On to New Hampshire and Conservative Confusion

In my opinion, the results of the Iowa caucuses solved nothing, and neither will New Hampshire. Although on the Democratic side, Iowa picked winners in 2004 and 2000, as recently as 1992 and 1988, Iowa went for Tom Harkin and Richard Gebhardt. On the Republican side, in 1988 and in 1980, the Iowa winners were not the nominees.

New Hampshire has a similar record; in 1992 it went for Paul Tsongas, and in 1984 for Gary Hart, Democrats. In 2000 it went for John McCain and in 1996 for Pat Buchanan on the Republican side.

Winners of Iowa and New Hampshire, then, may have a clear, temporary advantage, but the race is not anywhere near over with victories there. For Republicans, New Hampshire will be especially confusing because that state is nowhere near the bastion of conservatism it once was. Hordes of liberals have escaped the (often unintended) results of their liberal votes and policies in Massachusetts to move to New Hampshire, now a bedroom suburb of greater Boston; unfortunately these new NH voters have not and never will connect the failures of liberal policies in Massachusetts with their own feel-good tendencies.

I can only hope, on the Republican side, that Governor Huckabee’s ignorance of foreign affairs (including not even knowing the names of prominent leaders), his stance on immigration before his Iowa flip-flop, his tax policies and tax plans, his desire to apply the Golden Rule to convicted murderers and rapists – and also to foreign leaders out to bring us down, his desire to make it a federal offense to smoke, and to use the powers of the federal government to enforce some of his other beliefs, will become clearer to voters as time goes on.

The beneficiary of Huckabee’s weaknesses will no doubt be John McCain, a true hero I admire but would never want to see president. This is because he is a RINO Republican who gave us the atrocious McCain-Feingold law that took away our First Amendment rights without accomplishing anything but the mushrooming of 527 groups, because he pressed for amnesty for illegals and because he fought against the Bush tax cuts, among other things.

I could support Romney or Giuliani, but I greatly favor Fred Thompson, who came in third in Iowa, as the only true conservative who would live up to the example set by Ronald Reagan. Fred’s views on the issues are well thought out, but do not lend themselves to 30 second sound bites. He has to grow on you.