I'm Not For Rudy! I'm For Fred!

In June of this year I posted on the slide of our nation from a representative republic - the intended model of the Founding Fathers - into a democracy, something feared by those same Founding Fathers as Mob Rule. The post garnered only 4 comments, but I don’t get that many and those comments were nice. Two of the comments ignored the body of the post and aimed at the addendum.
In my addendum to that post I said:

The only candidate I have read of, or heard, who hews closely to Constitutional principles is Fred Thompson. Whatever faults he may have, being merely human, he acts on the Constitution, not on the whims of the Mob. Think about that.

I have seen nothing since then to change my mind. I started a blogroll called “Run, Fred, Run!” supporting a candidacy by Fred Thompson to win the Republican nomination. A few bloggers joined it, and I waited for Fred Thompson to see the “Light” and begin the campaign. I may have to change that blogroll or rename it to “Go, Fred, Go!”

At that time the leading candidate for the Republican nomination was Rudy Giuliani, followed by the maverick - as the MSM loves to designate him - John McCain. McCain quickly went into a bit of a tail-spin and has since remained behind. But Rudy has been the front-runner all along. Why? Because he has the name recognition, he’s “America’s Mayor” following the 9/11 attacks, he sounds like a tough campaigner, and he’s been out there putting in face time and staying in the news.

Fred Thompson, on the other hand, was slow to start, causing some to wonder if he had the desire, slow to get rolling once he had announced his candidacy, and has been very choosy about where he will show up to speak, and how often. He seems a reluctant candidate. He says he isn’t.

Unlike the other candidates for their parties’ nomination, Thompson has a record on the issues of the day that he does not hide nor flee from. He doesn’t equivocate about where he stands. (Does Hillary support Driver’s Licenses for illegal aliens? Does she oppose them? What day of the week is this?) Fred Thompson stands with the U.S. Constitution. Where else could a President stand? He believes that some things are not the Federal Government’s business - the Constitution says so quite clearly - but reside with the individual States or with the people. He opposes adding amendments to the Constitution to ban flag-burning - don’t localities ban burning things in public without a permit? - or Gay Marriages, supports the appointment of Judges who will do their job and not attempt to legislate from the bench - the Legislatures have that power and duty, not the Courts! - and supports stiffer measures to stem the tide of illegals entering this country. After all, protecting the borders is not a State issue but a Federal one, and one the Feds have failed to do for many decades.

Rudy Giuliani is ... well ... my blogging friend Patrick is saying it better than I ever could, first in “Stop Rudy Now!”:

I was one of the first to jump on the Rudy bandwagon and even started a "Run, Rudy, Run" Blogroll when he first announced. Why? Because I thought that we had a winner in "America's Mayor." But, as I learned more about him, I realized that I had made a mistake and I intend to make every effort between now and the primaries to ensure that he is not the GOP nominee.
[...]
I could dig up the dirt on Rudy but all the candidates have got some mud stuck to them and that doesn't seem quite fair. My growing dislike of Rudy is not easily explained in level-headed terms. I don't care about his pro-gay stance one way or the other. But I don't like his weaselly take on abortion. And I absolutely loathe his attitude toward the Second Amendment. That alone is enough to make me oppose him.

Then in ”Stop Rudy Now #2”, Patrick says:

[...]
If Rudy gets into the WH and then behaves like the statist thug that he really is beneath that phony grin, the GOP will be blamed for ruining the country. It's better to let the blame fall on the Clintons.

I keep reading conservative bloggers say; "But Rudy will be tough on terrorists." So what? All the GOP candidates (except Paul who is not a real Republican anyway) will be tough on terror. So why would we chose someone whose only "conservative" stance is his hawkishness? On nearly every other issue there is no difference between Rudy and Billary.

I don't want to have to face the choice between Rudy and Billary. It would not even be a choice between the lesser of two evils because they are both immoral, power hungry thugs. Rudy is not a conservative either politically or emotionally. He is a radical and maybe just as malignantly narcissistic as Billary and definitely as duplicitous.

"Oh, but look how he turned NYC around," those Republicans who've been fooled by Rudy's oily charm say. "But he was tough on crime and made the trains run on time." Yes, so did Mussolini and I don't want a thug in the WH.

For those of us who value the ideals of Goldwater and Reagan, it's essential to prevent Rudy from getting the nomination. Stop Rudy now!

Finally, in “The myth that only Rudy can beat Billary”, Patrick says,

If (BIG IF) Rudy gets the nomination, I will hold my nose and vote for him and then hold his feet to the fire. But some people will never vote for him because they think that Rudy will destroy the GOP and maybe even the USA. I'm not that pessimistic. We've had worse Republican Presidents in the past and survived and I'd still bet that Rudy would not be as bad for the USA as Billary. I don't think that Rudy will appoint commies to SCOTUS or give amnesty to 12 million illegals. Billary will and that will be the end of the Republic and the beginning of European-style socialism - or worse: a Third World banana republic.

Rudy may be bad for the GOP and set us back to the pre-Reagan era but we'll recover from that too. Reagan was a complete anomaly in the GOP. Let's face it: Bush Jr is no Reaganite and we've survived him. Most of the history of the GOP has not been Reaganite but Rockefeller/Bushite. We'll recover and keep pushing to advance the Reagan Revolution.

Amen, Brother!

I have not supported Rudy Giuliani in his quest for the White House. He’s never been my choice. He’s a Big Statist Liberal, a Rockefeller Republican, perhaps even a RINO. John McCain is a loose cannon who has stabbed many of his fellow Republicans in the back without so much as a “By-your-leave”, and strays from the Conservative path with his sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold horror, his support of amnesty for illegals, and many other things. Mitt Romney remains a bit of an enigma. What does he really think, support, care about? He seems okay, but ...? As for the lesser lights also running, Ron Paul is a Dennis Kucinich Republican: a loon who isn’t all there and probably isn’t any kind of a Republican. Huckabee is another Big Statist, Tancredo and Hunter are One-Trick Ponies whose fight to secure our borders I fully support. Either one would be a good choice, I think, for a Veep, but right now I would hew more toward Romney for that spot on a Fred Thompson ticket.

Go read Patrick's posts - heck just go surf his blog! It’s great! - and see what you think of Giuliani. I think you will agree, and will also agree with his conclusion that we can survive a Giuliani Administration. But why not try to avoid that or “Clinton, Part Deux” and support Fred Thompson? I will! What about you?