The (David) French President?
Me thinks those mocking him doth protest too much
This is how much I’ve been off the grid today while attending to some family medical issues.
I was the last person on the internet to find out about David French possibly being a third-party candidate for the #NeverTrump movement.
In fact, I didn’t even find out about it from the internet. One of the LI authors texted me at 6:30 p.m.: “You must be excited to see the independent candidate could be a National Review guy, lol.”
My response, word for word, or should I say word: “Wut?”
Just a heads up over this holiday weekend: There will be an independent candidate–an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 29, 2016
Here’s how the story broke at Bloomberg News, Kristol Eyes Conservative Lawyer David French for Independent Presidential Run:
Two Republicans intimately familiar with Bill Kristol’s efforts to recruit an independent presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have told Bloomberg Politics that the person Kristol has in mind is David French — whose name the editor of the Weekly Standard floated in the current issue of the magazine.
French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children….
According to one person deeply involved in the efforts to recruit an independent challenger, the search has focused on individuals who have one or more of the following three traits seen as vital for credibly launching such a bid: fame, vast wealth, and elective experience. Reached by phone Tuesday evening, French declined to answer questions about any possible run.
CNN is kinda, sorta, almost confirming the news:
Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine and a leader of the conservative movement to find an alternative to likely major-party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, confirmed to CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel on Tuesday that the search has zeroed in on French….
His writings have been sharply critical of Trump.
“The party of Lincoln is in ruins. A minority of its primary voters have torched its founders’ legacy by voting for a man who combines old-school Democratic ideology, a bizarre form of hyper-violent isolationism, fringe conspiracy theories and serial lies with an enthusiastic flock of online racists to create perhaps the most toxic electoral coalition since George Wallace,” French wrote in March.
I have communicated many times with French on legal related matters, and he always struck me as a really good guy. But I can’t say that I know a lot about him other than his columns at National Review and television appearances. He has been one of the most articulate anti-Trump authors anywhere. And a relentless opponent of Obama executive overreach.
The Daily Wire summarizes 5 Things You Need To Know About David French:
1. French graduated from Harvard Law School, and served in Iraq in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is a major in the United States Army Reserve (IRR).
2. He lives in Tennessee with his wife Nancy, a New York Times best-selling author, and their three children.
3. He is the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and has defended religious liberty on college campuses, serving as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom.
4. He has written the New York Times-bestselling Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore, as well asHome and Away: A Story of Family in a Time of War and A Season for Justice: Defending the Rights of the Christian Church, Home, and School.
5. In 2012 French was awarded the American Conservative Union’s Ronald Reagan Award.
The immediate reaction to write him off strikes me as protesting too much. If he’s such a LOSER! why bother?
https://twitter.com/8s/status/737815737109078016
The internet has reacted with all the glory and grossness it could muster on short notice, and that’s quite a lot.
The Good, The Bad
I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person. I look forward to following what he has to say.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) June 1, 2016
https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/737767771057053697
I know, I know, you've never heard of David French, so he must be some nobody unworthy of the Oval Office, right? pic.twitter.com/FA6wgSX5RE
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) June 1, 2016
More power to David French if he's willing to put himself out there to express an actual conservative philosophy. Takes guts.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 31, 2016
Huge respect for both @DavidAFrench & @BillKristol, but this is like picking @GeorgeWill to pitch for your fantasy baseball team.
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) May 31, 2016
David French is a good, thoughtful, principled man. The idea that he would have a "real chance" is preposterous.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 31, 2016
https://twitter.com/woodruffbets/status/737754040046522368
https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/737752533607841794
As elite media sneers, take a moment to reflect on the difference in the characters of David French, Hillary, and the Donald
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) June 1, 2016
I like David French but I think this may be the moment #NeverTrump goes from tragedy to farce. https://t.co/VrYjGt5r1y
— John Sexton (@verumserum) May 31, 2016
and The Ugly
https://twitter.com/kincannon_show/status/737798612881690625
https://twitter.com/genophilia/status/737797321149190144
https://twitter.com/_AltRight_/status/737806301611196421
https://twitter.com/cerenomri/status/737810659983937536
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Comments
I agree with Guy Benson in the tweets above. He’s a great guy, but the idea that he could, at this point in the game, be considered a candidate for the President of the United States is just ridiculous.
He can’t get on all the ballots, he doesn’t have major name recognition, and he doesn’t have the cash to run as an independent candidate. For those who yell and scream that Trump doesn’t have experience in an elected position, how does David French counter that? How could French get into the debates?
If the irrational #NeverTrump crowd were really serious about putting out a candidate that would take down Trump (and let Hillary win the election), then they should have trotted out French months ago.
He’s a joke that won’t even be on the ballot in most states.
The #NeverTrump clowns already wasted months throwing a hundred million dollars at Jeb! and then financing Rubio massively losing his own state.
French is their last resort because they know damn well that anybody that was actually a Republican candidate would be rightly excoriated as a traitor and accomplish nothing.
So they’re stuck with a 3rd stringer that 99% of America has never even heard of. And they’re still going to accomplish nothing but piss people off.
I almost would prefer a Hillary win just to see the ‘cuckservative’ slinging alt right die its deserved death.
I really admire Mr. French and I agree with just about everything he writes.
But his independent run is not good for anyone.
Chaos and corruption for four years folks, strap in.
Looks like #NeverTrump just jumped the shark and drowned in the kiddie pool.
Kristol’s gotta be one sick puppy to push one of his own writers into a race to try and save Hillary Clinton from defeat. Did Kristol threaten him with loss of income? Did he really think America is yearning for a journalist to be President?
I feel sorry for French if he got badgered into this debacle. But either way, sux to be him.
Not quite. French writes for National Review. Kristol publishes The Weekly Standard.
You are right — thanks for the correction!
David who? #NeverWhatsHisName
Sorry all y’all. Sometimes I can’t resist being a smarta**.
This will make about as big a splash as Bloomberg’s candidacy. It’s a very weird thing to do—perhaps Kristol fantasizes that, in some mystical manner, this will finally put The Weekly Standard into the black.
Prediction: the neologism “Kristolline” will soon replace “quixotic” in English; same meaning, but much easier to spell.
he always struck me as a really good guy
Pardon me if Mr Memory is leading me astray, but I think you said something similar about Loretta Lynch.
And to think people were throwing around names of governors and senators… then it turns out to be some obscure Kristol underling journalist at the dying National Review. lolol
You poor moron. Kristal is the National Review.
You know a lot about conservatives! My ass…!!!
NOT the National Review. The Weekly Standard.
did you want a couple more guesses?
lol — talk about hoisted by your own petard; hey that “moron” hat you were handing out fits you perfectly 🙂
I admit, dig deeply enough into these journalistic underlings and I might get the names mixed up.
“…National Review. The Weekly Standard”
No meaningful difference. Both are going down the drain. Both are full of full-of-themselves writers who care nothing for the country, interested in only their nest feathering. Yes, maybe a few exceptions, but they are drowned out by the noise of the hacks like Kristol, who looked lovingly upon the presidency of Obama and fought the presidency of Reagan.
Easy to confuse the two, isn’t it?
Never happen. Too late to get on the Texas ballot.
French is one of my favorite writers over at National Review, smart, honorable, you name it. But come on….if there was even a small chance that he could hit the 10% threshold to get included in the debates, I’d be all for the idea, but this just reeks of an ivory tower conservatism that’s utterly divorced from reality.
In being a NEVER T-rump person, that is simply and exclusively a decision NOT to EVER vote for a Collectivist, which is all T-rump is.
It never implied or implies any affiliation with any kind of “movement”, or support for any impossible alternate candidate.
We’re hosed with the TWO Collectivist pukes we’ve got from the process. No chance now for a decent candidate.
OK, one of the Hillary’s Helpers weighs in.
No not protest too much. It’s a fully retarded idea.
He would make a great Senate candidate somewhere. Another conservative candidate is a terrible terrible terrible idea
There is NO conservative in the race at this time.
Until I see the citation for his Bronze Star, I cannot give him full credit for being military. While service is service, JAG is closer to REMF than to combat.
At first I was impressed by the Bronze Star, then I reacted the same way when I heard JAG. I won’t question the credibility of the award, but I think that this is enough of a red flag to hope they vetted it properly.
there are 2 kinds of Bronze Stars…
the only ones that matter are those with a “V” device attached, so you know they were for valor.
the others are just admin atta-persons, handed out as end of tour awards for officers and senior NCOs.
A jag posing with someone else’s M4. LOL!! Cute!
At first I thought who?
Then after finding his bio on Wikipedia I thought who?
That was my first reaction to obastard. Hussein? I thought we killed the bastard. Oh, different dude. Barak? What the hell is a Barak? Something muzzie women wear? What?
Was Mr. French ever a butler?
I don’t know you’ll have to ask Uncle Bill ( Kristol ).
LOL! He looks just like Grady in The Shining.
Kristol found some French guy — apparently they were all out of Americans.
No.
This whole exercise is putting an exclamation point on who has been screwing middle America from the right. I thought that we had already met our goblin quota with progs.
Sorry, I am not hopeful. As many others said, there is a lot to like about David. I can very easily vote for him in many elections, not just this one against a crook and a cretin. But he is an unknown figure, with little chance to draw anyone who is voting for main parties away from them.
Ultimately, protest vote manifests itself in number of ways and it doesn’t matter what those ways are. If he could add to such vote, more power to him, but I doubt it. I am still either writing in Cruz, or if I feel mischievous, adding +1 to the vote margin by which Trump loses.
I think there are two goals: 1) try to stop anybody from getting to 270 electoral college votes to throw the election to the House to decide; and 2) give conservatives a reason to turn out to vote and prevent a massacre down ballot. A poll conducted less than two weeks ago indicated 55% of Americans want an independent to run because Trump and Hillary are such horrible options.
http://theantimedia.org/majority-want-independent-trump-clinton/
As far as down ballot races go, I think Trump wants Democrat Chuck Schumer to be the next Senate Majority Leader, especially if Trump somehow gets elected. He has donated so much money to Schumer that he owns him. It is perfectly obvious that Trump’s supporters hate Republicans. They say it constantly. Trump takes massive public dumps on governors that Republican voters like, such as Nikki Haley, Scott Walker, and Susana Martinez because he is giving red meat to his Republican hating supporters. I can’t think of a single sitting Democrat governor Trump has shit on.
Trump has said he identifies more as a Democrat than a Republican. In 2008 he said Hillary would make a great president. In the clip below he talks about how much love he has for Hillary and Bill Clinton, and what a good job she did as Secretary of State.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5A02pNcGHs
It takes a lot of gall, after Trump takes massive dumps on Republicans and Trump’s supporters constantly talk about how much they hate Republicans for them to run around saying if you don’t vote for Trump then you’re betraying the party or you secretly want Hillary to win or some other nonsense.
Good luck, David French.
Last person on the internet? No.
I hadn’t heard until coming to this site. Other then this site, the blogs I read regularly hadn’t mentioned it. So I checked the “Blogs I read” column, only three site mentioned it. Weaselzippers, instapundit, and Twitchy, and Twitchy would have it if Romney, Ryan, KRistol and the Gush family were tweating about it all day
Instapundit has an interesting headline BTW — because Lyndon LaRouche turned him down.
One thing which is a concern for me.
Mr. French may have given permission to release his name as a probable candidate, either as early hype or a trial balloon. In which case whatever fallout happens is on him.
OTOH, there may be people who have released his name in the hope to pressure him to run, without his permission. Being #neverTrump is a fr cry from declaring yourself as a presidential candidate against Trump. People may be doing him a disservice by spreading his name.
He has two paths: 1) the weird Utah win plus tie between Hillary/Trump sending it to the House for a compromise vote. 2) Hillary’s indictment and Dem’s voting for him just because they want to stick it to the Donald.
.00001% is still a chance, isn’t it?
Regardless, if he wants to run, he can have my vote. If Trump loses because of this guy, perhaps that’ll teach Republicans to make more of substance over style in the future when it comes time to groom presidential candidates. My vote is not for Hillary, it’s for the future.
Yeah, no.
A vote for this, with no chance of winning, at all, is a vote for Hillary.
Why don’t you and Rags man up and vote for her instead of fantasizing about “winning” with impossible 3rd party candidates?
At least with a Hillary win we can point out how liberals took down the country in their 12 years of oval office occupation. If Trump wins, he gives conservatism a bad name (most likely) and sets back true conservatism by more than a decade as no one will want another whiff of him.
I’m not interested in pyrrhic victories.
True conservatism like the Bushes, McCain, And Mittins?
For all interested parties, the anime on the @genophilia’s avatar is Crimea Prosecutor General Natalia Poklonskaya.
It’s really simple. Conservatives have principles and the establishment has interests. Donald Trump played the populist in Jan & Feb but as the wave started slowing down in March, he aggressively courted the establishment in April and early May. Establishment likes Donald because he makes deals. They don’t trust people like Cruz who stick to their guns. And that’s how he won – a cascade of late endorsements from establishment types.
Conservatives survived and prospered during the eight years under Obama – the country didn’t prosper, but the movement grew. Look at the conservative blogosphere eight years ago – before the tea party. If they’re going to be left off the Trump train anyway, then there’s no reason for them not to stick to their principles and grow the movement. It’s about the long game.
It’s not going to be easy, but if Kristol, French, etc play their cards right, they’ll be kingmakers in the next cycle or two. Think it can’t happen? Look at Daily Kos – it started from nothing and within a few years got Obama nominate and elected. Of course if they don’t do it right, then they’ll just be a historical footnote like Ross Perot.
The Conservative Movement, in this country, moved, en mass, into the Unibomber’s cabin in 2008. Conservatives have had NO appreciable impact on US policies since 2000.
There have been NO conservatives, by the current definition, in the Democrat Party, since the early 1940s. Today, the constituency of that party is far to the left of Vladimir Lenin. Conservatism, in the Republican Party, went terminal in 1980, when Goldwater was sunk by establishment interests. Today’s Conservative movement is largely controlled by the political establishment. Even when a supposed “conservative” politician is elected to national office, within two years, that politician is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the Washington politicians. The Tea-Party, has all but disappeared. Standing on street corners waving Gadsden flags at passing motorists, does not constitute effective political influence. It is nothing more than a feel-good gesture. And, the Tea-Party was totally ineffective at implementing any of their conservative fiscal agenda.
The biggest delusion is that Bill Kristol, et al, are Conservatives. They are not They are part of the existing Washington political establishment. They have been more supportive of Obama policies, which are diametrically opposed to the “principles” of conservatives, than they have been critical.
Now, there are real conservatives out there. Many of them are voting for Trump. Then there are the cocktail circuit conservatives. These people claim to be conservatives, but are very careful not to do anything that will get them kick-off the cocktail party circuit. It is pretty easy to tell which is which.
If Trump is anti-establishment, then why is John Boehner supporting Trump, his texting buddy? Why does Mitch McConnel vouch for him and say that he’ll adjust to the views of the Republican party?
AFAIC, Mr. French is not under federal investigation nor entangled in a lawsuit claiming fraudulent business acts practiced by him.
That alone probably disqualifies him.
Perhaps some are too quick to naysay French. I seem to remember a great deal of naysayers WRT the hump as well.
If he runs, he’ll probably get my vote, not that it will matter in this state full of hump-sucking, stump-jumping, ignorant hillbillies champing at the bit to vote for a carnival-barking, orange toad who shape-shifts because he knows nothing and has no core beliefs or ethic.
He can’t even get on the ballot in Texas. How the hell would he even have a prayer of winning without that?
French isn’t a loser now, but if he undertakes Kristol’s Quixotic quest to launch an independent run for Prersident he will be.
There are a number of good things that’ve come out of the last number of years. Such as both parties have now been exposed for what they are. Bill Krystal conservatives have done none of the heavy lifting in any of these efforts.
They’ve been to self absorbed in they think demonstrating how much smarter they are than everyone else. They never can admit they’ve been wrong.
I admit I was wrong. For to long I thought these types were allies to be worked with. They’re no such thing. They’ve never done a damn thing that doesn’t advance the cause of anything other than their own ego & vanity.
Some are noted for the dump they invariably take in the comments section of this site.
“They’ve never done a damn thing that doesn’t advance the cause of anything other than their own ego & vanity.”
Surely, you must be talking about Trump, right?
Now if the “heavy-lifting” Don Juan Miller wanted French as VP would the Trumpettes be pleased? I don’t think so. Snooki is a better match for the self-absorbed Trump.
I absolutely would prefer French over Trump. French didn’t silver spoon himself (Trump’s foot bone spurs) out of military service. French is not a coward like Cheeto-head Trump. (You know Trump is a coward by the way the Dictator must bad mouth others. Trump picks fights with others so he can look brave and powerful (the NYC rodent that roared!) while leveraging his brand to “win” personal influence and gain at any cost. Trump is all dressed up as a polemic with no core beliefs to go to.) Trump is no soldier of America. Trump is Commodus.
There has been nothing so irrational as Trump and his devotees. Both will excoriate good men, both are dismissive of those not like themselves – who won’t submit to Trump rule, both are bullies who trample on others and the Constitution to establish the kingdom of Trump.
Trump is not the antidote to Obama’s eight years or to a Hillary nomination. That would be a conservative like Ted Cruz. Another identity politic candidate is not the answer.
Oligarch Trump does not represent the middle class by any stretch of the imagination. Conservatives represent the best interests of everyone in terms of Constitutional protection. So, I will write in Ted Cruz and if I find a conservative down ballot then I will vote for him or her. I would never enroll in Trump U.
I’m no fan of Trump but I’ll take him any day of the week over Hillary. I think these NeverTrump folks need to get over it and move on to other races; get true conservatives elected to Congress and state govs while retaining as many of the good ones we’ve got already. By doing this they can at least limit the damage they fear Trump may do. Barring something catastrophic happening to Trump, such as dropping dead from a sudden unexpected heart attack, he is definitely going to be the nominee.
Professor, weren’t you both teaching at Cornell law at the same time? If so, perhaps you could share your thoughts on the man.
Victor Davis Hanson has taken the side of & the motives that drive those of us that have come to support Trump in the message he is able to convey. I know, I know, who is V D H?
That attitude as conveyed by 2 out of the 3 of you that commented on my comment just before, just above validates that, my initial comment.
Links, liar. Hanson has compared T-rump to the American Napoleon.
You lying POS.
“You lying POS”
For those that are not intellectually challenged, it is easy enough to find:
http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/
“Simply because lots of people have become exhausted by political and media elites who have thought very highly of themselves — but on what grounds it has become increasingly impossible to figure out.”
And
Why Republicans Will Vote For Trump
http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=9317
And if you read that as “rah-rah” for Der Donald, you’re every bit the idiot I’ve known you are for months. No fixing stupid.
“Victor Davis Hanson has taken the side of & the motives that drive those of us that have come to support Trump in the message he is able to convey.”
That was the statement, a bit short of calling it “rah, rah”.
And supported by Hanson’s words. Completely.
The only idiots are those so deranged by trump they distort even the most simple statement that doesn’t denigrate trump. You use the word “lie” when it is completely inappropriate here, your normal modus operandi.
Or perhaps you cannot read. But I’m going to stick with “you lie”. It’s just what you do.
“If Donald Trump manages to curb most of his more outrageous outbursts by November, most Republicans who would have preferred that he did not receive the nomination will probably hold their noses and vote for him.
How could that be when a profane Trump has boasted that he would limit Muslim immigration into the United States, talked cavalierly about torturing terrorist suspects and executing their relatives, promised to deport all eleven-million Mexican nationals who are residing illegally in the U.S., and threatened a trade war with China by slapping steep tariffs on their imports?”
And this is just Hanson’s opening.
YOUR TDS is reflexive and disgusting, cultist.
Right on cue, the practiced liar rags leaves out the very next line from Hanson:
“A number of reasons come to mind.”
No one has said Hanson likes or endorses Trump. Your straw is rotten. It’s pretty clear to anyone with an IQ above yours (50+) that Hanson will vote for Trump, warts and all.
Please, please, no more Harvard Law graduates.
Death threats are of course totally out of bounds and those making them should be called out.
But this shows – at least to me – that Kristol’s only goal was to run a spoiler and he doesn’t are if Hillary gets elected.
He and those who side with him think it will be enough to have Trump lose so they can rub the loss in the faces of his supporters who had the nerve to not fall in line with their preferences.
They may think they can blame the Trump supporters for another progressive POTUS but they are wrong. Everyone but them is going to see a Hillary win for what it was – sabotage by the sore loser contingent in the GOP.
Those Republicans who have saddled us with Donald Trump bear DIRECT responsibility for offering the nation no choices for POTUS other than progressives. Burning down the house as a preferred method of spring cleaning makes very little sense to most people, so you shouldn’t be surprised that such a significant number of Republicans just can’t envision Donald Trump as the party’s savior. Everybody understands the problems, we simply disagree on the solutions.
Every faction within the party is currently jockeying for influence and Kristol’s group is no exception. They would be negligent in not doing so. With the right guarantees the whole third party threat can be made to go away. The “big tent” philosophy of politics necessitates contentious battles for influence and very often compromises that leave everybody feeling they got screwed. That’s presently where we are. Trump has a lot of work to do.
David who?
It is interesting to see people, who are so worried about the health of the Republican party, attempting to destroy that party’s nominee and give the Presidency to the opposition party, whose likely nominee is a small step from federal indictment. Who will be Hillary’s VP?
What gives? After all, a President can be reined in by a moderately determined Congress or even an honest judiciary. We are not electing an autocratic dictator here, just a CEO.
But, even if David What’s-his-name runs third party, it is unlikely to siphon off any significant Trump support, especially among independents and new Republican voters. And, he will not pick up enough votes to impact the Electoral College. This is simply a desperation play on the part of entrenched establishment Republicans who are afraid they will be thrown off the gravy train, should Trump win the Presidency.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/06/01/trump-reassures-wealthy-donors-he-wont-try-to-oust-mitch-mcconnell-or-paul-ryan/
Bullshit.
And I toldja…!!! T-rump IS Mr. Establishment. He’s just full of boob bait for the boobs. Recognize yourself in that?
This confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have a bifactional ruling party and nothing else.
The neocons realize that Trump freezes them out of their juicy power positions. I am not surprised they are running a spoiler. I am surprised that anyone cares.
This just in ;
In an open letter addressed to Ragspierre, Carl Rove wants to know what the hell Rags did to the Cub Scoutmaster uniform he loaned out to Rags.
I get my own lithium-dependent, penis-breathed little troll!
Sort of compliment, when you think about it…
Kristol might find himself more comfortable in Russia, where an oligarchy system is more securely in place.
Who IS the very embodiment of an American oligarch EXCEPT T-rump…???
What a fool!
This puts to bed any and all talk about being ‘principled’ or caring about the republic. You would rather run a spoiler to keep a member of the ruling elite in power than see the country returned to the citizens.
You can all keep your lying cans shut from now on. Or every single time you open it I have two three words. David French Neocon.
Now we know what you were fighting for the whole time. Nobody’s protesting. We’re mocking you. Mocking anyone who takes this seriously and mocking anyone who tries the lies about ‘collectivist’ or any other horse hockey.
Perot isn’t giving it to a Clinton this year.
This guy couldn’t be more irrelevant if he tried and Kristol just showed his true colors collectivist, commie, red.
You poor idiot!
T-rump IS a Collectivist. A Progressive fraud. It isn’t even a close question. That IS who he IS.
Krisol for all his faults is a conservative.
And you are a moron.
And French was a concern troll for Trayvon Martin. Egg on his face? Looks like he buried himself in the whole omelet.
He wrote a concern troll column for Martin. Could he get more squishy and to the left?
He’s a joke and a bad one.
David French Neocon. Now I add Trayvon Martin apologist. Please bring more. You have to work much harder to get Hillary elected.
You omitted a link to your bullshit.
BUT, given what you say about French is true, that does not negate the FACT that T-rump IS a Collectivist.
Does it, moron?
And here… through the Miracle of Al Gore’s Internets…
Help for those lacking the basic intelligence to drop “Trayvon French” into a search engine:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/conservatives-and-the-trayvon-martin-case/
— excerpted from mmmDuh the Intertubes are Hard
If you were paid could you be more repulsive? Could you drop more crudities from your poisoned fingers onto our collective electronic boards?
Since I do not stipulate Trump is a ‘collectivist’ that won’t fly. Since French is a Trayvon Martin apologist please keep stepping in it.
Trump is bad. Hillary is evil. French is, well, I would be proud to call him my friend, but outside the bubble he and I inhabit, he is nobody.
I think the real threat to the Republicans is the Hillary Clinton bait and switch. A. McCarthy is right. If you pull Clinton off the podium at the right moment and nominate someone like Biden, Trump loses Clinton as a foil. Clinton does much worse against Trump than a generic Democrat.
OK, knowing that it is going to get the #NeverTrump people out in force, allow me to offer some practical experience.
First, let me note and stipulate all the problems with getting a 3rd party candidate on the ballot as rehearsed for us so many times by the GOPe after nominating a GOPe lop in the past. Practically, you need to start one or more full election cycles before the election you intend to first impact.
Now, I have run a Republican presidential campaign at the county level in 1988. A winning presidential campaign. Or to be more accurate, I was one of the 5 activists who actually ran it. One person cannot do it.
And I note that the “official” campaign heads were not part of that group. There are those who get the prestige and show up for newspaper photos because they have some local celebrity, and there are those who actually do the work. The official campaign heads never set foot in county HQ, never manned a phone, never coordinated with precinct chairs to guarantee outreach to voters in every precinct in the county, or actually did any work.
My real job was swing and graveyard shift, so I kept the HQ open on days, coordinated a multi-county talk radio campaign, wrote, produced, and performed in a series of radio commercials that drove the Dukakis people crazy, to the point where they publicly threatened to sue us for our “lies” . . . but I had another series of commercials ready giving the proof of what I said that I triggered after letting their threat sink in, and it shut them up for the rest of the campaign. I begged, borrowed, and stole [from state HQ] the supplies that we needed. I, and my fellow worker crazies, were putting in at least 30 hours a week besides our regular jobs. Without pay.
And we had the advantage of an intact and working Republican precinct organization.
We are a small county, and fairly tightly knit, so our small organization was able to do it. Here in Colorado there are 64 Counties or “Cities and Counties”. If you are going to win a state, you first have to win the counties/cities/precincts. It is going to take a lot more than 5 people per county in small counties, dozens in larger counties. And you will have to develop precinct organizations. And they have to be workers, not REMF figureheads. And they have to be in as many states as possible.
You are going to have to do it with limited funds. I grant there will be some covert aid from the Democrats, and a bit more than a little covert and some overt aid from the GOPe Republicans.
But starting in June, you are not going to a) petition to get on the ballot in states, b) build that big an organization of actual workers who know the area and who know what moves them, and c) be able to have a big enough impact to actually win a state in November. You will be able, possibly, to give a couple of states to Hillary and help her win [which is the actual goal I grant], but you are not going to be able to win any states.
Rule of thumb. If you are going to run a statewide campaign [assuming you already have guaranteed ballot access from a major party], you start planning 1-2 years ahead of the election, and you start the county campaigns a year before the election. That is what we have done in both 2012 and 2014. Funny thing, in my county not one Democrat candidate or ballot issue that appeared on our county ballots won in our county. So what we did seems to work.
Y’all are going to do what you are going to do. I accept that you will oppose Trump during the campaign, after he is elected, and in all issues that come up, foreign or domestic during a Trump presidency regardless of who you end up allying with. I am not going to try to argue you out of it, because it cannot be done. I also accept that you believe a Hillary presidency and destruction of the constitution [or a Sanders presidency, a Biden presidency, or a post-constitutional Obama 3rd term] would be preferable to a Trump presidency. It is what it is.
Where are you going to get that many people, willing to work that hard, for free for David French? Or where are you going to get the money to pay them [it ain’t cheap paying campaign workers].
And just in passing, I would bet that the effort involved is going to have a not positive effect on retention of control of Congress and state houses.
Now, go ahead and cuss me out, but I would appreciate it if you could have someone who has done the scut work of running a campaign be one of the ones explaining how I am wrong.
Subotai Bahadur
“I also accept that you believe a Hillary presidency and destruction of the constitution [or a Sanders presidency, a Biden presidency, or a post-constitutional Obama 3rd term] would be preferable to a Trump presidency. It is what it is.”
I don’t know who you think has made that case. I certain have not.
I simply won’t vote for either Collectivist fraud.
I’ve ALSO never made the case for a third party. In fact, the opposite is true when T-rump suckers were all over that idea.
I WISH we had a chance at a viable third party now, but we’re stuck with the two pukes we have. Neither of which will get my vote.
Billy Kristol (CON) continues to pull the wool over the eyes of the #nevertrump crowd, all one hundred or so.
Remarkable on many levels. A first class columnist with a stellar background actually walks his talk. Also, the nevertrump faction now has a reason to show up to vote and support gop candidates down ballot. Finally, why are so many insurrection readers so averse to this thoroughly legal insurrection?
Trayvon Martin apologist.
Just to be clear, you’re a raving bigot and a liar.
I invite anyone and everyone to read Mr. French’s piece you are lying about, and find where he’s an “apologist” for Martin.
Helping Hillary Clinton pack the SCOTUS with liberals to salve our bruised egos and ruffled feathers like French Kristol is not what many would consider an ‘insurrection”.
This is the way to go about this:
1) Nominate the same candidate for vice-president but different candidates for president in all those states where you have to work to get on the ballot.
The candidate for vice president should be a millionaire or billionaire who can and will legally contribute an unlimited amount of money. He or she can especially finance all the efforts to get on the ballot.
It could be someone like David Koch – in fact David Koch himself is maybe a possibility. He did this once before, in 1980, running as the Libertarian vice presdential candidate so he could contribute money. The VP candidate will have no chance of actually becoming vice president or president, since the Senate gets to pick only from the top two, so whether anybody wants him as president or vice president is not an issue.
Nominating different candidates for president in different states is modeled somewhat on the strategy the Whigs slipped into in the Presidential election of 1836.
In some states, if the local Republican Party puts a somewhat acceptable name on the ballot, and you think the Electors will not vote for Trump in the end, don’t run anyone.
2) Don’t even try to get on all 50 state ballots. It’s not necessary. Nor is it necessary to get into the debates, but a separate debates or town halls might be held once people start saying they might vote for one of them..
3) Important: The different candidates will compete to see who can come in third in the Electoral College. This actually works better than if there is the same candidate in 35 or so different states.
The fact that only one third party candidate can make it into the House of Representatives, but if he does, is likely to become president, will encourage wavering voters, especially in states that usually vote Democrat, to vote for the third party candidate, if that candidate is someone they like or like better than say, Ted Cruz, who might be running in Texas, and likely to win its 38 Electoral votes.
This works also if the Texas candidate is Coburn.
4) Call the party with the multiple candidates for president but single candidate for vice president the Whig party. (as good a name as any, and the name gets more free publicity
Now confirmed to blame Trump for the mob violence. French hasn’t said a word since blaming Trump before San Jose. Trayvon Martin apologist. Neocon Joke. Blames the victims for the riots.
You can’t make this up. This is Bill Kristol’s man.