No Runny Eggs

Fred Thompson is out. I’d have more fresh react (instead of the not-so–fresh), but after a long day in Madison (1 hour from 30/151 to the Capitol; doesn’t Madison know what salt is?), I’m wiped out. I missed most of Judge Gableman’s appearance at the Center-Right Coalition (somehow, I beat Mark Block, who never got off of Washington), and I do have a couple of interesting side notes on the “FAN” bill before the Assembly (that very-quick recap will be up momentarily).

(H/T – MKH)

This video of the various Presidential candidates belting out David Bowie’s “Changes” ought to keep you from playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers loaded (I’ve gone back to the safer practice of leaving one chamber empty):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJtgEfIla0A[/youtube]

It’s either this or reflection on the end of the Packer season, and this happened first (besides, I’m more-apt to put the latter over at TheWisconsinSportsBar, and my fellow bartenders pretty much already summed it up complete with expletives). First, let me state for the record that I’m nowhere near a professional political operative (the rambling nature of this post ought to be a dead giveaway), and that while the anticipated pronouncement that the boat is below the waves is tomorrow, it isn’t official yet.

A lot of people are saying and are going to say that Fred Thompson got into the race too late. If by late, you mean he got in later by an “absolute” calendar standard than successful candidates got in previous cycles, no. If by late, you mean he got in after everybody else did, yes. The “buzz” in politics, specifically press coverage and fundraising, is much like the time near the end of a race at Darlington, with only one green-flag pit stop left to go (I’ll ignore that Darlington tends not to have a lot of long green-flag runs). For those of you not familiar with NASCAR or Darlington Raceway, the surface at Darlington is very abrasive, and cars with a fresh set of tires turn laps that tend to be at least 2 seconds faster than cars that are at the end of their runs.

Yet, that was not nearly the fatal blow. Thompson did get a lot of buzz, especially in the conservative blogosphere, and more than enough cash to compete with at least John McCain and Mike Huckabee once he got in the race. Morever, all of the states had significant moves in support well after Thompson got into the race, so the “late” argument doesn’t exactly hold a lot of water for me.

That “late” argument does not explain why Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, both of whom ran credibly on what was supposedly the number one conservative issue in 2007 (opposition to illegal immigration) and both of whom entered the race at the same time as everybody else, never gained more than token support and ultimately dropped out. It also does not explain why Mitt Romney, who poured a lot of money and time into every pre-Florida state and who ran to the right of Rudy McCabee for much of the pre-primaries/caucii portion of the campaign, essentially collapsed in every state contested by any third of that three-headed monster. I know, Romney did take a contested Michigan; however, there are a pair of mitigating circumstances. First, the Romney name is still remembered fondly in the state across the lake. Second, Romney went away from his previous broad-based conservatism message, especially in the economic department.

I’m left asking the same question the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked last April in “Wisconsin Interest” (Volume 16, Number 2), “Is conservatism out of gas?” I’m now leaning more toward my very-pessimistic Wisconsin-specific answer than my somewhat-more-optimistic national one, with the further revision that there are no gains to be had by focusing solely on social conservatism. Indeed, I’m almost ready to ask the follow-on question of whether conservatism is dead.

I’m also just about ready to ask and answer the question on whether the right-of-center part of the blogosphere has any actual influence. That really deserves its own missive, but I’ll give the upshot now; whatever influence we have is with the politicians themselves, not with the masses.

Ultimately, it was a combination of the cumulative effects of 70 years of almost-unchecked liberalism and complete chaos that was the Thompson campaign that doomed Thompson to the scrap heap of political history.

Time for some cold, hard facts of life to intrude on some delusions beyond my own (I’ll get back to those shattered dreams in a while, and I’ll come back here):

– Cold, hard fact #1A (from Bruce): John McCain’s vote total in the 2000 South Carolina Republican Presidential primary – 238,000. John McCain’s vote total in the 2008 South Carolina Republican Presidential primary – 143,000 (with 3% of the precincts left to report)

– Cold, hard fact #1B (same source): Total number of votes cast in the 2000 South Carolina Republican Presidential primary – 556,000. Total number of votes cast in the 2008 South Carolina Republican Presidential primary (again, with 3% of the precincts left to report) – 431,000.

– Cold, hard fact #2 (from Jim Geraghty; a special for the gang at On the Borderline) – Mitt Romney’s non-Mormon vote total in Nevada – 12,524. Ron Paul’s vote total in Nevada – 6,077.

Somewhere in my feed reader, there’s a compilation of the total number of votes to Romney, McCain and Mike Huckabee. Let’s just say that the leader isn’t who the presstitutes would lead you to believe.

Nevada and South Carolina have knocked out my first backup, Duncan Hunter, and have all-but-sunk my boat of Fred Thompson. I’ll keep rowing until I have to swim back to the surface, but with the almost-concession, it’s time to ask the Marcellus Wallace question, “What now?”

First, we have to answer what happened today. There are two winners today; the media winner of John McCain, and the delegate winner of Mitt Romney. First, I’ll take Nevada, because outside the blogosphere, you won’t hear much about this. Yes, it was another “no-contest”, but it has become clear that the non-evangelical conservative end of the Republican base has coalesced around Romney. Thus far, only Romney has been able to get an absolute majority, and he’s done that twice. After the abberation of Iowa, Romney has literally cleaned up in contests where only Republicans participate. Morever, he has proven that he can survive in a contested race by taking Michigan. Yes, he had the “favorite son” factor working, but not only was it his father that was the popular Michigan politician, but because no actual delegates were up on the Democratic side, there was a significant “crossover” vote.

Now, onto South Carolina. Even though there will eventually be a Dem primary that does matter, once again, that is a a state that allows “independents” to vote in the Republican primary. That is what delivered the state to McCain.

So, who lost? Mike Huckabee. South Carolina seemed tailor-made to keep him afloat; indeed, it was the SC evangelicals that rejected McCain back in 2000 that were instrumental in giving us President Bush. That Huckabee could not repeat that despite a much heavier push on the evangelicals is telling.

So, what now? Let me tell you what now. I’m going to call my sister tomorrow and head over there to watch the Packers whup up on the Giants with a pair of shut-down corners and sideline heaters. You hear me talking, Manning boy? The cold ain’t through with you by a damn sight. Aaron Kampmann’s going to get medevial on the grass.

You’re probably saying, “I meant what now between you and the race?” Oh, that what now. Let me tell you what now between me and the race. If and when Thompson makes that exit official, I’m going to be left with much the same choice I had in 2000 after Steve Forbes departed the race; either support someone who would merely slouch toward liberal socialism, let it be a “spread-eagled” free-fall, or let it be an all-out streamlined free-fall. I rationalized that there would be a bit more conservatism in “compassionate ‘conservatism'”, and I swore that I wouldn’t delude myself again, and that I would do what I could to reverse the slide rather than merely quibble over the pace toward liberal socialism. In that eventuality, nay, likelyhood, I will have failed to reverse the slide, and I once again have been reduced to quibbling over the pace toward liberal socialism.

I’ll be walking into this one with my eyes wide open. I’ve already described Romney as slightly accelerating that slouch. I’ve also described McCain, Huckabee and the thus-far-absent Rudy Giuliani as turning that slouch into a free-fall, and Ron Paul as an anarchist (that’s a small-“a”) that will enable those that want to create a worldwide caliphate more than anybody else. In that fivesome, I’ll take the least-evil of the remaining five choices, Mitt Romney. I almost certainly will not be pouring as much energy into that as I did Thompson’s campaign because I’ve been drained.

As for the race itself, the Huck-a-Boom has gone Huck-a-Bust. Further, if Giuliani’s firewall of Florida fails him, and that’s looking more and more likely, he’s done. That leaves this thing as a two-man race between McCain and Romney, and that is setting up pretty much along the lines that the last two general Presidential elections have gone. I don’t know off-hand which primaries/caucuses/conventions are “open” versus “closed”, or beyond Florida’s fresh winner-take-all, how the delegates are apportioned, so I can’t tell yet whether the Dems and independents will choose the Republican nominee. Morever, if Paul remains in the race, and the Democratic nomination gets settled quickly, there is a significant chance of mischief. However, this will not, repeat, not go to a brokered convention.

That’s what CNN was reporting (H/T – the indispensible Jim Geraghty)

Since the NFL playoff picks have been chunking, I decided I needed to devote all my time to those. They will be up tomorrow morning.

On a related note, Mike’s America will be hosting a liveblog of his homestate’s South Carolina Republican primary starting at 6 Central (7 for those of you on the East Coast). If it’s anything like American Princess’ liveblog of Michigan’s primaries, it ought to be a very good time.

Revisons/extensions (3:59 pm 1/19/2008) – Mike sent along the code to simulcast his live-blog. I’ll simulcast below, and ask that you give him some visits.

R&E part 2 (5:52 pm 1/19/2008) – I’m pulling double-comment duty, as I’m also at Justin Higgins’ liveblog.