NH Republican Primary

People at work ask me who I'm supporting in the upcoming primary. This has seldom happened before. The few conservatives know me as someone who tends to follow events, and the friendlier liberals want to know what their one conservative friend thinks - which they will doubtless expand in their minds to encompass what "a lot of" conservatives are thinking.

My overriding opinion is that I have seen the Democrats, and the Republicans can just notify me who to vote for next November and I will be well-pleased. I don't require that my candidate be someone I am very excited about. I prefer, in fact, unexciting candidates. George Bush is not exciting, and I would vote for him a third time if I could. History will be kind to him. Those who claim he is a polarizing figure have labored mightily to make their own prophecy come true, but Bush is not polarizing. That someone moderately conservative was elected was what was polarizing, because progressives...

Well, never mind. I have been through that before. I will only add to my previous arguments the current campaign of the AARP. "Divided We Fall. Together We Can Do Anything." They are talking about health care. You will note that they did not say anything remotely like that about the GWOT. On the lips of progressives, being united does not carry the ordinary meaning of working toward commonalities we can all support. It means do things my way or you are divisive.

Fred Thompson is the most thoughtful of the nominees. While he can give a stirring speech - he is an actor, after all - his positions reflect a measured federalism. He proposes to steer things in a certain direction, not the usual overblown rhetoric of turning this country around. The missteps by his campaign, though not fatal, are a bit worrisome. Executive office requires that you find people more capable than yourself and persuade them to work for you. Being the smartest or most capable candidate is not sufficient. Thompson's campaign is showing signs of recovery, giving evidence that his people can adjust as they go, which is perhaps an even better quality.

Mike Huckabee has found fans in my family. My eldest is considering voting for him on the basis of this ad alone. I might have considered an actual libertarian running in the primaries, but that has little to do with Ron Paul (see Trade, Free.) I'm still irritated by McCain's leading the campaign finance reform debacle, but I can get over it. The objections I supposedly have to Romney and Giuliani because I am a bigoted, knuckle-dragging member of the Religious Right I don't find in myself even after extensive searching. I always expect that I will disagree with and disapprove of the eventual nominee in some areas. People who are devoted to their candidates on the basis of what they seem to symbolize rather than what they plan to accomplish are called Democrats, at least as far back as Kennedy. (And it is only fair here to single out Mike Dukakis as an exception here. He didn't propose to be someone, but to do something.) Okay, they are called Democrats, at best.