Minor Thoughts from me to you

Obama's not even President yet and he's already revealing plans to stack the deck in his own favor. Protein Wisdom reveals What's behind Obama's national service plan?:

His broader approach proposes to expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and double the size of the Peace Corps, integrate service-learning programs into schools and universities, expand service initiatives that "engage disadvantaged young people and advance their education", expand the capacity of nonprofits to innovate and expand their programs and so on.

Indeed, in making his proposal, Obama alluded to his time as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, and his stint heading the group Project Vote -- and it turns out there is a direct angle here. Obama directed Project Vote for ACORN -- an "antipoverty" group also frequently involved in scandal-ridden voter registration drives. Obama has a long, sybiotic relationship with the group. He was their lawyer, helped train ACORN activists, and fed them grants from his position at the Woods Fund; they endorsed Obama's candidacies and provided troops for his early campaigns. ACORN has a long history concerning both election fraud and misuse of federal funds, including AmeriCorps funds:

In 1994, the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) received a grant from the newly created Americorps to assist low-income families at finding housing. In applying for the grant, the AHC claimed its activities were completely separate from ACORN.

But one year later, the Americorps Inspector General would testify that "AHC used Americorps grant funds to benefit ACORN either directly or indirectly." She found several instances of cost-shifting from ACORN's lobbying group to the housing entity, and also found several instances of the steering of recipients of housing counseling into ACORN memberships.

It is difficult to imagine Obama rigorously policing ACORN from using the national service program as a recruiting tool or to further its non-partisan-in-name-only voter registration drives. To the contrary, his national service plan looks like another avenue for Obama to realize his vision of creating an army of left-wing activists to push his agenda and register more likely Democrats.

The New Republic accuses Barack Obama of consistently playing the race card during his campaign.

Misleading propaganda is hardly new in American politics --although the adoption of techniques reminiscent of past Republican and special-interest hit jobs, right down to a retread of the fictional couple, seems strangely at odds with a campaign that proclaims it will redeem the country from precisely these sorts of divisive and manipulative tactics. As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign's most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads. To a large degree, the campaign's strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters--a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a "post-racial" figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters. This development is the latest sad commentary on the malign power of the press, hyping its own favorites and tearing down those it dislikes, to create pseudo-scandals of the sort that hounded Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. It is also a commentary on how race can make American politics go haywire. Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama's supposedly uplifting campaign.

...

It may strike some as ironic that the racializing should be coming from a black candidate's campaign and its supporters. But this is an American presidential campaign--and there is a long history of candidates who are willing to inflame the most deadly passions in our national life in order to get elected. Sadly, it is what Barack Obama and his campaign gurus have been doing for months--with the aid of their media helpers on the news and op-ed pages and on cable television, mocked by "SNL" as in the tank for Obama. They promise to continue until they win the nomination, by any means necessary.

If you're interested in the race so far, you should read the whole thing. It's a pretty convincing write up.

I really, really don't like the idea of John McCain as the GOP nominee for 2008. Thankfully, every time I try to fool myself into thinking that he might not be a bad candidate, he reminds me of why I don't like him.

Take the mortgage "crisis" for instance. He was asked about it in a recent debate. Here's what he had to say:

I think that we've got to return to the principal that you don't lend money that can't pay it back. I think that there's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished. I think there's got to be a huge amount more of transparency as to how this whole thing came about so we can prevent it from happening again.

When a town on Norway is somehow affected by the housing situation in the United States of America, we've gotten ourselves into a very interesting dilemma.

If necessary, we're going to have to take additional actions and particularly in cleaning up a mortgage. A mortgage should be one page and there should be big letters at the bottom that says, "I understand this document."

We ought to adjust the mortgages so people who were eligible for better terms, but were somehow convinced to accept the mortgages which were more onerous on them. We need to fix the rating systems, which clearly were erroneous in their ratings, which led people to believe that there were these institutions which were stable, which clearly were not.

(Via In the Agora.)

A few comments here. What about personal responsibility? A lot of people tried to buy homes that they couldn't afford. Isn't that a form of greed? I think both the borrowers AND the lenders were greedy. I think both should suffer the consequences of their actions.

Secondly, Senator McCain says that "erroneous ratings systems" fooled people into investing in unstable institutions. Maybe, just maybe, those institutions were stable right up to the point where they started making poor investments. Sometimes it takes a while to tell the difference between a poor investment and a risky, but worthwhile, investment. Maybe investing is risky business. Maybe people shouldn't invest in new, speculative investments unless they can afford to lose their money. Maybe Senator McCain should admit that he's not God and can't remove all risk from people's lives.

Thirdly, about that "town in Norway [that's] affected by the housing situation in the United States of America". It's called risk management. It's a way for companies to lower the risk of a new investment by spreading the risk across more investors. Companies won't make a lot of investments unless they can find a way to decrease the risk of the investment. Because the risk could be spread worldwide, companies made many loans that they never would have otherwise made. True, some of the loans went bad. But many of the loans went to people who were able to pay them off. Would you prefer that banks stopped lending money to risky borrowers?

Senator McCain, please leave the market alone. Your uninformed, ignorant meddling will only make things worse.

Mike Huckabee on the Confederate flag:

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.

"In fact," he said, "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."

That doesn't exactly fit the genial, cheerful, Baptist minister image that Governor Huckabee has been cultivating lately. It's just too bad that he's more willing to be offensive to fellow Americans than to antagonistic foreign leaders.

(Via Riehl World View: Huckabee: I'm A Divider, Not A Uniter.)

This is the first time I've ever heard a candidate give the right answer, when asked how Christians should approach social problems. The fact that Fred Thompson refused to pander to the crowd just ices the cake.

Thompson Talks Religion - From The Road:

Mixing theology and social issues on the campaign trail is rare for Fred Thompson, but he discussed it today answering a question from a member of the audience.

A woman asked him if he would "as a Christian, as a conservative" continue President Bush's programs to combat global AIDS.

"Christ didn't tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it," Thompson said.

"The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other."

Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani spoke at the FRC Values Voters Summit, attempting to sell evangelicals on his qualifications. Most commentators agree that he hit a "solid double" and may have softened some of the opposition to his candidacy. Several hours after the event, his campaign posted the video of his speech.

I just finished watching it. Here are my rough (really rough!) notes from the speech.

Will always be honest -- even when people disagree with him and his goals are unpopular. Will not govern by polls or by holding his finger in the wind. George Will called his mayoralty "the best conservative governance in the nation in the past 50 years". Lowered NYC crime rate. Cleaned up Times Square.

Chased pornographers out of the city. Took on the New York Museum of Art, after Virgin Mary, with dung painting. People of faith need to be free to express their faith, in public. Need to defend traditional expressions of faith, in public. "Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion"

Next President needs to restore the idea that "for every right there's a responsibility, for every benefit, there's an obligation that goes along with it". Turned welfare agencies into job centers -- changed the name on the door and the mission of the organization. Largest welfare reform, happened before federal legislation. Newt called it "revolutionary". 640,000 fewer New Yorkers on welfare. Returned the work ethic back to the center of city life and people thrive when you give them some control over their lives.

Strong supporter of school choice. Product of parochial schools -- all the way up to NYU law school. Every parent in America should have the right to send their kids to the school of their choice -- even home school, if that's what they want. It takes a family -- not a village -- to raise a child. Education opportunity is the civil rights issue for the 21st century

Sign on his desk at City Hall, "I'm responsible", to remind him that accountability goes both ways. Committment to shared values can help us achieve shared goals. Committment to decrease abortions and increase adoptions. Worked hard to increase adoption in NYC -- increased by 133% over eight years before he came into office. Abortions came down 18% during that same period. A country without abortion, achieved by changing the hearts and minds of people. Will veto any reduction in the Hyde amendent or other options to provide public support for abortions. Will support any reasonable suggestion that promises to reduce abortions: parental notifications, partial birth abortions. Will remove bureacratic red tape that makes adoption so expensive.

Supreme Court judges will be most important decision. Judges must be conscientous in their role of interpreting the law, not creating the law. Will appointment judges that understand what people meant when the wrote the law or Constitution. Advisor Board: Chair - Ted Olsen, Larry Thompson, Miguel Estrada, Attorney-General Designate. In the mold of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts.

My coverage of several extremely important news stories has prevented me until now from replying to the recent posts of my friend and webmaster Joe - but much like my standing up for terrorists' rights earlier this week, I now find myself wishing I'd acted far more quickly. Perhaps I could have saved Joe some embarrassment.

Embarrassment like this picture.

Or the substantially different but equal embarrassment of my correcting him when he declares, in reaction to news that America's Christian conservatives are considering forming a new party, that

"I’d love to see legitimate competitors to the Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, that would take an election cycle or two to fully emerge. Until then, the only thing a new party would do is pull votes away from Republicans and towards Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama... [and] the next election could have big consequences... Right now, I’ll take a candidate who merely promises to appoint originalist justices to the Supreme Court."

Alas.

The problem with Joe and The Anchoress's assertion that lack of conservative unity in '08 will lead to the Socialist States of America is one of perspective. Is saving our freedom important? Well, it's certainly not a non-issue, but it was never the primary focus of the Christian as portrayed in the New Testament. Despite living lives far more imperiled by an oppressive (and foreign) government than today's Americans, the Christ of the Gospels and His followers in Acts never bothered to chase the political freedoms for which so many of their fellow Jews longed. Jesus pointedly refuses to get caught up in an ongoing tax debate (Matthew 22:21). And if compelled (likely by Roman soldiers, many scholars say) to accompany a man one mile, Jesus recommends in Matthew 5:21 the faithful go with him two.

Clearly, Jesus and His early disciples placed far greater importance on social change "from the ground up" - fixing people's souls rather than fixing the system under which the people lived. Small wonder, too, if one considers their ministry within the context of the Bible's other teachings on the nature of Man; after all, when God has made clear that men are not capable of saving themselves, how useful can a government system created and run by men really be? When God has made clear that the war for Man's immortal self is an internal struggle, rather than dependent on external factors, why expend our limited resources in ultimately fruitless endeavors to sustain a safe environment in which to live?

And they are fruitless endeavors. We American Protestants probably need to be reminded of that more than anybody. Although we rarely say so anymore, many of us still vaguely believe the U.S.A. to somehow be a holy land - a God-loving, God-blessed sidekick to Israel. Its divinely-inspired protector. Its big, protective buddy in the cell block.

This is why in Christian fiction about the end of the world, such as the Left Behind series, the U.S. is usually defeated by the Antichrist rather than a party - or Heaven forbid, the vehicle - to his ascension. This is also why the U.S.A., in some form or other, always happens to still exist in Christian fiction during the end of the world; few of us consider the likelihood that much like the Romans, we're likely little more, ultimately, than a particularly bright flash in the pan, and one which will grow progressively dimmer as History marches farther and farther - who knows how far, before Judgment Day? - past our crumbling remains.

Because we think we're special, a nation-state worth preserving in God's sight. But we aren't. And if the concept of the U.S.A. isn't worth preserving, then why do we American Christians (not "Christian Americans", note) spend so much of our God-given time and energy trying to preserve it?

The answer is, I am told: so we can defend the Church.

After all, in the United States the Church is currently free from persecution, and capable of supporting other churches in more dangerous countries because of that. Children may be educated about their LORD Jesus without fear; so may adults. Surely, any reasonable person might claim such a state of affairs is worth saving.

Which is why it's a good thing people like me are around to provide an alternative to reasonable people - because sometimes they're wrong. Such a state of affairs is not worth having, at least not unconditionally, as its proponents basically suggest when they present us the false dilemma of choosing 'twixt two evils. It makes no sense to seek protection of our spiritual kingdom at the cost of our spiritual integrity; it makes no sense to gain even the whole world, if we lose our souls (Mark 8:36).

So what must we as followers of the Christ do? Dr. Dobson himself actually put it very well in a recent (albeit sickeningly fluffy) interview on Townhall.com.

"You start with a moral principle. You have to make your decisions about who’s going to lead you not on the basis of pragmatics—not on the basis of who can win or who’s ahead in the polls or who has the most money or who’s the most popular. You begin by saying what are the irreducible minimums that I believe in, that I care about; what are the biblical values I cannot compromise."

After that, you don't let a bunch of Chicken Littles scare you into budging from those values. Should they suggest that if you don't vote Republican, President Hillary Clinton will steal what meager treasure you have amassed here on Earth, you remind them that the only treasure you consider important waits for you in Heaven. Should they suggest that if you don't vote Republican, Democrats will decide how to run your health care, you remind them that government-run health care is scarcely persecution of the saints. Should they suggest that if you don't vote Republican, pro-abortion judges will sit on the Supreme Court, you remind them that what they are asking you to do is consider voting for a pro-abortion candidate.

Because it ultimately doesn't matter if the very fate of America is indeed at stake in 2008. Jesus doubtlessly knew His own chosen people were to be crushed and scattered by Rome within fifty years of His ministry's end. Even faced with that looming darkness, however, He did not sacrifice the purity and focus of His ministry.

He did not, and you will not, because you both know that whatever the situation today, you will scarcely remember it an eternity from now, when you walk in the fields sprung up from an old world's ashes.

Who decided that "red states" would be those which vote for Republicans and "blue states" those which vote for Democrats?

Wikipedia even notes:

"This system used in the United States of America is in stark contrast to the color system used in the vast majority of other nations. In most other parts of the world, blue represents right wing and conservative parties, while red represents left wing and socialist parties."

My bet is that's part of the point. Whenever the two colors began to be generally used in American election coverage, liberals probably felt that to have support for them labeled "red" would be rather like handing Edward McCarthy a posthumous victory. The United States spent half a century locked in potentially lethal stand-off with The Reds. Nobody in American politics, not even the Communists themselves, desires association with the color now.

So, when you think about it, it really is only fair: in order not to bias voters against the Democratic Party, best not to identify it with the people who embodied the logical progression of Democrat ideas.

Earlier this year, James Dobson stated that he would never endorse Fred Thompson for President. (Not only that, Dobson decided to question Thompson's faith, without every actually meeting him.) I like the way Thompson recently responded.

A gentleman who has never met me, who has never talked to me, I've never talked to him on the phone. I did have one of his aides call me up and kind of apologize, the first time he attacked me and said I wasn't a Christian...

I don't know the gentleman. I do know that I have a lot of people who are of strong faith and are involved in the same organizations that he is in, that I've met with, Jeri and I both have met with, and I like to think that we have some strong friendships and support there...

I don't particularly care to have a conversation with him. If he wants to call up and apologize again, that's ok with me. But I'm not going to dance to anybody's tune.

I don't know if I'll vote for him. But I like him anyway.

The Republican party thought it had the perfect issue to both rev up the base and angry blue collar Democrats -- attack immigration. After all, the Republican base supposedly hates the idea of people breaking the law and entering America without Uncle Sam's express written permission. And blue collar Democrats hate the idea of someone "stealing" their job by accepting lower wages.

All the Republicans needed to do was push for an "enforcement only" immigration bill. Refuse to do anything about our mess of immigration laws until the border had been locked down tight. "No changes without fences!" was their rallying cry. Republicans like John Kyle and John McCain, who tried to push for a comprehensive bill, were demonized and ostracized.

The strategy failed miserably. Instead of turning out the vote for the GOP, it destroyed whatever inroads the GOP had previously made with Latino voters. Richard Nadler, of America's Majority, recently completed an in-depth study of how the Republicans' position on immigration affected Latino voters. The results aren't pretty.

Nadler wrote about his results in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.

Undocumented Latinos constitute 3.8% of the American work force. But these 5.6 million workers are a mere fraction of the 17.3 million Latino citizens 18 years or older. Of these, 4.4 million are themselves foreign born.

In my recent study for the Americas Majority Foundation entitled "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino Vote," I document not what Hispanics opined, but how they actually voted, given a clear choice between advocates of "enforcement first" and comprehensive immigration reform. The results, based on returns from 145 heavily Hispanic precincts and over 100,000 tabulated votes, indicate this: Immigration policies that induce mass fear among illegal residents will induce mass anger among the legal residents who share their heritage.

In these three races, Republicans' vote share in heavily Latino precincts dropped 22 percentage points.

What does this mean nationwide? Republicans' presidential Hispanic vote share increased to 40% in 2004 from 21% in 1996. In 2004, Latinos comprised 6% of the electorate, but 8.1% of the voter-qualified citizenry. With the partisan margin shrinking, the incentive for major Hispanic registration efforts by either party was scant.

That changed in 2006, when the GOP's Hispanic vote share declined by 10%. And, as we have seen, the drop was twice as precipitous where Republicans disavowed comprehensive immigration reform. With the huge wedge in vote share that "enforcement-only" opened, the cost-effectiveness of voter-registration efforts improved dramatically -- for Democrats.

Great work guys. Can we finally put to rest the idea that slamming shut the border and demonizing entire racial groups is a good way to win elections? Can we finally start working on a way to fix the entire immigration process rather than pretending that a border fence is the only thing missing?

J. Peter Mulhern, at The American Thinker, is pretty convinced that we'll be talking about President Fred Thompson in a little over a year.

Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President.

Of course, conventional wisdom rarely gets anything right. When it does, it's only by accident.

In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons.

He next runs down a list of reasons why all of the other Republican and Democrat candidates are unrealistic alternatives (Romney has the instincts of a used-car salesman, Giuliani is too far from the base, McCain and the base hate each other, etc). Then, he starts talking about what makes Fred a good candidate.

We have gotten so used to speaking of the President of the United States "running the country" that most of us no longer notice how unrealistic and unAmerican that expression is. The whole point of the American Revolution was to establish a country without anyone to run it. We don't want or need a president who is inclined to run things. We need a President who leads and inspires. Fred, with his non-managerial background, is the only candidate of either party who seems to get this.

Consider that Fred's calm, sensible demeanor permits him to say things that would terrify many ordinary voters coming from someone who seemed less steady. Thompson can say radical things and nobody turns a hair. If any other candidate talked about overhauling social security and the tax code while we fight a global war of which Iraq and Afghanistan are mere outcroppings, a substantial part of the electorate would faint dead away. Try to wrap your mind around the reality that coming off like an old coot having a conversation as he whittles next to the pot-bellied stove down at the country store is an excellent way to attract most American voters.

Frankly, that appeals to me. And that aspect of his personality comes through very clearly in some of his recent campaign videos. He's unassuming and laid back. But he possesses a razor sharp wit and a quick mind.

I need to know more than I do about Fred's positions on various issues. But he's impressed me with what I've seen so far.

Adam recommends that the religious conservatives split off and form their own party. He thinks that such a third-party might actually be able to attract -- and keep -- voters. That might provide a wedge for other alternate parties to emerge and gain support.

I'm afraid he might be right. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see legitimate competitors to the Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, that would take an election cycle or two to fully emerge. Until then, the only thing a new party would do is pull votes away from Republicans and towards Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Normally, that wouldn't bother me too much.

But, as The Anchoress reminds us, the next election could have big consequences.

The third-party pipe-dreamers will once again make the Clinton tag team victorious. And with a Supreme Court likely to need three quick replacements in '09, the third party folks will watch as the court becomes a permanent 5-4 liberal majority activist court -- for decades. Decades, folks. The America you think you're going to "preserve" with your third party candidate may become unrecognizable in a very short time. The Roe v Wade you think you're going to reverse with your unelectable third candidate will seem almost quaint when compared with the "compassionate" euthanasia and the "practical, community-serving, environment saving" limitations on life you'll be watching get handed down as law by an activist court determined to see the Constitution as a "living" and flexible document.

She also provides an interesting perspective on the morality of presidential candidates.

It is always interesting to me to reflect that Jesus always went to the sinners to get his work done, to spread his message. He didn't go to the "pure" ones who thought they already knew everything they needed to know, and who would never dare to taint themselves by dealing with the lesser among them. He went to the guys who screwed up, made mistakes and understood that they were not worthy, who knew that they didn't know everything. The guys who would continue to make mistakes but who would grow and would -- most importantly -- never give up.

And all of this will come about because the only person seemingly capable of beating the Clinton's wasn't a good enough Christian for the Christian right. I think it's a mistake, folks. Create a third party in order to give yourselves a "good Christian" to vote for -- one who doesn't offend any of your principals -- and you lose. And life loses, too.

I want to support the "perfect" candidate. But right now, I'll take a candidate who merely promises to appoint originalist justices to the Supreme Court.

Mitt Romney recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal comparing his own healthcare plan to Hillary Clinton's plan. He tried his best to present his plan as a small-government solution to the healthcare problem.

As governor of Massachusetts, I led the fight for reforms that used free markets and innovation, rather than big-government control, to lower health-care costs and cover the uninsured. I recently proposed a federalist reform plan that will use these principles to improve America's health-care system.

There's only one problem with his editorial. It's misleading. The Cato Institute explains why RomneyCare and HillaryCare are really two sides of the same (bad) coin.

According to a newly-published article:

"Some of the nation's most politically influential conservative Christians, alarmed by the prospect of a Republican presidential nominee who supports abortion rights, are considering backing a third-party candidate."

"Some" includes James Dobson, famous founder of Focus on the Family, and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, both of whom attended a Las Vegas meeting with "more than 40 Christian conservatives" to discuss what to do about religious conservatives' "mistress" status in the Republican Party. It may have even included Tim LaHaye, author of the "Left Behind" books and now a mover-and-shaker himself as a founder of the shadowy Council for National Policy.

Should these names be lost on you, the AP's source concerning this event puts it plainly enough: President Bush "would not have been elected in '04 without the people in that room."

These are the people who have finally wizened up to the fact that religious fundamentalists are to Republicans what black people are to Democrats, and according to the source, they're ticked. So they're talking break-up.

Just maybe, that is. Perhaps, you understand.

Hopefully, you know - for oh so many reasons.

And I say that knowing I almost certainly wouldn't even vote for them.

Giuliani on Taxes and a Homeowner Bailout - Capital Commerce (usnews.com)

I had a chance to chat with Rudy Giuliani this weekend, on Saturday morning, just after he finished with his "tax summit" campaign event in Manchester, N.H. There, Giuliani offered his case for making the Bush cuts permanent, killing the estate tax (or "death tax," as he puts it), indexing the alternative minimum tax to inflation, and lowering corporate taxes. The easy-reading, truncated version of the interview can be found here. But lucky CapCom readers get to peruse the longer "director's cut." No Iraq, no abortion, no immigration"”just hardcore economic policy. Giuliani speaks at length about taxes, Social Security, and the mortgage crisis.

Guiliani continues to intrigue me from an economic, fiscal-policy perspective. This interview shows some of the reasons.

If you're interested in Guiliani's economic record as Mayor of New York City, the Club for Growth has a breakdown.

I'm still ingtrigued by the possibility of a Fred Thompson candidacy. Here's why.

• This cover story from Knoxville's Weekly Pulse
• This video response to Michael Moore
• His strong defense of federalism
• This profile from the Washington Monthly
• This video interview
• This Washington Post profile

Once he declares and his campaign really starts, I'll be able to judge him a little better.

Senator Fred Thompson recognizes that what the country needs is bipartisanship, not partisan sniping:

I believe this direct communication and discussion is going to have an enormous impact on our political process. Our nation is facing unprecedented threats, and the challenges of globalization. We have a 70-plus trillion dollar entitlement shortfall and a government that is not effective in important ways.

To solve our problems, we have to realize that our country is pretty evenly divided along party lines. With close numbers in the House and the Senate, there will be no real reform without real bipartisanship. Too often, what we are seeing isn't an effort to find solutions, but rather insults and purely partisan politics. There are many good and responsible people in government who are willing to work together "“ but the level of bipartisanship needed for real progress can only be achieved when politicians perceive that the American people demand it.

I'm demanding it. (It's worth 2 minutes of your time to read the whole post.)

I continue to be interested in a Fred Thompson candidacy. Hopefully he declares soon, so we can see what he's actually made of.

I think John McCain just lost whatever chance he had at the Presidency:

[T]alking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government.

Yep, he really said "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected". I certainly won't be voting for him, ever. Simply put, I don't trust him to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of these United States, so help me God".

(Hat Tip: Division of Labour).