Redstate

He who hath ears, let him hear, and understand.

By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Captain's Quarters:

My advice, for those who want it, would be for bloggers to refrain from identifying with any one candidate until we get much closer to the primaries. For one thing, we have not necessarily seen all of the candidates yet. More importantly, we have not really seen their campaigning style and effort. 2007 should be considered a test for this wide-open field to make the best case and to hone their craft. Thanks to an early advent of the campaign, we have almost twelve months to consider each candidate, and we should take full advantage of that.

Perhaps the greatest reason for restraint is to make sure that our voices are heard on the issues rather than the candidates. Affiliated blogs will find themselves with less influence among other candidates, and for me, I'm more interested in the policies than I am in the personalities. If I endorse one candidate over all the rest, my opinions will have considerably less impact on other campaigns (for as much impact as I have anyway). I'd rather wait until we have to make choices to decide on my preferred candidate after giving everyone a chance to convince me that they will support my policy preferences.

For my own part: I haven't decided who I am going support next go-round. I have a pretty good idea who I am not going to support in the primaries: but it's infinitely too early to

1). Make a final choice;
2). Rush around trying to convince everybody else to concur with my final choice;

and/or

3). Waging war on those who deny my final choice's greatness.

Right now I think it makes a good deal more sense for all of us to first decide what it is that we want in a candidate - and what we can live with, and what we can't - and then start measuring our candidates and see whether or not they fit. Unfortunately for the enthusiasts, a lot of that is simply going to have to wait on events. For example: I fully expect Congress to do something outrageous between now and November 2008. They routinely did so when my Party controlled the institution, they can be counted on to continue the tradition. One of those outrages will likely be relevant to the election, and will probably inform my choice in the primary; but since I don't know what it is, how will I know which is the candidate best suited to address it? In short, it's too early to decide.

I recognize that our opposite numbers online are picking and choosing as well; as Captain Ed noted in his post, last go-round their eventual consensus candidate crashed and burned when he actually had to translate digital enthusiasm for analog votes. I also agree with the Captain that we're in a situation that we've not been in for a long human lifetime: a genuinely open primary on both sides. That last fact's going to make this particular post in some part futile... but I can still hope that it won't make it completely futile.

Shorter Moe Lane: Breathe, people. Breathe.

Moe