Thursday, January 10, 2008

Take Five

1. One of the things that has disappointed me about Glen Dean lately is that he seemed to have given up his previous persona as a thoughtful--if somewhat erratic--blogger. But he redeems himself (in my eyes anyway) with this very honest response (in other words, no BS about McCain's stance on particular issues and the like) to my McCain question:

There’s a lot more to it than campaign finance reform. Thompson supported that too and we all forgave him.

It’s really more personal. He has snubbed the base in favor of the Washington elites, especially the media, on many occasions. He even called the media his base. To the small government/libertarian wing, he comes across as authoritarian and statist. We just don’t like him. In spite of all of that, the guy is cerainly a hero and would probably be a formidable candidate in the general election, due to the fact that a lot of Republicans hate him. That makes independents like him.


More of that sort of thing, please.

2. Stop encouraging him. It's really not worth it. He has no particular interest in your opinion, he has no particular interest in real debate and he has particular interest (or evident capacity for) intellectual growth. So, seriously, just stop.

3. "Michigan will be a much, much better test, but in New Hampshire, Huckabee's appeal still seemed, at bottom, religious."

4. Sean and I do have some similarities, it's true. But there is, I think, one difference: he is on the anti-establishment side of his party whle I am more or less on the establishment side. But I think each of us has the same top priority in mind: we are interested in the good fortunes of our respective parties, but we both believe that those fortunes are much tied to effective governance (though we may each define that differently) than those we are "opposed" to within our parties, who seem more interested in mere political (and usually short-term) gain.

5. More crying.