Literary Efforts To Commemorate Departures
A few selected bye-ku from this morning's announcement that Rudy Giuliani is bowing out of the Republican nomination race - Paul Chesser got
the first licks in:
Late state strategy
Like skipping the game's first half
Losing was foregone
Likeable Rudy
Wasn't going to get nod
Too many Christians
Jon Sanders extended the meme:
Rudy's dropped out, too
Can't be president if you're
"America's Mayor"
Romney's on the ropes,
(For what it's worth) — Looks like
McCain v. Clinton
So: Rudy, Edwards,
And conservativism —
They're all sunk this year
My humble suggestion:
Unlike Democrats
We don't often move ahead
Driving on the left
Edwards Deserves More ...
... More than three lines. He announced the end of his campaign today, too, and while others had offered metrical comments earlier, I raised the bar
and the syllable count:
His ambition too blatantly crass,
Long he played on resentment of class;
But Americas Two
Have rejected his view
For the Hil or Obama, en masse
Jon Sanders, never one to turn down the challenge,
responded:
The poor lost "their voice" today. Drat!
Who'll "speak" for them next? The old bat?
John can't "pimp" now (read: "care")
But he still has his hair,
His mansion, his gym, and all that!
Exit Poetry (Updated)
Jon Sanders at the
John Locke Foundation is a practitioner of the minimalist poetry commemorating the departure of political figures, dubbed the "bye-ku".
He unleashed it mercilessly on my [former] candidate yesterday:
Fred Thompson's campaign,
Like the Law & Order theme,
Simply went "Clunk, clunk."
Sunken, hollow eyes
Vacant much like his campaign
Will he blame Jeri?
Since Bill Buckley said
"Vote rightwardmost viable"
and Fred's not it -- whom?
To which
Paul agreed:
Mitt flips; McCain, ugh;
Big tax Huck; Rudy pro-choice
None of the above
The root of the problem seems to me:
"Conservatism",
for voters, has Gaussian
popularity
Brokered convention
May resurrect the morbid
And as I'm reading A Team of Rivals, I might add that Lincoln was nominated under similar circumstances in 1860.
Everyone for Fred - It's Tactical
Quin Hilyer makes the case for voting for Fred Thompson in South Carolina - even if you support Giuliani, Romney, or Huckabee.
If I were a South Carolina Republican voter on Saturday, then for parochial, tactical, and philosophical reasons, I would vote for Fred Thompson.
This doesn't mean that I would not have voted for Mitt Romney in Michigan on Tuesday, if I were a Michigander, or that I would not vote for Rudy Giuliani in Florida later this month. Voting in each state, especially in a drawn-out nomination battle, involves particularly local considerations as well as national ones.
But for South Carolinians who are mainstream conservatives, those local considerations seem to cry out for a boost for Fred Thompson.
From
The American Spectator
GOP Candidates on School Choice
The Club for Growth (the ones who got in a tiff with Huckabee) actually did a full series of white papers on all the candidates' records and positions. School choice was one area surveyed, and here are their findings; most have shown support, though some more consistently than others.
Their introduction: "The Club for Growth supports broad school choice, including charter schools, voucher programs, and tax credits that create a competitive education market including public, private, religious, and non-religious schools. More competition in education can only lead to higher quality and lower costs."
Fred Thompson: ... a faithful supporter of school choice, arguing in 1995 "that our elementary and secondary educational systems need to be restructured ... [which] can be achieved by privatizing a major segment of the educational system" ... support for vouchers that are "universal, available to all parents, and large enough to cover the costs of a high-quality education." ... voted for a 1997 school voucher program in D.C. ... and pilot voucher programs in 1999 and 2001.
Mike Huckabee: ... record on school choice is mixed. On the one hand, he fought hard to protect the rights of parents to home school their children ... a vocal proponent of charter schools ... supported a proposal that would expand charter school eligibility ... signed legislation allowing charter schools to be established in Arkansas. On the other hand, ... is on record opposing voucher programs that allow poor students in failing public schools to attend private schools ... called No Child Left Behind "the greatest education reform effort by the federal government in my lifetime" .... [CFG] Update: As mentioned above, Huckabee's education proposals put greater emphasis on government intervention in the education system instead of calling for greater choice and competition. According to the Sioux City Journal, "Huckabee said he would make arts and music education tested curriculum and provide federal funds to do so."
Rudy Giuliani: ... became one of the country's leading advocates for a competitive education market. ... in 1995, opposed school vouchers ... by 1996, though, Mayor Giuliani began to have a change of heart ... by 1997 had created a widely popular program called the School Choice Scholarships Foundation ... and in 1999, made the leap to a self-proclaimed "prophet" of school choice, proposing a $12 million pilot school choice program even as his school chancellor threatened to quit over the matter. Giuliani even went so far as to argue that "the whole [school] system should be blown up, and a new one put in its place." ... also campaigned on behalf of charter schools, in the hopes of inspiring a "more innovative, performance-driven, entrepreneurial vision of schooling."
Mitt Romney: ... on record supporting charter schools, school vouchers, and home schooling ... charter school expansion rather than a voucher program ... He pushed to eliminate the state-mandated cap on the number of charter schools and successfully vetoed a moratorium on the opening of new charter schools. ... Once advocated abolishing the Department of Education but has since said he supports No Child Left Behind and has seen as a governor that "the Department of Education can actually make a difference."
John McCain: ... record on school choice is very good ... consistently supported school choice programs, voting for voucher programs in 1997, 1999, and 2001 ... eloquently argued that "our children deserve the best education we can provide to them, whether that learning takes place in a public, private, or parochial school. It's time to give middle- and lower-income parents the same right wealthier families have -- to send their child to the school that best meets their needs."
Ron Paul: the perfect is the enemy of the good ... opposition to school choice stems from his opposition to the government's role in education ... arguing that federal voucher programs are "little more than another tax-funded welfare program establishing an entitlement to a private school education." ... He consistently voted against voucher programs ... but supported education tax breaks and introduced the Family Education Freedom Act (H.R. 612) that provides all parents with a tax credit of up to $3,000, available to parents who choose to send their children to public, private, or home school. ... his votes are a direct impediment to achieving high-quality school choice ... aligning himself with Democrats and the NEA in opposing progress towards a market-based education system ...
UPDATE: I'm not tracking the Democratic positions generally. Club for Growth does even bother to separate them, heading their report "
One of These Candidates Is Not Like The Other", but here are their highlights of the Democratic side on school choice:
When it comes to school choice, all four Democratic candidates have the same plan: less choice, more federal government. ... talk about the need to help low-income students trapped in failing public schools, ... [but] reject the one education reform that can actually help ... All have voted against or publicly opposed school choice programs, proposed increasing federal money in education ... and called for universal preschool.
Reflections on the Caucus
What to think of Iowa, what to think ...
I was watching the commentary in
The Corner Thursday evening, and Mark Steyn,
speaking of Huckabee's win in Iowa that evening, raised a concern about the evangelical surge there:
It would be truer to say that for a proportion of Huck's followers there is no aisle: he's their kind of Christian, and all the rest - foreign policy, health care, mass transit, whatever - is details. This is identity politics of a type you don't often see on the Republican side.
I share that concern. Although I'm an evangelical Christian and a homeschooler, like many of Huckabee's supporters, I'm not one of his proponents, and I am concerned that his conservatism only goes as far as doctrine, not policy decisions.
If Steyn is right, and the Huckaboom is based on affinity for his doctrinal beliefs rather than his political principles, I doubt that Huckabee will be able to muster significant support outside the evangelical community. At the same time, if he leaves the race, this group of supporters is unlikely to swing its votes to Romney or to Giuliani, as either will be suspect on doctrine or on social issues.
So who would benefit if Huckabee folds? There is a strong libertarian streak in the homeschooling community, taking in both the evangelical and the secular sides of that movement, so Paul is a possibility; he already has home educators on board and working hard in his campaign, though he has other issues to address for the rest of the social conservatives. McCain has the war-hero status that attracts many in the evangelical world, but his maverick voting record has made many cautious about him and where he truly stands politically. Strangely, Thompson shares weaknesses with both Paul and McCain -- an unfortunate support for campaign restrictions, like McCain, and a strong federalist position like Paul, which some interpret as a lack of commitment to addressing moral issues from a federal level. On the other hand, I still think Thompson offers the most balanced platform and the most solid principles both philosophically and politically, so I have hopes he'll gain the attention and votes I think he deserves.
My feeling at the moment is that McCain or Thompson will benefit in the long run, but it's way, way too early to predict with certainty. Reagan lost Iowa in 1980, after all, and more than one ascendent campaign has fallen like Icarus in the warming days of primary season.
Evangelical Endorsement Watch 01-02-08
Writing on
Townhall.com, Christian public relations executive
Mark DeMoss endorses Mitt Romney (again):As an evangelical Southern Baptist and a social conservative, I like the leadership Governor Romney provided our movement in defending traditional marriage between a man and a woman and in opposing embryonic stem cell research. I believe his values are consistent with mine in every way, whether or not his theology is.
