Fred/Mitt or Mitt/Fred would be great though.

I haven’t heard from “The great one” in a while, I’m glad to find that he’s not part of the anti-Romney press.

Maybe I am listening too much to the conventional wisdom from the MSM, and getting discouraged with the prospect of McCain or Huckabee being the nominee. I hope the conservatives here will listen to Rush and to Mark Levin about those two, and vote for someone else.

You have almost convinced me that they will. Thanks.

I really hope that the Republican ticket is comprised of any combination of the following names: Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Rudy.

A Fred Thompson/Romney ticket, for example, is to me a powerhouse.

A Huckabee/McCain ticket is a house of cards.

Lisa, If Rush Limbaugh has any sway with South Carolina Republicans, then perhaps the belief that Romney is not a true conservative will be brushed aside like another Mike Huckabee one-liner.

From today’s broadcast:

‘…the Drive-By Media is doing everything it can to disqualify the true conservatives on the Republican side. They’re saying, “Romney, he can’t win. If he loses Michigan, he’s done.” They said that about Romney in Iowa, they said that about Romney in New Hampshire… So if you listen to the Drive-Bys, and these people that got it all wrong in New Hampshire, what we’re being told is that the only two candidates left that have any chance whatsoever are McCain and Huckabee, which is exactly what the Drive-Bys want. They want a liberal, moderate nominee, and even a liberal, moderate vice presidential nominee because they know, or they think, that whoever the Democrat nominee is can smoke — they don’t want a conservative nominee on the Republican side. Obviously. The Drive-Bys will always tell you, folks, who is a conservative and who isn’t by virtue of who they try to destroy and by virtue of who they try to prop up. And right now they’re trying to prop up McCain, trying to prop up Huckabee.’

It took a while, but Limbaugh is now calling Romney a conservative. And one that he apparently approves of. Hopefully some of your friends in SC are able to see what Rush Limbaugh is able to.

I understand why Romney was 2nd in Iowa and New Hampshire. I also believe that the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary often produce flawed results. More states should have closed primaries. There’s no reason why independents should have a say in who the Republican and Democrat nominees should be. Considering the obstacles he had, Mitt did as well as he could have. But he has to win somewhere besides Wyoming.

Romney has been to SC so many times he practically lives here. Even with some friends in high places (one being my former local Republican party chairman), conservatives here haven’t bought into the Romney conversion story. They feel he’s a phony, and I would be naive to think that his Mormonism is completely a non-issue. Keep in mind, these aren’t my concerns. I’m just telling you what I’m seeing here with the local folks. For Romney to win the nomination, he needs to win states like SC, where the hard-core conservatives are. Those are the voters he hasn’t convinced of his solid conservatism. I get that right now Michigan is more important, but without some candidate pointing out the McCain and Huck flaws (which are significant), one of those two will win South Carolina. That shouldn’t happen. Fred doesn’t have enough money to run ads against Huck and McCain, and I’m not sure whether he would actually run an ad critical of his friend McCain even if he had the money.

Just please don’t blame me for a first place finish by Huck or McCain here…because it won’t be my fault.

We agree on Huck and McCain. What bothers me about Romney is that from the beginning of this campaign he has tried to be the most conservative guy in the field, and it’s a very hard sell, especially from a former governor of Massachusetts. You know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t enough to support gun rights. He had to join the NRA. I think Romney has evolved on some issues like abortion, gay marriage, guns, and so on. I believe that he will be the conservative he is now when he is in office. But I think trying to oversell how conservative he is was a mistake, and it made some conservatives suspicious of him.

I have no problem with Romney as the nominee. He’s in my top two, along with Fred. I don’t expect Fred’s great debate performance will be enough to get him the nomination, but I want somebody to hold McCain and Huckabee accountable for their past performance, and I think Fred can do that. I will probably vote for Fred in the SC primary, because I want to see him continue in the race.

All I know is we must stop Huck (and that I love the comparison to Britney Spears).

So I would submit that Romney is closing to the deal with real conservative voters. More Republicans in America have cast their vote for Romney at this point in the race than they have any other candidate. The states that allow voters who are essentially Democrats to participate in a GOP primary are going to produce, to my way of thinking, skewed results.

I spent two days campaigning in NH for Romney and was there to see the local media coverage. One theory as to what may have happened is as follows: The media was reporting that all polling was suggesting a massive win for Obama. Perhaps independent voters, when confronted with the information that Obama was going to win resoundingly, decided that they could now vote for McCain in what may have perceived to have been the closer race. The logic being: why waste your vote for someone who is already a lock to win when you can influence a closer race.

And these NH independent voters, who were perhaps thinking of voting for Obama, are obviously not the real Republicans who should even be allowed to influence the primary results of a party to which they do not belong and likely disagree with on every major issue. It’s for this reason that I’m starting to have a real problem with the way some of these states conduct primary elections. Obviously Democratic voters who are allowed to vote in a GOP primary will vote for either the weakest candidate or the most liberal candidate.

One thing is clear. The MSM swoons at the prospect of either a McCain or Huckabee nomination. The reasons for this is at least twofold:

Firstly, the left leaning and/or centrist philosophies of both candidates are more closely in line with those of the almost exclusively liberal mainstream media. In other words, the media doesn’t really enjoy listening to the ideas presented by real conservatives. The faster they can silence the articulate voices of Reagan conservatism in the race like Romney’s, the better.

Secondly, the liberals in the media and elsewhere believe that Huckabee and McCain are beatable in the general election. Democratic strategist Susan Estrich slipped up last week and even said as much about Huckabee. The one and only area in which Huckabee is conservative, his religion, is exactly what the Democrats will use to dismantle his campaign effort in a general election. The argument will begin and end with pointing out that Huckabee doesn’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution. In an age such heavy emphasis on scientific advancements like stem cell research, genetic cloning, and global warming issues the Democrats will be able to paint Huckabee as backwards looking and ‘unenlightened’.

While I’m on the subject of Huckabee let me unveil one of my newest talking points about him.

Huckabee is winning the ‘popularity contest’ aspect of this presidential race. He went on the Steven Colbert show the other night to help make a mockery of the election process and he regularly appears on late night shows playing bass guitar and generally yucking it up. It strikes me that he’s running for entertainer-in-chief, not commander-in-chief.

Serious candidates like Romney want to have a genuine dialogue about the problems facing this country while Huckabee is cracking jokes on Jay Leno. If the 2008 presidential elections are regarding as a kind of “American Idol” competition, Huckabee will indeed do well.

The Huckster may have a formidable evangelical voting bloc and the sort of mass appeal of a Britney Spears (back in the day) but he, as I know you agree, is no conservative. Huckabee’s big government philosophy, his criticism of the Bush administration’s so-called ‘bunker mentality’, and his squishiness on illegal immigration are exactly in line with what Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton believe. My advice to Huckabee voters is that if you want to vote for a Democrat, do so, but please allow a conservative like Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or Mitt Romney to at least be selected to go up against the liberal candidate in the general election.

If Huckabee is to be the Republican nominee, I’d sooner consider voting for Barrack Obama. At least Obama is a liberal who regards himself as such.