Last week, I went to a district party leadership meeting.

Most of the leadership in my district is guys who’ve been in the GOP for a while – I remember some of them from the 2000 election. There was one young woman who is a pretty enthusiastic Ronulan. And that kicked off an interesting discussion.

She was a little put off by some of the rhetoric aimed at the Paul crowd by the mainstream GOP. We, in turn, are a little put off not so much by Paul’s rhetoric itself – several of us in the party’s leadership have fundamentally small-l libertarian sympathies; I, indeed, was a big-L Libertarian for a few years, ten years ago. So, outside of foreign policy – an areas where Libertarians and Ron Paul are dogmatically naive – it’s not like Ron Paul and his followers are preaching to a completely hostile choir – at least at a policy level.

But all questions have two levels; Policy (“What we want!”) and Implementation (“How we’re gonna get it”).

Around the time of the precinct caucuses and the first round of district meetings last February some of us activists started getting emails from other activists; the Paul crowd was going to try to game the rules to try to bum-rush the conventions; to try to snag a disproportionate number of district, state and national delegates, to make Paul, if not a contender for nomination this fall, at least a broker of some legitimate delegate power when the horse-trading before and during the convention takes place.

And they were  pissed!

It reminded me of some of the irate long-time GOP activists in the Sixth District two years ago, who argled and bargled over Michele Bachmann’s “tactics” for getting the nomination to run against Patty Wetterling.  She got her people to go to the caucuses and conventions, and to vote for her.

Which, really, was what Paul’s MN campaign did.  And did with amazing success.

Chief, over at the Dogs and True North, has the big takeaway.

The buzz about the Ron Paul delegates from the Republican CD conventions is still coming. Today, the Star Tribune had this report:

…[snip]…

Delighted about what was something of a coup over the Republican establishment, she added, “We’re just a bunch of disorganized people who happened to get lucky. At least that’s the impression we want to leave.”

Um, not really. The Paul supporters are anything but “just a bunch of disorganized people who happened to get lucky”. The Paul campaign deserves high praise for systematically working the web, having dedicated and organized people at every possible opportunity for promotion and finding ways in to the process. I would question why Marianne Stebbins wants to leave the impression of just getting lucky by having just stumbled into this? The Paul Campaign utilized many ingenious, innovative techniques with new media, viral marketing, true grassroots campaigning, web meet-ups, systematic focusing on BPOUs.

Call it false modesty on Stebbins’ part.  She should pat herself on the back.

It’s time for the GOP to call a spade a spade; the Paul campaign hit the MNGOP status quo in the way…

…that we all need to hit the bad guys DFL.  They played the convention game.

In my district, “we” – the people who’d been in District 66B since before Ron Paul – held the Paulites’ gains off, more or less; “we” got together and talked some of them out of some of the more tinfoil-hatted Paulite resolutions (we got the “pullout from Iraq” and “oppose the Trans-America highway” bits voted down pretty convincingly).

But let’s give credit where it’s due; they conventions the way you’re supposed to if you’re an insurgency; by organizing, by motivating, and by having their people show up.

This should be a wake-up call to the leadership of the 4th, 5th and 6th District GOPs.  Let’s hope someone at the wheel is capable of responding to the challenge.

More on this later.

I sent this to Councilman Thune and his assistant:

Councilman Thune,

Mitch Berg here.

I just got off the phone with Ms. Lindgren, who said she’d leave a message for you. It occurred to me that she never asked me for any contact information – an oversight, I’m sure. In any case, I’m writing to follow up.

I’d like to extend an open-ended invitation to join Ed Morrissey and I this weekend on the Northern Alliance broadcast, any time between 1PM and 3PM, at your convenience. We’d love to discuss to your statements, in public and on the Saint Paul Information Forum, about the 28-40% of your constituents who vote Republican, and are (or so you seem to believe) drunken, puking, drug-dealing warmongers.

Now, I know that every time I’ve requested an interview in the past, you’ve pled “busy”. And I know you’re a busy guy, and respect that fact.

So in the interest of reaching “across the aisle” to make sure you’re able to communicate with Saint Paul’s Republicans, and the other Republicans nationwide who’ll be travelling to *our* city, I’d like to stress that this invitation is good for ANY SATURDAY between now and the end of human existence on this or any planet (or your retirement or ejection from politics, whichever comes first). You can come into the studio, or appear via phone – whatever’s most convenient!

If you are not available on a Saturday, I will be happy to *tape* an interview with you, in studio or via phone, at ANY TIME convenient to you, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I will also be happy to meet you with a tape recorder, any place, any time, at your leisure (provided I’m not incapacitated by fits of drunken vomiting and delirium tremens). You, as an elected official, DESERVE the opportunity to reach across the aisle and speak with the 28-40% of your constituents who likely voted against the DFL and you, but whom you nevertheless still represent as president of the city council of one of America’s great cities.

Finally, in the unlikely event that you can’t free up fifteen minutes between now and the end of time for a radio interview, I’d like to submit some questions – under separate cover, obviously – for you to answer at your leisure via email. Pardon my presumption, but this seems reasonable, given that I am a Saint Paul taxpayer.

I will hope you will do me the estimable honor of responding to this invitation (which I’m making public via my various blogs and, this weekend, the show), rather than having to lead a contingent of “drunk, puking, warmongering, drug-dealing, family-values-flouting” Saint Paul Republicans to deliver it in person at an upcoming City Council meeting.

Sincerely,

Mitch Berg
Sober, peace-loving Republican and 21-year Saint Paul Taxpayer

Northern Alliance Radio Network
AM1280thepatriot.com

Shot In The Dark
www.shotinthedark.info

I’ll keep y’all posted.

My congressional “representative” here in the Fourth CD is Betty McCollum.

She is – I’ll be charitable, given the respect due her as an elected member of Congress – not the brightest light on the creator’s Christmas Tree.

Mark Heuring at True North has her pretty well dialled in:

If Betty were running for Congress in many of the other districts in the state, she’d have been hooted off the stage long ago. Betty managed to best a primary opponent in 2000 after Vento died and has held the seat without a serious challenge ever since. Since that time, about the only thing she’s managed to do is regularly issue especially shrill denunciations of the president. Her list of legislative accomplishments is slight.

Mark is right – although we had high hopes for Obi Sium in ’06, it was a lousy time to run anything as a Republican.

But oh, lord, does something need to be done about this woman:

An example of Betty’s legislative prowess and judgment came a few years back, while Arden Hills was negotiating with the federal government to gain control of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant (TCAAP). Arden Hills had a number of ideas ready to go and the feds were working with local officials to get things done, in the usual painful bureaucratic way. Enter Betty. Betty had a brainstorm — why not use the land, which when developed has enormous potential, to build a giant post office processing facility for the Twin Cities?

There were a few problems with this idea — it would have scuttled any plans that Arden Hills had; it would have inundated an already truck-clogged area with many more massive trucks; and, most importantly, the postal service didn’t want to build in a location that is across town from the airport, preferring instead to expand their existing facilities in Eagan. In other words, Betty’s plan had zero support from anyone who had an interest in the future of the TCAAP site. Eventually Sen. Coleman quietly got invovled and stopped McCollum from pursuing her ridiculous idea any further. Those of us who live in the area haven’t heard much from Betty since, except for the shrill denunciations of Bush she sends periodically by franked mail. I guess we can count that as a benefit.

Other than signing on to absurd anti-war resolutions and yapping like an lemur on Red Bull about education funding, she is really as close to worthless as a Congressperson can be.  Indeed, she is everything that the Twin Cities’ deranged-left imagines Michele Bachmann to be; imperious, disconnected, not very bright.  It’s wishful thinking with Rep. Bachmann; with Betty McCollum – who is too gutless even to respond to media requests from people who might dissent from her point of view – you’re talking the real thing.

Heuring:

The upshot of all this is pretty simple — if the Republican Party could field a qualified, intelligent candidate, he might have a shot at beating ol’ Betty. And this time, the Republican Party has found just such a candidate. Ed Matthews is his name. Ed is a practicing attorney and has an extensive financial background as well. He’s young, smart and understands the issues very well. I suspect that Betty will do everything possible to avoid sharing a stage with Mr. Matthews, because she would suffer greatly from any direct comparison. I met Ed briefly at the 50B BPOU and was very impressed. My guess is that you will be, too.

I also met Ed, at the 66B meeting.  He’s sharp, works a room well, and – unlike McCollum – doesn’t give you the impression that there are wires connected to his limbs and jaw controlled by the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, controlling his every move.

Count on hearing much from Mr. Matthews in coming months.  It’s always an uphill fight for Republicans in the Fourth (AKA “The Venezuela of the North”), but so was Iwo Jima.

The District 49B GOP continued the revolt againt the Sturdevant Republicans.

After denying endorsement to RINO Kathy Tingelstad last month, the district GOP endorsed an actual conservative.

Brad Carlson was there:

Cimenski was voted the nominee over two other prospective candidates in our House District’s nominating convention this morning. In an impassioned nomination speech, he vowed to embrace the core conservative principles of the GOP which were abandoned by the likes of Rep. Tingelstad, who herself was in the audience. In fact, Tingelstad received verbal daggers from all three prospective nominees for her vote to override Governor Tim Pawlenty’s veto of the Transportation bill. There is no question that the citizens in 49B are still smarting from that vote.

In continuing his speech, Cimenski talked of returning public service to the grassroots level.

I don’t believe in this idea that you have to choose a Republican candidate to endorse who’s so-called “more electable”, even if they’re not most in line with the platform. This is what has happened to our party the past eight years, and look where we are now.

And you can’t go wrong in a room full of conservatives if you occasionally invoke the philosophy of our finest President

If I may borrow a quote from Ronald Reagan and put a Minnesota twist on it: We don’t have a $935 million deficit because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a $935 million dollar deficit because we spend too much.

Brad notes that the DFL is going to fight like hell to pick up this district – and if they do, they’ll consider it a validation of the idea that Republicans should go back to the bad old days, before 1998, where the part stuffered from Stockholm Syndrome and were largely only DFLers with better suits.

So it’s time to fight like hell right back.

Keith Downey is running for the GOP endorsement in Edina, against RINO Ron Erhardt.

A correspondent of mine in Edina got the following postcard today:

And on back…:

Of course, Downey is running for the House, not the Henco Commission.

Where did the come from?

I went to my District (aka BPOU) convention last night,

66B is deep in the heart of the urban beast; half of the district is in John Marty country, and the other half is in Saint Paul proper. Alice “the Phantom” Hausman is our “representative” in the House, with Ellen Anderson in the Senate. It’s one of the bluest places in Minnesota.

But last night, we drew a record number of delegates from the precinct caucuses. As I noted yesterday, some longtime Republicans were concerned about some of the tactics the Ron Paul campaign was talking about pulling to stack the delegates at the Fourth District convention next month. But energy is the last thing you want to stifle, especially when you’re drawing hordes of younger voters, which is a fairly rare thing at a GOP convention in a place like Saint Paul. Chad the Elder put it well:

Lots of people (many of them young and many of them Ron Paul backers) are getting actively involved in politics for the first time. We need their energy and their enthusiasm and we need to do our best to keep them involved. That’s why this reflexive urge by Republican regulars to mock and dismiss Paul supporters needs to stop.

Yes, some of them are a little too enthusiastic and can veer to the extremes at times. But that’s part of the package that you tend to get with youth. They’re passionate and they care deeply, two qualities in short supply in today’s GOP.

But there was little evidence of procedural shenanigans. One woman who appeared (verbally) to be a Paul supporter tried to amend the rules to allow unseated delegates to vote anyway – which failed. Note to the Paul supporters; your website listed all sorts of procedural maneuvers, but you need to learn how Robert’s Rules of Order work.

Still and all the district sent eight delegates; I think 1-2 of them were Paul supporters, and at least half were hardcore Republican activists.

Beyond that? The Resolutions voting had to dispose of a bunch of obvious Paulbot resolutions bubbling up from the caucuses, including one that called for “Bringing all the troops home from around the world right now”. Gratifyingly, even in the mixed room, it garnered not a single vote – although I did get to unleash one fun stemwinder in opposition anyway.

I’ve never been in a District 66B convention that was so much fun. I’m hoping the CD4 convention (to which I’m a third alternate delegate) is as energetic.

At my precinct caucus – a month ago, now – we were pretty well mobbed with Ron Paul supporters.  Many of them were utterly clueless about how caucuses worked (no biggie – we’re all about the education), although a few of them were pretty rude about it; they wanted to come in and vote for Ron Paul and leave.

So while Romney won by a landslide across Minnesota, in my district, which is pretty well glutted with college kids, the Paulbots were out in force – they tipped Romney by a single vote in my district, and won by significant margins in other precincts.

Of course, there’s a method to the madness.  The Paulbots packed the convention for a reason.

From the Paul/Minnesota website:

We’re on to Step Two: election of delegates from the local conventions to the Congressional District and State conventions.

If you were elected delegate or alternate from your caucus, you need to attend your County or Senate District convention, for which you have already received a convention call, or soon will.  These will be held as early as February 23 and into March.

We will be going through much the same process as with the caucuses.  You will receive a list of fellow supporters also elected delegate or alternate, and you need to coordinate amongst yourselves (with our help) to elect a full slate to the next conventions.

I got this email from an east-Metro GOP activist:

I just want you to know, and to publicize it without naming me, please, that there are a LOT of Ron Paul moles out there getting Delegate spots. I have at least two of them of my six slots that got elected; I only know me and [redacted] of the six, so two more are suspect as well. There is a 4th District coordinator for the Ron Paul campaign, going to conventions as a “guest” to “learn about the process’, but actually coordinating all the Ron Paul flying monkeys to vote a slate, and its very effective.

I’ve noticed that a few of my own precinct’s delegates (I’m a precinct chair) didn’t leave valid addresses or phone numbers.

This rankles, for people who’ve been working in the party for a while:

I will never see these morons again after this November, and they’re taking up delegate slots for true party activists.

Of course, this was the same complaint you heard from people two years ago in the Sixth District – disgruntled by Michele Bachmann’s ability to turn out votes at the caucuses and conventions.  Of course, Bachmann was a Republican, which is something most of the Paulbots can hardly say with a straight face.

You may want to remind the BPOU chairs that while guests are allowed, they are NOT allowed on the floor at any time, and are not to interfere in the business of the BPOU.

BPOU chairs?  Consider yourself on notice.

This guy, Jeff Hagen, was walking all over and [name redacted] and I could see him talk to people and then they’d look our way and just GLARE at us.

I am so angry that good delegates are now second alternates because of these frauds.  This guy, for example, is a self-proclaimed member of the Libertarian Party, but basically running a coup of the Republican Party. I can guarantee you the reason we had such a huge turnout at caucus was in part because of the Ron Paul group.

Okay, I feel better.

Thanks!

As we head into District Convention season (my own, 66B, is tonight, although I’m not a delegate), remember – we’re a big tent, but there are some basic principles this party is supposed to follow.  And while there are some libertarian ideals that the Party could stand to (and, in many cases, does) embrace, the Paulbots are pushing some lines that Republicans should find noxious.

Roosh over at RooshFive thinks that the election is eventually going to turn on economic issues – and he’s seeing some good news from the McCain campaign:

In anticipation of this fact, coupled with his own implicit admission that he lacks executive and economic experience, McCain has enlisted a dream team of financial advisors – presumably potential cabinet members.

Read the whole thing.  It’s generally good news.

Dave Mindeman writes the leftybot blog MNpACT!. And he – like Lori Sturdevant and Nick Coleman – misses the good ol’ days, when “Republicans” were nothing but Tics with better haircuts.

He’d also seem to have bought, whole hog, into the Barack Obama-via-Daily-Kos school of political rhetoric, in a post that combines Obama’s substance-free noodling with the Kossack penchant for broad insults.

Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover has committed the ultimate crime against the Minnesota conservative base.

She has rational thoughts.

Some background for political non-junkies in the audience; Kathy Tingelstad was one of the Republicans who voted for the DFL’s 6-plus billion dollar Mass Transit Subsidy “Transportation” bill. She is also one of the six RINOs in the House that voted to override the Governor’s veto of this pork-barrel monstrosity.

In retaliation, her district’s Republican convention declined to endorse her at their convention this past weekend. The District 49B Republican Party – acting in their capacity as the people who decide who will represent the party and its’ interests in the November election, committed the radical act of wanting Republicans to act like Republicans.

One presumes that Mr. Mindeman, having declared “support for the pork-barrel bill” to be “rational thought”, will eventually tell us how opposing the bill is “irrational”.

To fail to do so would be Obama-esque. Or Kos-like. One of the two.

She has the audacity to look for solutions.

Or was it “The audacity of hope?” Or some similar meaningless catch phrase?

To feel that her district needs actual help and not more delays. She has the unmitigated gall to vote as an individual and not as a collective, mindless, partisan gang of naysayers.

Score one for “meaningless catch phrase”.

The nerve.

With reasoning skills like this, it’s not hard to see why Minnesota’s left-of-center bloggers, as a community, are a national laughingstock.

Tingelstad voted – which is what she was free (and elected) to do.

Her district GOP convention responded – as they are free to do as well. As, indeed, is the purpose of party conventions! To do party business!

It is obvious that she needs to be punished. District 49B activists are willing to oblige. No endorsement for you, until you repent!

Maybe the GOP in District 49B has some unusual insight into the voters of their district.

Being as they are, to a person, voters in District 49B, that might actually stand to reason!

Obviously, it is a different reading than Rep. Tingelstad has been getting.

Here’s Mindeman’s problem – and to be fair to him, it’s the same problem that everyone in the DFL from Brian Melendez to Lori Sturdevant has; they want Republicans to do the DFL’s work for them. To magically deduce the “will of the district’s voters” first and foremost, before (or instead of) actually acting like a political party…

…and act on that bit of clairvoyance DFL-friendly wishful thinking.  So the DFL doesn’t have to.

Of course, I’ve not noticed the DFL doing the same; although most Minnesotans oppose unrestricted abortion, for example, we’ve not seen the DFL do what Melendez/Sturdevant/Mindeman would have the GOP do – forget that they’re a political party!

Because in the special little world of the likes of Sturdevant and Nick Coleman and Dave Mindeman, only the DFL gets to act out of partisan interest!

When she announced her re-election bid in 2006, it stated:

However, what she’s best known for is being the leading advocate in the Legislature for the Northstar Commuter Rail project. This year, the legislature approved $60 million for Northstar, the final state contribution to the rail project, which will begin service through Coon Rapids in 2009.

Heretic!

She actually wants to bring District 49B into the 21st Century.

How can the GOP stand for such forward thinking, rational ideas?

They can’t.

DISCLOSURE: I don’t necessarily actually oppose the Northstar, either.

But if the threshold for “21st Century Rationality” is “unblinking, unquestioning support for a 19th century transportation system that systematically shorts our road and bridge infrastructure”, I think I’m starting to understand where Mindeman’s myopia Obama-esque paucity of actual substance comes from; it’s only in the absence of actual thought that it makes any sense.

What is the threshold to be considered “rational”? In Dave Mindeman’s world, it’d seem to be “following the DFL line, even if you’re a Republican. Nya nya nya”, and not a whole lot more. To be fair to Mindeman, there could be more to his point of view. To be realistic, there’s no evidence of it in this post.

I add emphasis in this next bit:

So, they must punish this problem solver. They must set an example, so that any other rational and clear headed thinkers can be chastised back into the program, and become the partisan automatons they were endorsed to be.

“Partisan” and “Party” come from the same root! It was a party convention!

The voters of District 49B be damned.

Pardon me. I need to take an ibuprofin.

One wonders why Mindeman wrote that last line.

Does he really not understand the function of political parties? I suppose if your entire point of view is based on having always been the party in power – in conflating the party and the state in ones’ cognitive model of government – which is common in places like China and the USSR and Minneapolis – it’s understandable (albeit kinda disturbing).

Does he merely assume his readers don’t know any better? I suppose if Dave Mindeman’s only goal is to push DFL orthodoxy, it’d be a convenient assumption.

Or, either way, does he just not know that the voters have their say?

In November?

Not March?

(more…)

So where do we go from here?

It’s really fairly simple.

First:  Remember This List of Names. These are the “Republican” legislators that stabbed the governor, the party, and every single fiscally-responsible voter in the back:

• Rep. Abeler, Jim (48B) – 651-296-1729.  rep.jim.abeler@house.mn
• Rep. Erhardt, Ron (41A) – 651-296-4363.  rep.ron.erhardt@house.mn
• Rep. Hamilton, Rod (22B) – 651-296-5373.rep.rod.hamilton@house.mn
• Rep. Heidgerken, Bud (13A) – 651-396-4317.  rep.bud.heidgerken@house.mn
• Rep. Peterson, Neil W. (41B) – 651-293-5373. rep.neil.peterson@house.mn
• Rep. Tingelstad, Kathy  (49B) – 651-296-5369. rep.kathy.tingelstad@house.mn
• Sen. Frederickson, Dennis (21) – 651 296-8138.  mailto:sen.dennis.frederickson@senate.mn
• Sen. Dille, Steve (18) – 651 296-4131. sen.steve.dille@senate.mn

Call them.  Write them.  Make your displeasure known.  Make it very plain that you’re tired of being “represented” by “Republicans” who act like Democrats.

And call the other Republicans – the ones with integrity – and thank them.  They’re feeling incredible pressure from the overgrown spendthrift teenagers that are running things in the Legislature these days.

2. Ignore the BS.  The Gang of Eight’s excuse is going to be that the DFL committee chairs extorted them by telling them their bills won’t be heard if they didn’t vote to override.

Tough.  That’s what elections are for.  And that is on you, the voter.

3. Retire Them From Office.  Maybe it’ll be this coming month at the endorsing conventions.  Maybe it’ll be at th next round of caucuses.  It doesn’t matter.  Get rid of them.

4. Ignore the Strib, the Leftymedia, and the DFL. They’ll do what they always do – try to paint tax hawks as ignorant peasants beating on the observatory door with pitchforks and torches.  It’s an attempt to play on peoples’ insecurities – their desire to appear as smart as their neighbors.  The left has spent four generations setting itself up as the “smart” party – and given us a catastrophically-failed school system, a decaying post-secondary system, and a population that thinks “Audacious Hope” is a policy position.  Don’t buy it. 

All of this is predicated, of course, on getting, being, and staying involved; on not staying home because of John McCain’s alleged slights or Tim Pawlenty’s trip to the arctic or whatever.

The House overrode Governor Pawlenty’s veto of the Mass Transit Subsidy “Transportation” bill. 

Six House Republicans broke with the governor to make the 90 votes needed to override. The final tally was 91-41.

Hang on to your wallets, Minnesota.  And be careful on those bridges; most of the SIX BILLION DOLLARS is going to go to DFL pet projects, pork, and mass transit.  Which you can ride to your next job interview, since the DFL is dead-set on gang-raping the state economy. 

The Lady Logician has the names of the six RINO hamsters who betrayed the party and the people who voted them into office:

Rep. Abler

Rep. Erhardt [about whom more below – ed.]

Rep. Tinglestad (hello HD49!)

Rep. Heidgerken

Rep. Neil Peterson

Rep. Hamilton 

Kudos to the District 49B GOP, who denied endorsement to Rep. Tingelstad last weekend.  I don’t know which districts haven’t held conventions yet, but I’d hope they also either deny endorsements or – better yet – endorse people who won’t betray Republican and Conservative ideals.

Like Keith Downey has a chance to do in Edina.  I think we’ll be interviewing him this weekend on the NARN Volume II show (stay tuned for details).  If you live in Edina, you need to turn out to support him in ejecting the hamster Erhard from office.  If you live in a safe district (or, alternatively, a hopeless one, as I do), you need to pony up time and money to support Downey.  While it would be the depth of pretension for me, a humble blogger, to “endorse” anyone, let it be known that I’d really, really like Downey to kick the hamster Erhard’s ass at the March 8 convention, and sweep to victory in November behind a tide of angry, motivated conservatives.

It’s time to put some RINO pelts above the fireplace.

UPDATE:  Well, maybe the State GOP gets it after all.

Ron Erhard  – “Moderate” GOP represenative from Edina – must be feeling a little pressure.  After all, the DFL controls the House and Senate, but Pawlenty still has the veto pen – and the February 5 caucuses saw an avalanche of conservative turnout.  And that avalanche is making its presence known; the denial of endorsement to Mary Tingelstad on Saturday was just the first symptom.

Oh, yeah – and pressure from taxpayers:

Rep. Ron Erhardt, in responding to a caller asking him to uphold the Governor’s veto on the transportation bill and all of the taxes it contains and to not support the Democrat override attempt responded with anger and profanity, telling the caller to “tell the people who told you to call to go ‘F***’ themselves.”

Erhard must be feeling the heat.  He’s even got a challenger for his office: Keith Downey, a genuine conservative, has an energized campaign that kicked  Erhard’s butt at the caucuses, and is angling for the nomination.  If you’re a Republican in Edina, get on board wtih Downey.  It’d be good to show another RINO the price of abandoning principle.

I’d have rather seen Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney – in that order – get the GOP nomination.

It ain’t gonna happen, of course.  And so we have John McCain – as imperfect and mercurial a conservative as exists, with a lifetime ACU rating just a shade higher than Jim Ramstad.  Which, to be fair, is still head, shoulders, ankles and bunions better than either of the Tic candidates.

Noodles from the Dogs refers us to this piece by Kim Du Toit – perhaps the most paleo of the blogosphere’s paleos – who just plain gets it (emphasis added by me):

By not voting Republican—even one as flawed as McCain—we will handing this country over to the peaceniks, and on this I am absolutely certain…Furthermore, if we wake up on November 5th to President-Elect Obama or President-Elect Clinton, and then we turn on the TV to see joyous street demonstrations all over the Arab world, how will we feel then?

And when, in 2009, President Obama/Clinton nominates some pinko jurist with a love for a Silly Putty Constitution (or maybe two pinko jurists), the Supreme Court will swing sharply Left, for decades.

There’s only one thing to do: elect McCain, and at the same time, elect conservative Republicans to Congress, in 2008, in 2010, and in 2012.

I know; McCain’s a total shit, and I loathe him. But in the end, I love my country more than I hate John McCain—and handing over the reins of power to the Left will, with absolute certainty, bring this country down—just as the Left has brought down Britain, France and the rest of Europe.

Not gonna happen. Not while I draw breath.

This is not the time to pout. This, my friends, is our last stand. If we don’t win this one, the job is going to be incalculably more difficult in the future, both for us and for our kids.

Noodles expands on Kim’s point:

I’ve decided that I can not stay home in protest or even write in a preferred candidate.  It is readily apparent that the system by which we get our candidates is not perfect and that compromise often leaves many unhappy, in this instance the more conservative Republicans have definately gotten the shaft.   That being said every time the pendulum swung toward sitting this election out the vision of Hildebeast or Obama being sworn in on a cold day in January made it swing right back.

This blog’s mission – well, one of several missions for this next eight months, actually – is going to be to find every one of you conservatives who’s planning on sitting this one out, and changing your mind.

PShort writing at Truth v. The Machine notes that some non-establishment conservatives are getting on board with McCain:

Over the past few days, John McCain received three endorsements that will be very hard for the hard-core anti-McCain conservatives to dismiss: Gary Bauer, John Bolton, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling…When principled conservatives like these say, in effect, “despite our differences, it’s ok to get on the McCain bus,” many conservatives are going to listen.

Pat notes that Bauer, Bolton and Hensarling are hardly Beltway insiders – which at least chips away at one of Mac’s big poison pills.

PShort writing at Truth v. The Machine notes that some non-establishment conservatives are getting on board with McCain:

Over the past few days, John McCain received three endorsements that will be very hard for the hard-core anti-McCain conservatives to dismiss: Gary Bauer, John Bolton, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling…When principled conservatives like these say, in effect, “despite our differences, it’s ok to get on the McCain bus,” many conservatives are going to listen.

Pat notes that Bauer, Bolton and Hensarling are hardly Beltway insiders – which at least chips away at one of Mac’s big poison pills.

Mitt bows out.

John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival suspended his faltering presidential campaign. “I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,” Romney told conservatives.

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

OK. On to “Plan B”. Mac! Don’t be taking the right wing for granted.

Over at True North, the theme is amazement.

Reading the results from caucus after caucus, the point is clear; Republicans turned out in droves. In record numbers. Numbers like nobody’s ever seen. And it wasn’t just the hordes of Ronulans that some had predicted (although they were very much in evidence).

And while people turned out for the Tic caucuses as well, there’s a difference; at DFL caucuses, people can “vote ‘n dash”, causing one DFL stalwart to note on a Saint Paul discussion group:

> On another note, what I found in our precinct, when the dust settled is that [the lopsided Obama blowout] would be reversed when you looked at who stayed to actually caucus and agree to the heavy lifting through to November.
> Listen, if we want to switch to a primary state, then that is fine. But if we’re going to be a caucus state, we should caucus and the straw polls and binding ballots should be the last order of business, not the first.
I’m afraid a large number of our National delegation will have to plug their nose* to cast their binding ballots, since there won’t be any committed supporters of the candidate that are actually delegates.

In the meantime, every single GOP vote in that crushing onslaught of turnout was from someone who stayed the distance, voted on party business and resolutions and all the stuff that normally bores those with short enough attention spans to actually need to be Tics.

Truth to be told, I’d hoped to be sitting here right now, waiting to head out to caucuses, writing about either Fred Thompson or Rudy Giuliani. They, by a razor-thin margin, topped my short list of candidates for the nomination this year. Fred brought the conservative message; Rudy brought the leadership and the executive experience and the passion and, for all of John McCain’s palaver, the real straight talk in this campaign.

But it was not to be. Fred ran a somnambulent campaign, and Rudy miscalculated and put all his eggs in the Florida basket.

And so the race – to all intents and purposes – is down to John McCain and Mitt Romney – two men who finished very close to the top of my short list for very different reasons, but neither of whom was my top choice.

I don’t “endorse” people, because “endorsement” is something that big, influential institutions do. Dennis Prager and the National Review and even Ed Morrissey can get away wtih “endorsing” candidates. Me – a little basement pajamablogger with 2,000 daily readers? No. But I can tell you what I’m going to do and why, and hope that I convince someone – even one of my readers – to some kind of action; to come out to the caucuses for the same reasons, or even at all; to stiffen the spine of one conservative in what might be a dismal year; to drag even one more person out on a winter Tuesday night to devote it to the cause of pushing conservatism (and, of course, to convince as many of you Democrats as possible to show up for your caucuses, which are being held at the Target Center at 7PM tonight).

I’m going to caucus for Mitt Romney. And in keeping with my election-eve “100 Reasons…” tradition (from the ‘04 and ‘06 General Elections), I’m going to make a big list. Maybe not 100 reasons long – that’s more a general election thing – but there are quite a few.

So let’s get started.

1. Because Romney has more executive experience – being the person with whom the buck stops, as opposed to the legislative role of being the person that passes the bucks around – than the entire Tic field, with McCain thrown in for good measure.  Senators are like nagging passive-aggressive relatives; Governors – the good ones – are the ones that actually makes things happen.
2. For all the left’s talk of “inclusion” and “Getting things done”, Mitt is the only presidential candidate who’s actually had to reach “across the aisle” and get things done.
3. Mitt has always adapted; he’s become what he’s had to become. I commented yesterday that Romney isn’t really the kind of candidate people can get passionate about. But I think he can make a game stab at it.
4. Yes, he’s changed his mind on some things.  Like me, he’s changed them in the right direction. 
5. He has more economic common sense in his left index finger than the entire Tic slate – Madame Putin and O’Kennedy and Silkypony to boot – have in their entire focus-grouped bodies.
6. Mitt has an approach to the war that’s straight out of Max Boot and Robert Kaplan and Patrick Nagl.  He’d reinforce success – metaphorically and literally (he’d increase the size of the military – a much-needed boost). 
7. He favors and supports school choice.  Putin and Obie are in the pocket of the teachers’ union; every charter school in the country will look like the Branch Davidian compound whey they’re done.

Mitt is far from perfect.  And maybe the media’s right; maybe Mac’s got it in the bag.

So I’ll be sending Mac and his people a message tonight; there are a lot of us out there – the ones he’s been badmouthing for most of the past eight years, who will get behind him if he gets the nomination.  But tonight, he’s gotta earn it – he’s gotta meet us halfway. 

If he picks TPaw as his running mate, maybe the Governor will tell him the story of the ’02 MNGOP convention.  It’ll be a good lesson to the Senator.

I don’t believe in Karma – but I do believe what goes around comes around.

Maybe it’s my Scandinavian roots, but I’ve always tried to shy away from “overconfidence” – especially the great proto-American injunction against “counting your chickens before they’re hatched”.

So – while I’ve come to regard John McCain as a better option for the GOP nomination than, say, Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul (I’ll get behind him. anyway), I gotta confess; I heard Mac’s statement that he assumes he’ll get the nomination, and thought “this is the sort of thing that people unwittingly say that gets ’em into the history books”.

So Zogby shows Mitt up by eight in California, now. We can’t call it a “turnaround”, since a smallish fraction of the delegates have actually been allocated (that’s what tomorrow’s all about!).  And Mac may well be right, and it might not be the worst thing in the world.

But it reinforces the lesson; if you’re a Republican and you’re reading this, you need to show up at your caucus or primary tomorrow if you’re in one the the Super Di Duper Tuesay states (and Minnesota is one of them) and get your two cents into the works.

Find your precinct caucus, and hire a sitter, and be there.

True North has the best wrapup of Minnesota Caucus information anywhere, plus a caucus finder.   Read ’em, use ’em, be there.

As I’ve noted in many places in several forums and media, I’m going to caucus for Romney, but if JMac wins the nomination, I’ll be right there.

I’ve linked to a fair amount of stuff supporting the more overtly-conservative Romney.

I should point out that Marty Andrade – who’s been an “out” McCain supporter all along – states some very articulate cases for Mac and against Mitt.

Start here, and then go read this.

And he also notes that, after four years of blogging, he’s up for at least another.  That’s a good thing.

Hang in there, Marty.

It’s a metaphor I’m going to beat to death in the coming week and a half. Politics is a tug of war.

And right now, the tug I’m following is within the GOP.

Although my choice for the caucuses was still up in the air as of yesterday, it was going to be between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Two good friends and colleagues of mine – Dennis Prager and Ed Morrissey – endorsed Rudy and Mitt, respectively, and for reasons I fully support.

Truth be told, I was planning on caucusing for Giuliani on Super Tuesday. Not “endorsing” Giuliani, because me and my political decisions are of no interest to anyone. But for whatever it’s worth, I was going to take it to the floor for Rudy. He has the combination of executive experience, fiscal conservatism and leadership that I think this nation needs. He’d have needed his feet held to the fire about nominating constructionist judges, of course, and the national media would have done to his personal life as the regional media did to Rod Grams (but, oddly, not Bill Clinton).

But there’s been a change of plan.

I’m a movement conservative first and a Republican second. My goal is to do what it takes to move the party to the right. My prototype for this idea was the 2002 Minnesota Gubernatorial nomination; during the convention, the insurgent candidacy of conservative Brian Sullivan drove pragmatist Tim Pawlenty to the right, enough that after over a dozen ballots he was able to win the nomination and, in November, the general election. I could have, and would have, gotten behind either one, because the alternative, Roger Moe, was too awful to think about.

And so it is this year; John McCain, whatever his sins against conservatism and conservatives, would be better than any of the Tic alternatives. He launched McCain-Feingold, but even the BCRA isn’t as bad as Hillary’s “Fairness Doctrine”; he’s wrong on immigration, but Madame Putin and Barack O’Kennedy would be worse; consulting with Carl Levin on judges is bad, but not as bad as having Levin controlling the president’s actions as he would with either of the Tic contenders. And McCain is right on so many issues; spending (although he needs to get religion on taxes), the war, the Second Amendment, and many more. Perfect is the enemy of good enough – and McCain would not just be the lesser of three evils when stacked up against Madame Putin and O’Kennedy – he’s lesser in the “evil” department by head, shoulders and ankles.

But the general election is nine months away; the convention, seven; Super Di Duper Tuesday, a week and a half. Today is not the time to settle for the lesser of evils; not yet.

So I’ll be caucusing for Romney on Tuesday. I’m going to do my bit to make sure that the media coronation of their pet Republican gets a steep, snarling speed bump, courtest of the right; I’m going to give the Straight Talk Express some straight talk of my own, right into the teeth of the gale, and make damn sure Mac knows that, while I’ll work and donate and vote for him should he come out with the nomination, there is a movement here that he’ll ignore, or antagonize, at his own peril.

You listening, John?

“Bogus” Doug over at True North says:

Seriously, despite the blather, John McCain is no liberal. Neither was (umm… I mean IS… he’s not technically dead. Just pining for the fjords.) Rudy. Neither is Mitt. They’re all merely imperfect in their execution of whatever conservative perfection is supposed to be these days…

…On to Super Tuesday and the Minnesota Caucus… where I shall be politely applauding the cause of the Man from Michigan Utah Massachusetts. But I’m not going to be all lathered up about it. Nor foaming at the mouth if the zeitgeist of my fellows ends up endorsing McCain. Any other result will get the expected mockery of course. But I’ll at least get some entertainment out of it, so even that wouldn’t be a total loss.

Thorley Winston stated a thought-provoking case for JMac last fall – one that coincided with my Road to Damascus Tempe moment at the December 8 debate, where I noticed that Mac does say a lot of the right things. (Thorley – get back to blogging, man!)

Jay Reding (I add emphasis):

Sen. John McCain is an American hero, a man of great personal integrity and someone who has always stood strongly on the side of his country. He often rubs conservatives the wrong way, and his “maverick” image causes much consternation—however, when it comes right down to it a man who agrees with us 80% of the time is better than a woman who represents the worst of American politics and a man whose great rhetoric is but a cover for a fundamental lack of real-world experience. We may have our issues with John McCain, but when it comes down to the basic principles of the party: fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense and strengthening the family, McCain has his heart in the right place.

Conservatives should make their voices heard, and they should continue to push Sen. McCain towards the mainstream of the party as they have on issues like immigration. However, if McCain gets the nomination—and it seems altogether likely that he will—conservatives cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. John McCain will cut wasteful spending in Washington, defend our troops in Iraq and our war against radical Islamist terrorism and will continue to be a strong voice for respecting human life, born and unborn. He may not be perfect, but he can lead, and we need true leadership in Washington more than anything else.

GeeEmInEm will also be caucusing for Mitt. He promises a post soon; keep checking TvM, since whenever he writes it, it’ll be better than just about anyone else’s take on the subject.

Ed notes:

If Romney wants to build momentum and define the race in binary conservative vs moderate terms, he has to start tonight and get aggressively positive about his credentials. He has only a few days in which he can crowd McCain out of the messaging. If he can’t do that tonight and for the next five days, he will have little chance of prevailing, especially if McCain takes a big delegate lead next week.

What does McCain need to do? He needs to reach out to conservatives. He started last night with a gracious victory speech, but he needs to address the real and honest concerns on policy that conservatives still have with McCain. They need to see McCain promise to go after the Democrats with the same fervor that he went after Republicans over the years, and he has to convince them that he won’t go back on his word on border security and tax cuts. After this debate, he has to make a significant outreach effort, and CPAC would be the best place to do this.

Reynolds:

What I find particularly hard to swallow, though — and this is not Bill’s problem — are the people who say that if Romney doesn’t make it they’ll vote Democratic rather than support McCain because McCain’s not a true conservative. Maybe not, but neither is Romney, and it seems like a strange place to draw the line. Those who hold a special grudge against McCain over immigration or McCain-Feingold are a different case. But again, everybody gets to vote how they want. Just be prepared to live with the results.

More as we get closer to the cauci.

Glenn Reynolds noticed something at the State of the Union; people – the President, in this case – are seriously talking pork:

His actions aren’t as bold as I’d like, but still — back in 2005 when PorkBusters started, nobody in Washington cared and members of Congress were bragging about pork. Now the State of the Union leads of with an attack on earmarks, to thundering applause.

Thundering applause – from the pork ranchers themselves?  Isn’t that sorta like Major Renault’s “I’m shocked – shocked“ line in Casablanca?

Yeah, a lot of it’s a sham. But hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and this kind of hypocrisy indicates that the anti-earmark momentum is growing.

One of these years…

My blog child, Doug Williams, notes in a long and essential post that’s chock-full of good stuff you need to read, (and not just because it links back to me) that…:

[Republicans, as opposed to Conservatives] don’t nominate Ronald Reagan every 4 years. We only nominated him twice… and he was personally available before that and rejected. We USUALLY nominate someone like Gerald Ford, George Bush (either one), or Bob Dole.

Considering that is our OBVIOUS habit, what the hell is so shocking about the current slate of candidates?!

I’ll go one step further; given the “choices” we’ve had to put up with in the past – George HW Bush, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford – this year’s slate might, by some measures, be a big step up from the usual fare we get.

I don’t care why you disagree with them or where… Romney, McCain, and Giuliani are all WELL within the mainstream of the Republican nominations of the recent past. So many people are acting like something is SOOO special about not getting a perfect candidate this year. Hell… when has that EVER happened? Even Saint Ronald had crap he endorsed as California Governor AND as President which the current generation of chucklehead voters would apparently find disqualifying because such things are evidence that someone is not a “true conservative.”

One of my most special possessions is a book of George Will columns from the eighties. 

Guess what he said about Reagan?

My advice to all involved is to step back juuuust enough to embrace the notion that our system of government has ALWAYS been one in which movements have to deal with compromise and the lesser of evils. That’s not new. It’s not a crisis. It’s just the way America’s government works. Blame your teachers if you find your expectations dashed coming to grips with this reality, because it’s not remotely new.

You will never get a 100% perfect candidate – at least, not from a party that every has to govern, anywhere (get outta here, Libertarians).  The goal is to find one that’s better than the alternative. 

As I said on Wednesday – is there any rational doubt that any of the current crop of Republicans, whatever their imperfections as first-principle conservatives, wouldn’t be better than Ms. Putin, Silkypony or Obie?

If you’re not sure (and by “you”, I mean this blog’s conservative audience), consider the following:

• Associate Justice Michael Moore
• Associate Justice Sean Penn
• Associate Justice Markos Moulitsas.

Have I made myself clear?

Yesterday – among many other times – I wrote about the need for conservatives to stand up for their beliefs (and, more importantly, stick with them; work for them; get involved, even tangentially, in the political process).  This, I firmly believe; now – caucus time – is the time to get out to your precinct cauci and speak up for conservatism.  Spit fire.  Exude brimstone.  Get real conservative candidates, planks and ideals endorsed.  If you’re elected as a delegate or alternate, go to the convention and do more of the same.  And so on and so forth, up the party food chain, to the State convention.

Everyone with me so far?

Still, that’s kinda the easy part; although conservatives and Republicans tend not to be “go hang out and do political things” people the way Tics are (we tend to have jobs and families and stuff),  a lot of us came to conservatism for deeply idealistic reasons.

And let’s be honest; it’s a hard time to be an idealistic conservative.  MOBster and True North contrib Kevin Ecker – so conservative he actually laughs at the “Daisy Ad” – writes:

Starting in 2003, many conservatives were becoming extremely disgusted with the Republican party. We had the Presidency and we had Congress, yet none of the conservative agenda was being accomplished. Instead we had the same inept leadership and massive spending. While conservatives did bite their tongue in 2004, they decided to express their disgust in 2006. Many didn’t show up, others made protest votes, the result being horrible losses across the spectrum for the GOP.

That’s a tough one for me.

Back in 1994, in the wake of the ’94 Crime Bill and the GOP’s cave-in, I “expressed my disgust” for the GOP by leaving the party.  I sat out the “contract for America”, and joined the big-L Libertarians.   Standing for absolute principle was important to me, then.

As it is now, actually.

I left the Libertarians in 1998 because relentless purism never won an election – not even for Ronald Reagan – and never changed anyone’s history (at least not in a good way).  I figured the best way to enact the liberarian-conservatism I believed in was to engage in the long, patient slog within the GOP.  And in the long term, I still believe that.

So I have two questions for conservatives who – like me – are underwhelmed with the remaining choices in this race.

Question 1: Remember 2002?  I, like many conservatives, was underwhelmed with Tim Pawlenty’s record in the legislature.  Not as a legislator, of course – he was a consummate legislative technician.  But Pawlenty was nothing if not pragmatic; he was no idealistic conservative.  It took the challenge from conservative Brian Sullivan to drive Pawlenty to the right to win the ’02 nomination.  Although he’s bowed to some pressure in the current term, to the chagrin of many Minnesota conservatives, the fact is that he answered the pressure from the right during the nominating process – the process that starts again a week from next Tuesday – and governed as the most conservative governor Minnesota’s had in a long, long time.   So – what if all of the conservatives who were disgusted with Pawlenty had stayed home in 2002?  Or 2006?  What would Minnesota look like today with Governor Roger Moe?  Governor Mike Hatch?

Question #2:  Have you checked the EKGs in the Supreme Court lately?:  In the next four years, between one and three seats on the Supreme Court will open up.  Now – Ronald Reagan said that if you agree with someone on 80% of the issues, you oughtta forgive ’em the other 20%.  It’s safe to stay that Rudy, JMac and the Huck are stretching to get anywhere close to 80% for me (and while Mitt is probably a safe 80% on the Berg scale, I just don’t see him winning.  Not at all).  But when it comes to filling three seats on the SCOTUS – in terms that will decide key interpretations of abortion law and the Second Amendment, to say nothing of the scads of issues the new justices will decide during their lifetime careers – I have to ask you:  is 70% better than 20%?

Is  50% better than 20%?  (Are Hillary and Obama even 20%?)

There is a time and place to stand on rigid principle to save the Republican Party.  That time and place is now, and extends through the national convention.  It’s a time when we – real conservatives – need to get out and fight like hell to save this party from the go-along, get-along crowd; the crowd that wants a moderate in the Third District; the crowd that concedes Minneapolis and Saint Paul to the Tics without a real fight; the crowd that gave us Kennedy-level spending and Strib-approved candidates.

But remember – the caucuses, the BPOU conventions and District and State and National conventions are where we act for the good of the party; where we save the GOP, and make it a real conservative party.  When the national convention ends next September 4 in Saint Paul, there’s another priority, and it’s much bigger.

We have a nation to save.

Eight years ago, I supported Steve Forbes.  I supported him for reasons that, in retrospect, were absolutely right;  I fought hard against the George W Bush machine at my caucuses and in my conventions, because I believed that Forbes would be a hard-core spending hawk.  In those pre-war days, that was the most important issue – and I was right.  Forbes would have been a better economic president than Bush.  My opinion of Bush didn’t change until 9/11 – and when it comes to spending, has yet to change.

But come election time, disappointed as I was, I reasoned; who’s going to be better for this nation?  A deeply-imperfect, barely-conservative Republican?  Or a gabbling, lisping, flip-flopping, ingratiating, holier-than-thou wonk like Algore?  George W. Bush was maybe a 60% candidate for me; Algore, perhaps 10%.

So however the convention turns out – and we still have a chance to save things – ask yourself this third, final question.

It is November.  It’s election time.  And in one hand, a Jihadi holds the Constitution, waving it menacingly over a bunsen burner.  In the other hand, he holds an AK47 aimed at your child’s head.  Who do you think is going to do the right thing – not for your party (the party stuff is over, now), but for the United States of America and its future?  For your child and the Constitution?

Rudy (65%)?  Mitt (a soft 80%)?  JMac (70%)?  The Hucker (Maybe 60%, and it’s the wrong 60%)?

Or Hillary (10%), Obie (5%) or Silkypony (2%, divided between “two Americas”)?

Come out on Tuesday.  Fight for perfect.

But remember that perfect isn’t just the enemy of good enough.  This year, it might just be the enemy of “survivable”.

Fred Thompson is out.

Cap’n Ed:

Thompson had a great voice for conservatives in the race, but he had the weakest track record. He only had eight years in the Senate, no executive experience, and a mixed voting record. As a presidential nominee facing either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, the inexperience factor would have been negated — perhaps the GOP’s greatest potential strength — and his reluctance to campaign as necessary in today’s political market would have put the Republicans at even more of a disadvantage. In those senses, Romney, Giuliani, and McCain have better credentials and more upside for November.

Rated purely on the issues, Fred was my favorite Republican (ergo, candidate) in the race, and the closest to a solid conservative.

With two weeks until Super-Di-Duper Tuesday, my short list is looking like this:

1. Mitt and Rudy in a dead heat.  I may need to re-score the grading (stay tuned), but at this point it’s a tossup for me.
2. JMac is in a distant third, but if he gets the nomination, he’s still vastly better than any alternative from the left (even Bill Richardson, should he jump back into the race and somehow win the Tic nomination). 
3. The Hucker?  Again – better than Madame Putin, Silkypony or Obie, but it’s not gonna be an issue.  No way he comes out of Super-Di-Super Tuesday on his feet.

Thompson was a long-shot all along, and those of us who wanted a “real” conservative should have known it – if not up-front, then as his campaign started slow and stayed somnambulent.

Blah.

So it becomes a choices of who’s “good enough”-enough; Rudy the hawk and fiscal conservative, Mitt the fiscal whiz and foreign-policy naif, or JMac the conservative with the asterisk.

More later.