Beware the Ides of March!
I spent all day yesterday (Saturday, 3-11-06) at the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis TN. I was attending the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, where the straw poll for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination showed Sen. Bill Frist with 36% of the vote, Mitt Romney with 14%, George Allen and George W. Bush tied for 10% and John McCain and Mike Huckabee bringing up th rear with less than 5% each.
Earlier in the day I did a “straw poll” of the straw poll voters, asking 20 waiting in line for their choice. 18 said Frist, one said GW and one said Geo. Allen. So much for straw polls.
McCain’s gambit urging his backers to vote for GW didn’t do much good. His goal ws clearly to minimise the hurt he would suffer from a smallish vote. Well, he got what he wished for. And might have done almost as poorly without throwing GW into the mix.
A bunch of prominent Repubs spoke through the day. I was mightily impressed with their command of the issues and their leadership qualities in advocating GOP viewpoints. There’s going to be lots of competition for the 2008 nod, but they all say “Let’s focus on 2006...“ which -- of course is the right thing to do.
Attending a reception for Frist in the afternoon, I got to pose this question to him: “Has there been any movement toward permitting the sale of organs as a way to solve the organ shortage?” His reply was “The organ shortage is terrible, but the problem with allowing the sale of organs is we have to find a mechanism to prevent a black market from developing.”
I reminded him I had written him several rears ago as the head of Citizens for Organ Procurement Rights and that I had such a mechanism. I promised to send it to him. He asked me to do just that.
I’ll send you a copy if you want one.
Whoever gets to seek the Frist Senate seat for the Repubs may well face Memphis’ own Harold Ford Jr. Young Ford is impressive at first glance. But, he’s still got miles to go. I think his latest stumble is the sereies of TV spots he has been running, at least through yesterday, barking at the president for the Dubai Ports deal. He or his people are apparently too lazy, or insensitive to realize that that was “yesterday’s news” -- actually 4 or 5 days ago when the issue was mooted, the UAE folks having thrown in the towel. Ford should have pulled that spot several days sooner! In fact, I’ve been pretty well persuaded that Mr. Bush had good reasons to go along with the deal, and I agree that killing it by the anti-terror knee-jerk reaction of some in Congress may well do us a lot of harm in the Arab world. Your thoughts? I’m in the phone book.
Earlier in the day I did a “straw poll” of the straw poll voters, asking 20 waiting in line for their choice. 18 said Frist, one said GW and one said Geo. Allen. So much for straw polls.
McCain’s gambit urging his backers to vote for GW didn’t do much good. His goal ws clearly to minimise the hurt he would suffer from a smallish vote. Well, he got what he wished for. And might have done almost as poorly without throwing GW into the mix.
A bunch of prominent Repubs spoke through the day. I was mightily impressed with their command of the issues and their leadership qualities in advocating GOP viewpoints. There’s going to be lots of competition for the 2008 nod, but they all say “Let’s focus on 2006...“ which -- of course is the right thing to do.
Attending a reception for Frist in the afternoon, I got to pose this question to him: “Has there been any movement toward permitting the sale of organs as a way to solve the organ shortage?” His reply was “The organ shortage is terrible, but the problem with allowing the sale of organs is we have to find a mechanism to prevent a black market from developing.”
I reminded him I had written him several rears ago as the head of Citizens for Organ Procurement Rights and that I had such a mechanism. I promised to send it to him. He asked me to do just that.
I’ll send you a copy if you want one.
Whoever gets to seek the Frist Senate seat for the Repubs may well face Memphis’ own Harold Ford Jr. Young Ford is impressive at first glance. But, he’s still got miles to go. I think his latest stumble is the sereies of TV spots he has been running, at least through yesterday, barking at the president for the Dubai Ports deal. He or his people are apparently too lazy, or insensitive to realize that that was “yesterday’s news” -- actually 4 or 5 days ago when the issue was mooted, the UAE folks having thrown in the towel. Ford should have pulled that spot several days sooner! In fact, I’ve been pretty well persuaded that Mr. Bush had good reasons to go along with the deal, and I agree that killing it by the anti-terror knee-jerk reaction of some in Congress may well do us a lot of harm in the Arab world. Your thoughts? I’m in the phone book.
posted by David F. Diamond at 6:00 AM
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