McCain is done.

hopefully Romney wins the nomination by winning Iowa and NH and then getting momentum.

would love to have a Mormon at the top of the ticket. LMAO.

Ouch, that smarts!

Pride and an unsettled field will keep McCain in until the Iowa Caucuses at least, but his candidacy is DOA. His position on immigration has absolutely KILLED him with primary voters. He's barely running in the double-digits in Iowa now; I think the GOP nomination comes down to Romney or F. Thompson.

McCain has been a zombie ever since he tried to be the establishment candidate and kissed the rings of the fundies. Picking on McCain is as edifying as kicking a corpse.

More fun is considering the way, way out possibility of a Ron Paul nomination.

When you think about it, as a genuine opponent of the Iraq occupation Ron Paul would have credentials few other Republicans have. In a way it is a delicious thought though hard to picture now.

It was also impossible to picture the American voters narrowly supporting impeachment just a very short time ago.

Best, Terry

I got a lot of grief from friends the other night when I said I thought Romney was going to be the nominee, not Giuliani (sp?). I feel like the Republican machine is slowly but surely going to fall in behind him. He's the safest bet at the moment. And Thompson? Total lightweight.

I don't know why people on the left treat Ron Paul so kindly. He's an uber-libertarian who would love to do away with Social Security, Medicare, medicaid and public schools. The guy is so far out of the mainstream on every issue except Iraq and that's because he seems to be an isolationist. I have a hard time picturing him doing anything about, say, Darfur.

I think we on the left appreciate his honest and intellectual consistency--even though we wouldn't ever vote for him. After Iraq, most of us certainly have no problem with a healthy dose of isolationism. I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we can for Darfur, but, in the end, it's Britain and France's problem. They drew the borders there. We need to spend a hell of a lot more time worrying about what's going on in our own hemisphere.

I don't know why people on the left treat Ron Paul so kindly. He's an uber-libertarian who would love to do away with Social Security, Medicare, medicaid and public schools.

HINT; He's against the Iraq occupation.

Best, Terry

I do because I prefer an honest man who tells you what he stands for to an unctuous criminal who tells you he is for social security while working behind the scenes to destroy it. I also like him because I think any democrat would beat him like a drum.

I love how Ron Paul's "fringe/whackjob" label is supposedly the product of the GOP and not the media. (I'm not counting FOX, obviously, because there is no difference between the two.) When I was a boy, the media often claimed that the frontrunner was determined by how much money the candidate raised. Look at the way McCain is treated in the media compared to Paul -- Paul was labeled "fringe" even in this post -- as if, well, that meme started somehow, so we are honor bound to repeat it over and over.

When they want to, the media claim that so-and-so is the frontrunner or a whackjob based on either: 1) poll numbers, 2) money raised, 3) someone said so and I'm just going to repeat it over and over. My point: there is no consistent measure used by the media at all. They just pick the measurement that suits the narrative they are lazy enough to produce...and then pretend that this narrative "just...comes" like Oscar Madison's gravy. So last week Ron Paul was a fringe nut job because he hasn't raised much money -- next week if McCain raises a few more bucks he'll be "surging," even if he still has less money than Paul.

Same dynamic on the Democratic side as well, obviously.

How can one not make fun of Repub canidates? Did McCain say something stupid again? I mean like in the last nano-second.

I guess my point is that the amount of money raised is almost irrelevant to the dynamic -- except when they want it to be relevant. Fred Thompson is the frontrunner because, well...we'll find a reason! It could be poll numbers. It could be money. It could be "voter interest." It could be because I said so. It could be because he smells manly.

If Kucinich suddenly raised a bunch of money, I'm sure the meme would be something like: "Fringe nutjob appeals to stoned YouTubers undercounted because of cell phones!"
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I agree with most of the reasons why the left "likes" Ron Paul, but here's my list:

1. Intellectual honesty/consistency
2. Old school conservative
and the most important
3. Totally unable to win the presidency even if he gets the nomination.

This man is in favor of the gold standard. It doesn't take much training in economics to see why that would lead to an economic collapse in less than a week. He's articulate, he's pissed, the wingnuts like him, and he has absolutely insane economic and social policies that would prevent him from ever winning a national election. Yay for Ron Paul!