Fred Thompson Quits, Huckabee is Going To, and John McCain Will Be Running in November
Fred Thompson is giving up his lukewarm presidential bid. He never seemed to want it all that much, anyhow. Even his announcement was only three sentences long:
Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.Nah, I don't think anyone benefited from Thompson's snoozer of a campaign, except maybe for John McCain and Mike Huckabee. The former may have won South Carolina because of Thompson. The latter, as mentioned yesterday, may be in the midst of a religious revelation because of it.— Source
From the sound of things, Huckabee isn't going to last too much longer, either. That's what I thought would happen if he didn't win South Carolina. So the Huckster is largely conceding Florida and hoping to hang in until February 5, Super Tuesday. I'm not sure what the point of that is, but that's what he's doing. Giuliani isn't going to win Florida; he'll be dropping out after that primary. The Republican race is essentially between Romney and McCain at this point. Not that I would vote for either one of them, but I think McCain is going to be the Republican candidate for November. Huckabee may well make a return then, though. I could see a McCain/Huckabee ticket, or a McCain/Romney ticket, for that matter.
It's interesting to watch the Republican candidates beginning to drift away from the heavy religious message. Maybe that says something about how this country is changing just a little bit. Perhaps the evangelical fundies are finally starting to lose their stranglehold on political discourse in this country. Time will tell. Still, Huckabee is sinking like a rock, Romney is talking about business now, and McCain is probably the least religiously-motivated of the pack with the exception of Giuliani. Even most New Yorkers don't like Giuliani.
Democrats? Dunno yet. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's going to be Hillary Clinton on that side, maybe with John Edwards as a VP if he'd accept it. It's still too close to call, though. It probably doesn't matter too much; barring any huge change in momentum, the Democrats are more likely to win in November. Of course, a lot can happen between now and then. We'll see.
At least we'll finally be rid of ShrubCo either way, more or less. Who knows — perhaps the next administration won't be so keen on supressing science and rewriting reports to fit policy instead of fitting policy to the fact-finding that results from inquiry. After eight years of the crap we've had, that alone would be a nice change.
We'll see.
