Fredhead Poll

Who do you go to now, assuming (as seems increasingly hard to argue against) that Fred is more or less done?

I've been bothered by Fredmania for the same reason I was bothered by Newt Gingrich's not-terribly-serious flirtation with a run: It keeps people from evaluating more likely candidates and throwing their support to them, freezing blocs of the coalition from making a more realistic choice. Another candidate has demonstrated they can beat both McCain and Huckabee, and that isn't Fred.

I'm not knocking Fredheads for that, or even Fred himself; I'm just noticing that, as usual, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Not that Fred is perfect, but clinging to the increasingly unlikely prospect Fred could win the election kept other candidates with a shot from getting a needed second look. And who profits? Well, McCain. And Huckabee. But mostly McCain.

Romney's an orthodox conservative (on paper) at this point, and seems to know how to campaign. Rudy's just about dead in the water, but he still has a glimmer of hope in Florida.

I suppose I could support McCain. He would have a fair chance of winning the election. But we'd be nominating someone who's basically a Democrat at this point, and, of course, flirted with officially changing parties in 2004.

Better a conservative Democrat than a liberal one, I guess, but we're running out of time here to choose someone better.

posted by Ace at 06:59 PM

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