The American Spectator

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Santorum Comeback

2.1.08 @ 12:01AM

GO FOR BROKERED
Re: Quin Hillyer's Arise, Ye Favorite Sons:

Regarding Quin Hillyer's strategy for conservatives to effectively broker the GOP nomination, I'd say that former Senator Santorum, if he's really a conservative at all, owes it to the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to take a run at it. After his abominable support for Senator Specter's re-election over a genuinely conservative challenger, it's the least he could do.
-- Mark Fallert
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Interesting scenarios, all.

However, in order for his column's thesis to work, Quin assumes that the majority of those who vote in 2008 Republican primaries are in fact conservative.

Based on my research of the exit polls from those Republican cauci/primaries that have been held thus far, the vast majority of voters have been either moderate or have a right-side/extreme-left-of-center bent to them (a la Bloomberg).

As stated, the only way this could work would be to deny a majority to any one candidate. With the Governator endorsement in CA, and with the former NY mayor's endorsement, that proposal seems unlikely. After wins there, the inertia would be too much.

I await a further weakening of the First Amendment in the very near future.
-- Owen H. Carneal
Yorktown, Virginia

Mr. Hillyer has a good thought but it smacks of being a "hail Mary" pass. Perhaps a reassessment of Mitt Romney is in order, or does he not have proper conservative credentials either. Let's say that he does and that he has had the misfortune of starting his race competing in primaries that allowed cross-over voting and had lots of Independents which worked against him. He did alright anyway. Then a showdown in Florida against McCain stacked him against a large vote that favored McCain's immigration stance that may have given McCain the 5 point win. Most pundits predict McCain will now sweep the Super Primary February 5. But in these next primaries, there will be many states whose conservative voters will favor Romney's stance on immigration in numbers great enough to make the difference. Romney may not win more delegates than McCain but he may win more than pundits think. Then it will be a race and maybe a brokered convention. Someone named Yogi said "It ain't over till it's over."
-- Howard Lohmuller
Seabrook, Texas

Quin Hillyer, you are spot on!

I'm a Pennsylvanian and was proud and pleased to have as my two Senators two of the most respected and effective of the lot -- Santorum and Specter -- and was very disappointed to see Santorum defeated by a nostalgic name.

For months, I have been thinking about how good it would have been for Rick Santorum to run for president, but hesitated to say it out loud. Thank you for articulating the argument for him so well.

He's personable, articulate, highly intelligent, trustworthy, and a Conservative.

What more could we ask?
-- A. C. Santore

Despite not wishing conservatives well, except perhaps fiscal conservatives, I am in agreement with Mr. Hillyer's unfavorable assessment of John McCain. As president, McCain would surely demonstrate a misguided self-confidence on par with George W. Bush, with the potential for additional damage due to his bad temper, which can be observed simmering even in friendly interviews. Mr. Hillyer's proposal may in fact be one of the few last-ditch strategies available to pit a desirable conservative candidate against Obama or Clinton.

That said, I am flabbergasted to see Dick Cheney mentioned as a compromise alternative to John McCain or Mike Huckabee. Cheney, at this stage in his career, has "kiss of death" written all over him, and I'm not referring to his heart condition. The general public perception of Cheney is that he's the brains behind most of the bad ideas of the Bush administration. How did neoconservatism become the rage? Why was Donald Rumsfeld not removed sooner as Secretary of Defense? Cheney is also a symbol of the excessive secrecy of an administration that repeatedly made poor decisions. If Dick Cheney won the Republican nomination, the Democrats could save their money and stop campaigning -- and win the presidency by one of the largest landslides in American history.
-- Paul Dorell
Evanston, Illinois

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