it had better be prepared to make some hard choices to do so.

I remember the heady days in early 2005 when it appeared that Republicans had a limitless future and the Democrats were the party of burnt toast and rancid eggs. It appeared that there was no way that the recently defeated Democrats would be able to pull their party together in time to challenge for the 2006 mid terms. And while everyone knew Hillary Clinton was preparing for a presidential run, most viewed that prospect with a certain relish, convinced that Mrs. Clinton’s high negatives would make taking her on a relatively simple task. (Most still prefer Hillary today but don’t see the job of beating her quite as easy.)

But if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to political success can often be boobytrapped with the sins of arrogance and overconfidence. If any of us had bothered to think about it seriously in the first months of 2005, we would have discovered precious few truly conservative candidates available to run for president – and none who stood out as real Commander in Chief material. As it turned out, several potential candidates met ignomious ends during the Mid Term Massacre of 2006 while others, like Newt Gingrich, showed little interest in running.

Now, with the continuation of the candidacy of Fred Thompson in question, the brutal truth is hitting home; the GOP standard bearer could very well be John McCain; a candidate with impeccable national security credentials but little else to offer conservatives save a promise that he will be better than his record indicates. The prospect of a McCain candidacy has set off flurry of pledge takers – as in, conservatives taking a pledge to stay home on election day if McCain is the nominee.

Stephen Bainbridge is one of them:

But it’s not just Bush. The deeply corrupt K Street gang discredited the GOP Congressional leadership, who proved to be concerned solely with clinging to power for power’s own sake.

God made the people of Israel wander in the desert 40 years so as to remake the Israelis Israelites into a people fit for the tasks ahead. The GOP seriously needs a time out so that it can rethink its role in American democracy. There are a lot of legitimate questions facing the GOP. Do you adhere to the limited government principles of Reagan and Thatcher or do you follow the lead of UK Tory leader David Cameron? As the Economist recently opined, “it seems likely that the Republican Party, as a number of its members are already urging, will have to embrace environmentalism and cuddly economics as the Tories were forced to.”

Fred Thompson was a more than acceptable Reaganesque conservative who offered the GOP a chance to delay having to face those tough choices. Indeed, to borrow a football metaphor, a Thompson presidency offered the GOP a chance to reload rather than going through the painful process of rebuilding. The other 4 are all so deeply and irredeemably flawed that their presidency likely would be doomed to failure from the outset.

I’m not quite as pessimistic as Stephen for the simple reason I know of too many presidents who were horribly underestimated by their contemporaries who ended up doing very well. Linconln was one. Reagan another. The office itself will have its way with the occupant and the forces of history will shape and be shaped by anyone who sits in The Big Chair. Who is to say how any of those men will perform?

But Bainbridge is correct otherwise. The GOP is a broken party. If the next nominee could win through to victory, they would have the opportunity to place their imprint on the party for years to come. And the chances of a McCain or Romney getting that opportunity chills the bones of conservatives from all factions of the movement.

But I have argued in the past (and despite some moments of weakness) will argue again in the future that voting is a civic responsibility and that if you are mad at Republicans, there are other, more legitimate ways to show your displeasure than sitting home. Voting for the Democratic alternative is an option for some. Voting for a third candidate is another way to protest against the direction the party is taking.

But frankly, I will hold harmless any conservative who wishes to stay at home on election day if John McCain is the nominee. For myself, I don’t know what I will do as far as voting but I know that he will receive no favors from me on this blog. The same would probably be true for Romney as well. My heart just wouldn’t be in promoting the candidacy of a man as changeable as the former center-left governor of Massachussets.

James Joyner has it about right:

Alternatively, I suppose, one could argue that the intellectual base of the party is fine. Rather, its politicians are abandoning principle for expediency in pandering to an electorate that constantly demands more government subsidies. Traditionally, conservative Republicans embraced tax cuts and small government. Now, the movement’s elected leaders, with very few exceptions, embrace tax cuts and big government.

Hagiography aside, that trend started with Ronald Reagan. He wanted tax cuts, huge increases in defense spending, and big cuts in domestic spending. He settled for the first two, however, along with massive public debt. It proved to be a very popular platform. Aside from the Ross Perot boomlet in 1992, fiscal responsibility turned out not to be a very salient electoral strategy.

Joyner highlights the biggest challenge of all; how to play an effective scrooge when Santa Claus is so wildly popular. By abandoning fiscal responsibility as a tenet of conservative governance, we have made other conservative values like personal responsibility and self-discipline irrelevant. The American people demand services from government whether it is government’s business to dispense that service or not. What’s more, they still want their children and grandchildren to pay for it judging by how unpopular raising taxes has become.

Conservatives have no credibility in seeking to deny or restrain the people’s appetitite for these benefits simply because our so-called conservative leaders are as eager to play Santa as the liberals. Hence, the disconnect between conservatives and mainstream America is complete. We simply are not believed when conservative candidates talk about small government or individual responsibility. Conservaties in government don’t practice those values. Why should anyone else?

Did Fred Thompson have a chance to turn this around? Joyner points out Thompson’s voting record being not that much different from McCain’s. This may be true but at the same time, I truly believe that Thompson had thought long and hard about changing this relationship between the government and the governed and hit upon a new kind of federalism to bring some balance back to the equation. Whether he could have pushed it through Congress is open to question. But he was basing his candidacy on the principles of Reaganism and federalism – a powerful combination that could have prevailed if the courage to enact it could have been found.

Whether conservatives hold their nose and vote for him or stay at home it will hardly matter in the long run. McCain will not govern as a conservative and will almost surely freeze conservatives out of major policy positions. If this is what Rush Limbaugh and others mean by destroying the party by making it simply a poor echo of the Democrats then count me out. I hardly see a difference between the damage that would be done by a McCain or Obama/Hillary.

Few choices. Fewer options.

They will raise money from whatever source, regardless of the reputation and intent of the giver.

They will play whatever dirty trick on their opponent that they think they can get away with.

They will call their opponent whatever name they can think of no matter whether they divide their party in the process by doing so or not.

They will employ whatever strong arm tactic available to harass, threaten, and annoy their opponents.

They will use whatever means at their disposal to win the nomination and the election in order to get back into power.

Man, what a crew. The crap that Hillary and Bill pulled in Nevada should make all of her supporters right proud of the witch – if you’re a member of a Mafia family. A review of what has transpired over the last fortnight should be instructive to the American people as to what we can expect next fall – and beyond – if Hillary gets the nomination.

1. On January 10, Hillary surrogate Andrew Cuomo pulled the race card out of his sleeve, dropping it into the contest like a rat turd being dropped into a formal dinner and said of Clinton’s New Hampshire victory:

”It’s not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can’t buy your way into it,” Cuomo said. “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference,” he added. “All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

The Clinton camp raised its hands saying innocently, “Who me? My friend Andy was talking about politicians in general.” I believe her. Cuomo was talking about generally black politicians.

2. A January 11 column by Ben Smith of Politico detailed statements by both Clintons about Obama and race that were so incendiary that one would have to come to the conclusion that the Clintons were either political morons or knew exactly what they were doing.

3. On 1/12, the New York Times reported that Hillary was moving to tamp down criticism from blacks for the racially charged comments made by herself, her husband, and most especially surrogates. In the week leading up to New Hampshire, surrogates were especially active (” “If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.”). The strategy was obvious. Deploy the race card and then move quickly to plead ignorance or misconstruing by the press. Of course, the media let them get away with it.

4. On 1/13, another surrogate, Bob Johnson of BET Television, alluded to Obama’s drug use and implied he was a drug dealer. While not likely that the Clinton camp knew that loose cannon Johnson was going to make those specific remarks, to say they didn’t expect some kind of fireworks from the colorful Mr. Johnson is equally unlikely. To say they were displeased would also be incorrect.

5. On 1/14, a memo from the Obama campaign surfaced that detailed chapter and verse the Clinton’s use of the race card as well as Bill Clinton’s propensity for misrepresent Obama’s position on the Iraq War. In fact, Clinton would return again and again to this theme, trying to convince people that Obama’s opposition to the Iraq invasion was “a fairy tale.”

6. On 1/15, the Clinton’s brought Obama’s church into the mix by criticizing him for belong to a congregation where the minister published a magazine that handed out an award named after the notorious racist Louis Farrakhan. Obama had nothing to do with the magazine nor should he have to answer for the activities of his minister. Tell that to the Clintons who were attempting to raise a strawman in order to distract attention from their underhanded politics.

7. After solemnly promising to “count every vote” for years, the Clintons had a memory lapse and tried to suppress the vote of possible Obama supporters by suing to keep shift workers on the Las Vegas strip from participating in the Nevada Caucuses, arguing that the so-called “at large” Caucus sites violated the rules. The sheer cynicism of this move was born out on Caucus day – Clinton carried the sites handily.

8. On Caucus day, the Obama campaign catalogued more than 200 election violations:

“We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.”

And what of Bill Clinton? With Hillary’s fortunes at their lowest ebb he stepped out from the shadows and began to assert himself – some would say, throw his weight around. He demanded and got as much attention from the press as he desired. His schedule in New Hampshire was almost as heavy as the candidate herself and sometimes he eclipsed her in media coverage.

All this points to a couple absolutely driven to once again get their hands on the levers of power. And the closer to the election we get (if Hillary is the nominee), the questions about what role Bill Clinton will specifically have in the White House will multiply.

They will try to dismiss such questions as irrelevant but that surely is not the case. Never before in American history has such a coupling of the personal and political been given the reins of power. One can see some unique advantages to such an arrangement as having a former president around with Clinton’s gifts. But the potential for abuse is also tremendous. And given the demonstrated amorality of both the candidate and her husband, it should strike fear into the hearts of all those who don’t trust those two any farther than they can throw them.

All presidents aspire for power – mostly so that they can enact policies they believe in. The Clinton’s have demonstrated an appetite for power simply for the sake of exercising it with policies a secondary consideration or worse, simply a means to an end. And that end is the acquisition of control.

This has been their modus operandi since coming to Washington 16 years ago. Why should we expect them to change now?

For the Republicans, South Carolina ended up clarifying what previously had been a muddle.

With John McCain’s narrow but significant win over Mike Huckabee, the Arizona senator has now become the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. Only a Rudy Giuliani win in Florida would put the issue in doubt. And Rudy’s chances in the Sunshine state may have just gotten considerably longer thanks to McCain’s South Carolina victory.

McCain is the only GOP candidate so far to receive a significant bounce from a primary win. His New Hampshire victory has propelled him to front runner status nationally and has given him momentum in every state that has been polling since that contest. Huckabee, by contrast, has not benefited much from his Iowa win, finishing distant thirds in New Hampshire and Michigan and 4th in Nevada. His second place in South Carolina was a defeat due to the fact that in a state tailor made for his candidacy – a large evangelical population in the first southern primary – the former Arkansas governor received barely 30% of the vote.

Romney’s Michigan win translated into a 4th place in South Carolina, the only contested race of the day. His Nevada win, while garnering him delegates, was a foregone conclusion since he and Ron Paul were the only candidates who bothered to campaign there. Plus, Romney’s national numbers barely moved as a result of his Michigan victory.

McCain will not get the same kind of bounce out of South Carolina but he doesn’t need it. A 3-5 point boost will almost certainly give him victory in Florida. Appearing on my radio show last night, Ed Morrissey believes that Giuliani can win Florida and then go into Super Tuesday on February 5 with enough momentum that he can capture the “winner take all states” to put him in the lead in the race for delegates. This has been Rudy’s strategy all along but McCain may just have foiled it with his win in South Carolina.

Will Rudy still be seen as electable in 48 hours? I believe over the next week you will see a decisive movement toward McCain in Florida and elsewhere as GOP voters seem to settle on a candidate. Romney, who in some polls is close in Florida (others, not so close) will blanket the state with millions in advertising. It may be enough to give him another second place, moving past Giuliani. But McCain is hitting his stride as a campaigner, drawing large, enthusiastic crowds. Unless he stumbles, I just don’t think either Romney or Giuliani can knock him off.

There is still a chance for Romney after Super Tuesday. If he can steal a couple of states and finish second almost everywhere else, he can emerge to go one on one with McCain the rest of the way. With a huge money advantage (McCain is taking federal matching funds and is extremely limited), there is a slight chance that Romney could overtake him or win enough delegates to deny him a first ballot nomination. This scenario is not out of the question especially if Huckabee, who will almost certainly stay in the race through Super Tuesday, ends up winning 4 or 5 southern states. This would make Huckabee a kingmaker -a role I’m sure he would relish.

Regardless, someone has to show that they can knock McCain off before the Arizona senator loses his status as the Anointed One. And unless Rudy or Mitt can do it in Florida, it appears that John McCain will coast to the nomination fairly easily.

Tonight, The Rick Moran Show will go live from 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central time to discuss the results from Nevada and South Carolina. Joining me as cohost will be the lovely Sister Toldjah. We’ll also have some calls from other bloggers and pundits commenting on the race.

You can call in and give your take on the race by dialing (718) 664-9764.

As usual, we’ll have the chat room open and humming. And a podcast will be available shortly after the show is finished.

You can access the stream by clicking the button below:

UPDATE

It was a great show. I had Ed Morrissey joining me as well as Jazz Shaw from Middle Earth Journal, Jim from BRight and Early, Fausta from Fausta’s Blog, and my co-host Sister Toldjah. Lively discussion about the state of the race past, present, and future.

To access the stream you can click the player below. To download, you can go here.

If you’ve been following the polls for SC, you know how confusing that race has become. However, let’s go to the geniuses at Pollster.com for a look at what they consider the “endgame:”

For McCain, there is little dispute that he has surged since early December when he was in the low-teens to somewhere in the mid-to-upper 20s today. The sensitive estimator thinks the rate of climb since Iowa has been more rapid that does the blue estimator, but again both put his support between 26.9% and 29.3%.

The “Sensitive estimator” tracks the polls and through a formula, supplies a value based on the numbers. (There is a “Standard Tracking” line that works like the RCP averages). The sensitive estimator reflects a bounce for Huckabee out of Iowa that has ebbed slightly while McCain’s numbers took off in December and have kept climbing.

As for the others:

One big question in South Carolina is whether conservative criticism of both Huckabee and McCain is having any effect. If Thompson is benefiting from that, his polls only modestly show it. The sensitive estimate suggests a rise from about 10% to about 14%, but there is no polling evidence for a surge that would allow him to compete for first place.

Finally, Romney’s Michigan win seemed to help him in Nevada (based only on 3 polls, I should add) but there is no evidence of a bounce in South Carolina. After spending Wednesday and part of Thursday in the state, Romney appeared to concede the race and moved on the Nevada to campaign, where his chances look better. The Romney trends are also in complete agreement: No substantial trend, and both agree on 16%.

Based solely on the polling then (and this is not the best predictor of what is going to happen) it appears that there is some separation between McCain/Huckabee and Romney/Thompson with the former group in the mid to high 20’s and the latter in the mid-teens.

But for a variety of reasons, all we can do is use this data as a starting point. As many as 1 in 5 Republican voters are undecided as of this weekend with another third who may switch their votes.

Pollster.com points out that those undecideds in Iowa and Michigan broke decisively for the eventual winner which is why I think McCain will win going away. There is also the matter of Huckabee whose late gaffes regarding the confederate flag and some comments about the Constitution and religion may have hurt him slightly.

However, the Huckster probably has enough juice to hold off Thompson for second place.

And Fred? I think he surges past Mitt but comes up short, still finishing relatively strong.

SOUTH CAROLINA PREDICTIONS

1. McCain (29-33%)
2. Huckabee (19-23%)
3. Thompson (15-19%)
4. Romney (13-17%)
6. Giuliani (5-9%)
7. Paul (5-9%)

I think there is a chance a sizable number of undecideds will break for Fred rather than Huckabee or Romney. That may be enough to push Fred into second place but it is a long shot – say 10-1.

No polls out really reflect what has been happening the last 48 hours of the race so all of this might be totally off. But I’m not paid to be right, I’m paid to give it my best shot. And there you have it.

As for Nevada, the Republican race appears pretty straightforward. The Pollster.com guys point out there really haven’t been enough polls to draw any conclusions in which one could feel confident. I would agree except that despite McCain’s popularity in the state, that doesn’t necessarily translate into Caucus goers. We have the same situation we had in Iowa. Romney’s got a great organization in place and has visited the state several times – including the last two days. McCain has some enthusiasm and not much else.

Unlike Iowa where Huckabee had a network of churches and Fair Tax enthusiasts to get his people to the Caucuses, McCain has virtually nothing. So give this one to Mitt going away:

NEVADA CAUCUSES (GOP)

1. Romnney 31%
2. McCain 22%
3. Thompson 15%
4. Huckabee 13%
5. Giuliani 11%
6. Paul 6%

The Democratic race is a true muddle. Hillary probably hurt herself by suing to keep shift workers from caucusing. Obama probably stepped in it with his comments on Reagan. And like the Republicans, there just haven’t been enough polls to determine trends.

Some in the Netroots are reporting that there appears to be a late Obama surge. Take that with a grain of salt and a dose of wishful thinking. I think the race has been pretty static with Hillary holding a slight lead and Obama well within striking distance. Anything could happen and probably will (except an Edwards win).

I have no confidence at all in this prediction:

NEVADA DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS

1. Hillary Clinton 42%
2. Barack Obama 39%
3. John Edwards 14%
4. Dennis Kucinich 4%

Neither candidate helped or hurt much by the results, regardless of how it goes.

I really, really wish that there was evidence that Fred Thompson would do better than I’m predicting but I can’t find any. The latest ARG poll has Fred moving from 13% to 21% which I think is about right – an 8 point surge. But I don’t think he was starting at 13% – he was in single digits in late December and early January. So for Fred, a nice try but he will come up short.

Will he go on? I’m sure he will. Thanks to a pick up in fundraising, Fred can continue until after Super Tuesday when I’m sure all but the top two candidates – probably McCain and Romney – will reassess their chances.

UPDATE

Byron York writes what is almost an obituary for Thompson:

The RealClearPolitics average of polls in South Carolina has Thompson virtually tied with Mitt Romney for third place, well behind John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Most observers view this state as Thompson’s last stand, although his aides say simply that they don’t know what’s coming next. If he does leave the race, there will be lots of suggestions that he didn’t really want to run, that he didn’t have the taste for the frenetic campaigning that wins presidential primaries. No one beyond Thompson himself knows the answer to the first question, but there’s no doubt the latter is true; throughout the campaign, Thompson showed great impatience with some of the ridiculous demands presidential campaigns place on candidates. But on those occasions when he put himself into it fully, as he did at the Embassy Suites on Friday, Thompson left supporters wanting more — and wishing they had seen this months ago.

Thompson always seems most animated and most passionate when he talks of saving the Reagan coalition and battling for the “heart and soul” of the Republican party. These themes seem to hit him at a gut level and I wish he had drawn his campaign around them rather than his early emphasis on the danger to the country because of the growing menace of out of control entitlement programs and deficits.

But no use going back. The campaign is now what it is and nothing can change that. The candidate has found his voice and his themes. But it may not be enough.

UPDATE II: INTRADE

The markets are swinging decisively to Huckabee today. Not quite sure what to make of that except that if true, Fred drops considerably – down to 4th and the low teens for his support. That would finish his candidacy.

UPDATE III

It’s AP calling it for Mitt in Nevada. CNN will wait for raw numbers (do they see something screwy in the entrance polls?)

Dem race still to close to call.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey reports on the ARG poll that shows Huckster winning handily and Fred breaking the 20 pt barrier. (Note the huge jump between Thursday and Friday for Huck from 23% to 33%.)

ARG called the Dem primary in New Hampshire in their last poll: Obama 41% Hillary 30%.

Just sayin.