Redstate

but it makes the "I'm one of the common people" argument in a fresh and effective way. I expect this to play well in the Midwest.

Molon Labe!

Whoah, where's the spite coming from amigo? Let me guess, your guys is Rudy or Mitt, right?

Hang all traitors and secessionists! Hang them high!
- Me

I respect the guy, but he is another big government conservative. He has raised taxes and wants to ban smoking. I want a small government conservative for President. Any suggestions?

I am still considering:

Fred Thompson
John McCain
Rudy Guliani
Mitt Romney

If I still can't make up my mind on primary day, I will vote for Ron Paul as a protest vote.

McCain is the most consistent fiscal conservative besides Paul. He has railed against earmarks, but in the Senate he is a lonely voice joined only by Coburn, Graham, and DeMint in the Senate.

McCain led the charge to challenge the ridiculous Boeing contract that would've cost American taxpayers 30 billion dollars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avYy40eD7H0

Give him the power of the veto, and he'll make the people wasting American tax dollars famous.

McCain isn't a conservative on economic issues.

For example.

Only 2 Republican US Senator voted against the 2001 Bush tax cuts: Lincoln Chafee and John McCain. The other 48 Republicans voted for the 2001 Bush tax cuts. It's amazing when even Jim Jeffords (who later switched parties) and Arlen Specter vote more conservative than John McCain.

The obvious response is: McCain wanted the 2001 Bush tax cuts to be combined with spending reduction. But upon closer examination, we find out that this is untrue.

John McCain voted for the Rockefeller amendment to the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which would have required that a Prescription Drug Benefit be enacted into law before the top federal income tax rate could be reduced.

So, McCain's vote against the 2001 Bush tax cuts was really a vote for no across the board reduction in tax rates until federal entitlement spending is increased.

McCain obviously doesn't want Republicans to learn about this now that he need primary voters to support him. But that is McCain's voting record.

The Left thinks that the "axis of evil" is Wal-Mart, Haliburton and Enron.

is getting short.

"So, McCain's vote against the 2001 Bush tax cuts was really a vote for no across the board reduction in tax rates until federal entitlement spending is increased."

You stated this several times before. I asked for a link or any proof. If you persist in spamming every thread with unverified attacks, you're gone. Provide a link/proof or stop making false statements.

______________________________________
Donate to the Rs in Close Senate Races through Slatecard

He has never stated he is for a ban on public bldg smoking (specifically would NOT ban it in bars and restaurants, as some states have gone so far as doing), but would regulate it to some extent in workplaces. This is from a conference call recently at
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTJjNGU3MDgxZmU4NTVkNTJlN...
Blogger: There’s some concern about your statements regarding tobacco regulation from the Lance Armstrong forum. As a Public Health Professional, I fully support any and all tobacco regulation, but others felt your comments meant you would be building big government and forcing behavior on individuals. Could you clarify your views on tobacco regulation?

Huckabee: Certainly, I don’t believe that we as a government have a right to tell people what to do or not do. The issue is one of workplace safety. The same reason that the government regulates the exposure of radon and other toxic gases in the workplace. In Arkansas I signed a bill that banned smoking in certain public areas and businesses, but not in bars/restaurants, because those were places consumers could more easily choose to go to or not to go. So, in the workplace, if we regulate smoking, it is an issue of worker safety. The responsibility initially lies with the states, of course. The only way this would be a federal responsibility is for it taking on that role as part of OSHA as it regulates other work place safety."

Is it really reasonable to cancel out a candidate for the Presidency with so many imperfect candidates this year based on a position on smoking in the workplace that he'd have little control over apart on this legislative issue and is more moderate than what many states are moving to in regulating the workplace?

thought he could get away with it. He is so crazed about weight loss and healt, he would likely use the feds to force his diet on us all if he thought it would sell. This is not a funny thing, it is a scary thing. You can always tell who is statist or not when it comes down to the things they are very passionate about. People like to say they are for freedom, but when they are passionate about something, the authoritarian instincts emerge.

Molon Labe!

I understand why a smoking ban in the workplace could sound scary to folks, but I have to admit that I'm for it--probably for personal reasons. I probably would have been against this, if I didn't have patients who are highly allergic to cigarette smoke, and suffer from allergic rhinitis. If these people are in a smoky room for a prolonged period of time, they can even develop sinusitis (a sinus infection), which can send them to the doctor. Are those smokers going to pay for these people's health care bills and their prescriptions?

And that's really quite mild. Many of my patients have Asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and emphysema. Asthmatics can wind up in the ER if someone around them smokes. I understand that people want the freedom to smoke or do what they want, but people should also be free not to be chronically ill, because people at their workplace can't put out their cigarettes. I have freedom of speech, but I am not free to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre. I am free to listen to music, but not crank it up to 100 decibels at three AM, so that my neighbors can't sleep. And, I am free to smoke till I get cancer and croak--just not at work where my coworkers with asthma and allergies, who I make chronically sick, can't get away from me. Smokers can smoke outside. People have to go to work--they don't have a choice. Y'all have a good night.

No fatty foods allowed to be purchased or consumed in the workplace. Fat people can stop and get their fix on their way home but they shouldn't have the right to tempt me.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

That's not the same thing and you know it--and I know you know it, because you're a smart guy. If someone eats a burger next to me at work, I'm not going to have a heart attack or develop high cholesterol. However, if I'm an asthmatic and someone at work smokes next to me, I could have an attack and wind up turning blue in the ER. Furthermore, countless medical journal articles have been written regarding the hazards of second hand smoke. Not to mention, second hand smoke is really unsafe for pregnant women. However, I've never heard of second hand burger eating (watching someone sitting next to you eating a burger) causing a heart attack, or harming a pregnant woman. In other words, eating burgers (or other fatty foods) may harm the person eating them, but it won't harm the other people surrounding him.

and repeat what you just wrote.

While I think burger banning is stupid, I happen to think federal smoking bans are just as stupid. I quit smoking (3 packs a day) in 1976 and haven't gone back. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. That said, the federal government has NO business getting involved in whether the Denny's down the street from my house can allow smoking. It should be a decision made by the business owners, period.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

...and I did not speak out — because I was not a smoker...

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

A ban on smoking at the "workplace" is essentially a ban of public smokeing. It would take about a half second for someone to sue under equal protection so they don't have to serve, clean, or bartend at their workplace. Also, it would make an all out ban from the federal government more likely down the road, baby stepping it.

This isn't a big issue for me, I actually supported an all out ban on public smokeing in WA. It's Huck's willingness to expand government in other areas that I don't care for.

I'm the obnoxious guy who use to wear the "Cancer Cures Smoking" button. I believe that if I took up the habit I'd be dead within three years. It irritates my breathing when I am in a smoke filled room. I can smell it on your clothing when you step in the elevator after having been out for a smoke. In short I find it to be a dirty, disgusting, and generally filthy habit.

Now that we have that out of the way, I don't give a rat's tail end whether somebody only support smoking bans in workplaces and not bars or dining establishments. I still find it to be an unnecessary intrusion of the nanny-state into the private actions of an individual. I think that bars and eating establishments that advertised a voluntary non-smoking policy would get more customers than those that allow smoking, they've just all been too stupid to try it.

Therefore, at least in this instance Huck supports the nanny-state, and for me, that is a strike against him, especially as it is difficult to argue it is a necessary function of government as opposed to merely one some of us would like.

to Fred's report entitled Government at the Brink. Also, Fred is leading on Social Security reform, with a plan to fix it. The guy is a serious federalist, hates big government, and has the "most conservative" rating from Forbes. If you missed it, watch Kudlow's interview from this week. Fred really shone and the table talk afterwards agreed Fred would be bullish for stocks.

www.fred08.com
www.fredsgivingday.com
Redneck Hippie

...more evidence...

In the Senate, Thompson joined some moderate Republicans in voting to raise the minimum wage in 1996, in voting for a "patient's bill of rights" in 2001 to mandate better coverage by health-care plans and in supporting the 2001 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.

The campaign finance reform bill, sponsored by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, angered many conservatives who believe restrictions on political donations violate free speech.

Thompson's support for the proposal was one of the reasons he was among just four Republican senators to support the McCain 2000 presidential campaign. McCain is also running for the 2008 GOP nomination...

On a similar front, when Thompson chaired investigative hearings probing alleged illegal fundraising by Democrats in the 1996 election, he expanded the probe to include his own party as well. In the 1999 Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, Thompson voted not guilty on the charge of perjury, but did vote to remove Clinton from office on the charge of obstruction of justice.

Among the conservative groups that rank members of Congress based on their voting records, the American Conservative Union gave Thompson an 84 percent rating in 2001. In the most recent ratings, the Christian Coalition gave Thompson a 77 percent score and the Eagle Forum a 75 percent score in 2002. Those rankings are comparable to interest groups' scores for McCain, who is often scorned by the right. Because former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, two of the Republican presidential front-runners, were never in Congress, they were never ranked. However, both are facing scrutiny concerning their past support of abortion rights, homosexual rights and gun control.

Romney changed his position on these matters after entering the presidential race, while Giuliani has maintained his stances.

"[Thompson] will stand not as an absolute conservative, but conservative compared to the frontrunners," John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, told Cybercast News Service.

"Rudy Giuliani is not a conservative, Mitt Romney will have problems based on his positions as governor of Massachusetts, and John McCain -- though he has a conservative voting record -- has problems with campaign finance reform and immigration reform," Geer added.

Geer compared Thompson's record to that of former Tennessee Republican Sen. Howard Baker, for whom Thompson worked during the 1970s."
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/6/5/91957.shtml

Can you name one thing by memory that Thompson ever did that aligned him in a strong way with strong conservatives in the Senate (or elsewhere) before THIS YEAR? And even as he now attempts to pose as the strong conservative, he still denies the decades-long HLA GOP plank and refuses to sign the no-new-tax pledge.

Huckabee is the only serious conservative, socially and fiscally, of the serious candidates, unless you believe Romney's "position" of the last months is one that he won't move from as soon as a GOP nomination is behind him.

Even the first Bush pretended to be for HLA and no new taxes, and the 'sophisticated' GOP insiders of the time poo-poo'd anyone who thought otherwise.

The dirty secret that history

Fred Thompson was one of 48 Republican US Senators who voted for the 2001 Bush tax cuts, while John McCain and Lincoln Chafee were the only 2 Republican US Senators to vote with the Democrats.

Regarding the Patients' Bill of Rights. Fred Thompson supported the Kyl amendment (Jon Kyl is the more conservative Republican US Senator from Arizona) to the Kennedy-Edwards-McCain bill that would have made the increased liabilities for health insurance companies voluntary. I remember Fred Thompson coming to the floor of the US Senate to specifically endorse the Kyl amendment. Unfortunately, the Kyl amendment was defeated.

I agree that Fred Thompson's record isn't as good as I would like it to be. But it is better than John McCain's record. And I admit that this is partially because Fred Thompson served in the US Senate for only 8 years while McCain has served there since 1986.

But on key votes, Thompson was a better, more reliable vote than McCain. McCain was the New York Times' favorite Republican. I don't believe it would be accurate to characterize Thompson that way.

The Left thinks that the "axis of evil" is Wal-Mart, Haliburton and Enron.

Picking at every Thompson vote, while claiming that Huckabee is a fiscal conservative, is ridiculous. We already know how Huckabee fares when the same standard is applied.

You're right that Thompson isn't the strongest conservative in the race. That's arguably Tancredo or Hunter. I'm afraid the most solid conservatives aren't doing that well this year.

As the front runners go, Thompson's pretty conservative. I suggest that if Huckabee fails, he's probably going to be the best of a bad lot for you. Really sure writing attack pieces is a good idea?

If Huckabee can't stand on his own merits, he's not going to stand. Those who want fiscal conservatism have far too many choices other than Huckabee, including voting Libertarian. If you want to defend Huckabee, defend him.

But let's try a few items, anyway.

On expanding campaign finance investigation to include his own party: THIS IS AN ENTIRELY CONSERVATIVE THING TO DO. One of the major items that cost us in the 2006 election was ETHICS. We have to root it out.

How Fred voted in the impeachment trial of Clinton is not an indication of his conservative vs. moderate positions. Both of these items on the Clintons are spurious arguments about anyone's conservatism.

An ACU score of 84 is not that bad. Particularly when you realize that Fred's brand of conservatism is Federalism which will occasionally go against the ACU's ideals. For instance, his votes on tort reform count against him, but when you understand his rationale, they are quite conservative. Sometimes using scorecards are not beneficial for understanding the candidate.

One thing that Thompson did that aligned him with "strong conservatives in the Senate" (though that statement may be an oxymoron) is authoring the two volume report on cutting government waste. It would be a nice, conservative thing if a President were to achieve two things in his time in office, and one was keeping the nation secure and the second was cutting government waste.

Supporting the HLA does not make one conservative. Nor does not supporting it. A SPECIFIC PROPOSAL CANNOT BE USED TO DETERMINE IF SOMEONE IS CONSERVATIVE OR NOT. Is Fred pro-life? Yes. The HLA is irrelevant. I am more concerned with someone who believes in lower taxes than someone who begs his legislature for taxes.

Calling Huck a "serious conservative" in any area other than abortion and gay marriage is a joke. In particular his fiscal RECORD is VERY VERY BAD.

I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the spiteful poster in the comment right above mine.

Hang all traitors and secessionists! Hang them high!
- Me

Abortion isn't a question for the states...I guess it's just one for the Court.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/huckabee_abortion/2007/11/18/50451.ht...

There's no spite here. I'm just tired of this guy. He's no Conservative. Is he socially conservative, yes. But a Conservative he is not.

Pretty hard to be a consumer when you're unemployed because your employer moved you job overseas.....

Don't Rant on politics, just comment on what you thought about the freakin' ad!!! Geez.

"I can say - not as a patriotic bromide...that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and...the only moral country in the history of the world. - Ayn Rand

I view everything through Fred-colored glasses; however, as objectively as possible from a FredHead, the ad looked cheaply produced. I also read the campaign is only investing 60K in it, for those who really liked it. It has a funny tinge to it; however I must say that illegal immigration is "nothing to laugh about" a line Mike used in one of the debates, about Hillary, I believe.

This is targeted to the Chuck Norris demographic, and I must confess I didn't know there was one.

So there you have it, I don't like Mike and even if I did, I would be less than enthusiastic about the ad. I didn't like the "cigar" video by Fred, either. I think it has something to do with the fact that a President needs to project a certain image and Chuck Norris, at least for me, wouldn't help.

www.fred08.com
www.fredsgivingday.com
Redneck Hippie

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

But given that Norris volunteered, and given that the video was a web-only thing, we're talking a pretty tiny price-tag for the whole hooplah. This seems pretty weak water to scald, you know?

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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

and I think that we have, from time to time. Our discussions about Ron Paul has been light recently. We are not ready to be light about Huck just because of his positions.

But shouldn't Huck be able to get serious at some point of time? He ONLY seems to be humorous and doesn't seem to get into the specifics except on abortion.

Regarding his (and everyone's) spending habits, it becomes an issue because of the degree of his spending habits (see http://infredheads.blogspot.com/2007/11/factcheck-on-huck.html). The interesting line for me is on his budget size:

"During Huckabee's 10 years as governor, state spending more than doubled, from $6.6 billion to $16.1 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006." ( Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10/4/07) which is really 144% increase in 10 years. The others are chicken feed (exception of Mitt due to his "wonderful health care program").

To be assinine... Especially coming from supporters of a candidate who has no executive leadership whatsoever. You can pick apart these guys piece by piece and find something wrong with all of them, but overall they are all better than Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, Mike Huckabee has been on the conservative side of most issues more consistently than most of these candidates throughout his career, with maybe the exception of John McCain.

To me this isn't about a $5.00 per bed tax increase, right or wrong, that may have been enacted sometime during Huckabee's tenure. All of the big 5 have had political careers, not one of them has been right 100% of the time. To me this is about character, it is about who do you want leading a country that your kids are going to grow up in.... If you want to get down to it, if you are asking me who I would rather have between the former minister who was also the chief executive of a red state and the Hollywood actor turned politician who lobbied for abortion rights and shows zero enthusiasm toward actually wanting the job, I don't really see how that as a serious comparison.

"I believe in grace, because I have seen it. In peace, because I have felt it. In forgiveness, because I needed it."

-George W. Bush

to remember when Rick Flair was "somebody".

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