See You Later, Tommy Thompson

As Fz reported in the post below mine, the Iowa straw poll came out with results that were not surprising: Mitt Romney won because Fred Thompson and The Most Evil New Yorker Ever chose not to participate. Sadly, for one candidate, the Iowa straw poll spelled a clear end: Tommy Thompson dropped out of the race after placing sixth.

Thompson, who also served in the Bush Cabinet, did not meet the expectations he set for himself in the Ames Republican straw poll held Saturday.

Those "expectations" were finishing first or second in the poll. However, as stated before, this was not to be. Besides getting basically no support from Iowa republicans, Thompson wasn't able to raise a whole lot of money: according to the FEC, Thompson raised a lowly $890,000, which was ninth amongst all republican candidates.

Thompson had hoped to try to cater to voters that wanted somebody that was, you know, really conservative on money and social issues. That's all fine and dandy, but honestly, I think the fact he was at one time part of the Bush administration proved to be the ultimate kiss of death for his chances at becoming president.

Oh, and after leaving his position as the secretary for health services, he promoted Medicare reforms that would benefit the companies he was working for, but that's a whole other story.

Take care, Tommy. Now I won't get confused whenever somebody refers to the Thompson that is running for president.

Republican debate reaction

Yesterday, I read this post by Glenn Greenwald:

The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.

This fraud is as transparent as it is dishonest, yet there are signs that the media is nonetheless beginning to adopt this theme that there is some sort of epic and long-standing "Bush-conservative schism." But very little effort is required to see what a fraud that storyline is.

One of the few propositions on which Bush supporters and critics agree is that George Bush does not change and has not changed at all over the last six years. He is exactly the same.

Or as Digby puts it more succinctly (quoted in the same article):

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)

So I looked forward with great anticipation to seeing if this dynamic would surface in the Republican debate this evening-- and, lo and behold, it did. You see, the Republicans in Washington didn't fail because of flaws in their conservative ideology, they failed because they turned into liberals! And in a contest between "professional spenders" (the Dems) and the "amateur spenders" (the Republicans), the Democrats will always win, said Tommy Thompson. Apparently the answer for the Republicans is to take a turn to the right. Um, good luck, fellas.... let me know how that works out for you.

How We Choose Our President

Newt Gingrich has some choice words about the way we Americans choose our president (hat tip to NRO's John Hood):

"We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer nonanswers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work."
...
"This idea of demeaning the presidency by reducing it to being a game show contest ... is wrong for America, and I would never participate in it."

As much as I love covering the presidential election, I find it is easy at times to get frustrated with the horse-race nature of the process. It's not just the "game-show"-like nature of the debates. It seems that the nominations and the election are decided by more by factors like good looks, likability, and the ability to convincingly spit out thirty-second sound-bites than by qualities like knowledge, competence, and the ability to actually grasp a complicated idea. Are the factors that we use to choose a president distinctly unrelated to the factors that would actually make someone a good president? Or are they the same? I am reminded of a post by Ross Douthat on presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson:

When the Fred Thompson boomlet started up, I batted around an idea for a piece called "The Wrong Thompson," or something like that, all about how Tommy and not Fred ought to be the dark horse candidate for the GOP nomination. After watching the former Wisconsin Governor in two debates, though, it's clear that making the case for Tommy Thompson is rather like making the case that the town meeting and direct democracy ought to take over all the federal government's functions because you get better governance that way; it's an idea that has merit in the abstract, but not in the world we actually inhabit. In an era without television, Tommy Thompson might have been a fine Presidential candidate and as effective a Chief Executive as he was a governor in Wisconsin. But in a world in which a national politician's effectiveness - his ability to rally support for his agenda, in particular - depends on his ability to communicate through mass media, a Thompson Presidency would be an epic disaster.

Have you noticed that almost all female music stars these days are extremely attractive? If you want to be a star, it certainly helps to be a good singer, but that's not a requirement. Being hot is. Looks are more important than talent. In presidential elections, it certainly helps to be qualified, but that's not a requirement. Being likable is. Charisma is more important than talent.

I'd write more, but I've got to go. It's time to put on some Christina Aguilera and read another article about John Edwards' hair cut.