Announcement

For all those interested, I wanted to announce that I will no longer be blogging and that "The Radical Republican" will be dormant for the foreseeable future.

My brother started this blog a little over two years ago, and I took over posting last summer. John enjoyed doing the blog, and I enjoyed my year of posting. However, John and I have both moved on to other things.

Thanks to everyone who has read and linked to the blog over the past two years. The Freesoiler clan is and will remain active and interested in Missouri politics for many years to come, so maybe I'll see you at Lincoln Days some day soon. Let's see finish with a quote, finish with a quote...well in the spirit of moving on, here's a gem from Samuel Johnson. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

Amnesty, We Hardly Knew Ye

In recent days, it seems that the majority of the American people and the minority of the Senate achieved victory in defeating the Bush/McCain/Democrat "Immigration Reform" bill. I can't help but take some schadenfreude in the fact that the Democrats were unable to achieve this even with the backing of the White House and several prominent Republican Senators. Regardless, it is a victory for the rule of law and for the will of the American people. Furthermore, I firmly believe that this is an issue that can be quite politically beneficial for Republican candidates in 2008, given the fact that only 20% of Americans favor Bush's approach to immigration. It will put our presidential candidates in the awkward position of criticizing the outgoing President, but they should hammer the pro-amnesty crowd with this as much as possible.

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On another note, Freesoiler was very pleased to read that Shamed Dogan, a former Talent LA, has announced his candidacy for the 88th State House district, currently held by Neal St. Onge. I first met Dogan when I interned for Talent two summers ago. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and the people of the Fighting 88th will be lucky to have him representing them.

The Never Ending Debates

NRO has posted a good symposium on last night's Republican presidential debate. No major surprises, I thought that the three main candidates all looked pretty good. There's no t likely to be any major movement in the top tier candidates as a result of this debate. However, as immigration continues to be such a major issue, McCain is likely to continue his downward spiral.

To me, the major story of the Republican debates so far has been the emergence of Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, as the face of electable conservatism in the field of candidates. Governor Huckabee has easily had the strongest overall performance in the debates to date. Furthermore, he has done so as a seriously conservative candidate. Despite his staunch views, the man from Hope, or rather, our man from Hope, has a manner about him that is very gentle and appealing. He comes across with very conservative views, but is also eloquent and compassionate. He is a Baptist minister, and it shows, but without being sanctimonious or fire and brimstoney.

While I think Huckabee's pleasant manner could have some appeal to the general electorate, he is a long shot for President. However, the Huckabee camp has got to be thinking that the Gov has positioned himself as the front runner for Vice President at this point. As a serious conservative, and a Southerner, Huckabee would likely make an excellent running mate for any of the top tier, less conservative candidates, such as Romney or Guiliani. While conservatives are inexplicably awaiting the entrance of Fred Thompson, of "Die Hard 2:Die Harder" fame, to fill the perceived conservative void, they need look no further than Governor Huckabee. Don't get me wrong, Thompson will enter the race as a top tier candidate, and one that is noticeably more conservative than Romney, Guiliani and McCain. However, this fantasy that Fred Thompson is Reagan/Goldwater/Milton Friedman reborn is just that; a fantasy.

The Impending Presidential Primary Crisis

The most recent in a rash states to do this, Florida recently moved its presidential primary date up to January 29, 2008. At current count, nearly half of the states will have held their nominating elections by "Super Tuesday," February 5. Why not just hold them tomorrow? And then, come November 2008, we can decide who to elect for the next two cycles, and then get 2016 taken care of by Inauguration Day? This current level of ridiculousness is the result of a game of chicken that's been slowly building for several cycles now to see who can get the most influence in the nominating race.

Now, I'm for states rights as much, and actually a lot more, than most. However, considering that we are talking about the only national office, I think that the time has come to consider some sort of national solution to this problem. There is no rational reason that a republic made up of sovereign states should allow any state, whether it's the most populous or least, any more influence in selecting the parties' presidential candidates.

There are a number of problems with trying to enact a single national primary date. First, as the most extreme option, it would engender the most opposition from the states who would have to ratify it. Second, there is the substantive concern of giving the candidates with the most money the advantage of carrying out a national campaign. Admittedly, money is a form of speech, but a national primary date would essentially eliminate the need for any primary at all, by giving such a big advantage to each parties' "establishment candidate." No John McCain in 2000, no Howard Dean in 2004. Well, that actually doesn't sound so bad, but replace those names with second-tier candidates that you find appealing.

With that in mind, I propose the following Constitutional amendment. In substance, my proposal would mandate that all states' nominating process, be it a primary, caucus, or whatever, be held between 6 and 8 months prior to the date of the general election. In other words, some time in the months of March, April, or early May of the election year. This eliminates the absurdity of the current arms race that has elections being held in January and early February, but still maintains a level of states' rights.

Certainly, there are likely to be problems with this system as well, and I have no delusions of such an amendment being ratified in the foreseeable future. However, hopefully as the system becomes more and more obviously ridiculous as the dates of the primaries get earlier and earlier, more people will come to see things my way and we can come up with some sort of a reformed, national system.

Rampant International Pro-Americanism

In my brief absence from posting, the people of France elected a new leader, Nicolas Sarkozy. He defeated the far left candidate, Socialist Segolene Royal, by a comfortable margin. This got me thinking about one of the left's canned criticisms of President Bush that is repeated so often that we hardly even question whether it's true or not, that is that the rest of the world hates America because of President Bush's actions. This leads to the perception that an American cannot travel abroad without being ridiculed or worse for our Americanism. Now, I've not traveled abroad very much, and I'm sure that somebody's cousin's friend was told by a French-Canadian that Americans suck, but that doesn't really prove anything.

If you look at what other countries have done at the ballot box, you might get a completely different picture of what they think of Americans. Starting with Sarkozy and working backwards, the people of France, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Germany have all elected leaders that display varying levels of pro-Americanism, and in the cases of at least John Howard and Angela Merkel in Australia and Germany, support for the Iraq war. While Tony Blair has been very supportive of Bush, early polls suggest that the voters of the United Kingdom will replace his Labour party with the more conservative, cleverly titled, Conservative party at the next general election.

While the idea that you can't go to Europe if you're an American is likely to continue to be propagated by the left until a Democrat is President, the people of the countries that supposedly hate us keep electing pro-American, pro-Bush candidates.

Freesoiler will return...

...after a three week, law school finals-related hiatus.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the bereaved of the recent Virginia Tech massacre. "For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love." Lamentations 3:31-32

Rudy's Follies

As the race for president in 2008 heats up, the voters are going to start taking much closer looks at the various candidates. Perhaps the candidate who has the most to lose from this is the putative Republican front-runner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Rudy's lack of knowledge of the price of bread notwithstanding, because I doubt that multimillionaire trial lawyer John Edwards buys his own groceries, Rudy has to be concerned about how his liberal social views, specifically on abortion, will play with Republican primary voters.

But you have to give Giuliani credit for sticking to his guns, even when he's wrong on policy and wrong on the facts. He recently reasserted his support for public funding of some abortions, citing the fact that abortion is a constitutional right. Regardless of the differences on policy this poses with most Republicans, Rudy's also wrong on the legal realities. The law of the land is that you have a constitutional right to choose an abortion without an "undue burden." Giuliani misses this important distinction when he states that "There must be public funding for abortions for poor women," because "We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decisions about abortion." Those two statements do not necessarily go together, as the Supreme Court recognized when they specifically allowed a ban on public funding of abortion in Harris v. McRae. This is not to say that states are not permitted to fund abortions with public money, but neither are they required to. If Giuliani wants to fund abortions with public money as a matter of policy, he should say so. As a matter of policy, most Republicans are going to seriously disagree with that, but he should not try to fool them by hiding behind the idea that it's required by the law, because it isn't.

Based on the polls, Giuliani is clearly the Republican front runner, and for some good reasons. He's an accomplished person, both as a prosecutor and mayor. Certainly there is still a lot of positive feelings towards him due to his role in New York's 9/11 recovery, but it's not just that. People remember that Giuliani was able to clean up NYC after years of being known as a haven for crime to be avoided by outsiders. However, I think that the "entrance" of Fred Thompson into the race, and the quick decline of Rudy's numbers, seen here from Rasmussen, shows that Rudy's lead is a soft lead. Yeah, they were both actors, but Fred Thompson is not Ronald Reagan. His numbers are most attributable to his celebrity status, and the fact that Republican primary voters are clamoring for a solid conservative in a field led by McCain and Giuliani. Whether it's Mitt Romney*, Mike Huckabee*, or Sam Brownback*, it won't be long before they find one.

* Not an endorsement or non-endorsement, because, frankly, who cares what I think?