Stephen Green summarizes at PJM:

When asked point-blank if he’d support the Republican nominee next fall, (Ron) Paul answered just as Grosse Pointe-blankly: “No.” Unless the party retreats from Iraq – and Germany and Korea and Japan, too – then Paul wants nothing to do with the Republicans. That said, Paul should stick to his principles and RSVP “thanks but no thanks” to the next debate, and the one after that, and so on. If he’s not even going to pretend to be a Republican, he ought to go back to the Libertarian Party where he and his five million dollars would be more than welcome. In the meantime, he’s just taking up space, time, and a whole lot of hot air.

Thompson’s performance was much more low-key than Paul’s, which is like saying that napping tree sloth is somewhat calmer than a spider monkey hopped up on Mountain Dew and herbal Viagra. Over the course of a two hour debate, I caught Thompson mentioning exactly one hard fact – Israel’s air strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant, way back in 1981. The rest of the time, Thompson spoke in platitudes, slowly, and yet still stumbled through some of his answers. The good news, if you can call it that, is the expectations game. After a month of dismal campaigning, Fred looked pretty good just showing up fully dressed and speaking in complete sentences. …

Really, today’s debate was the Mitt & Rudy Show. Romney and Giuliani were offered more questions than any other three or four candidates, and neither of them made any major flubs. There was one telling moment, however, just minutes before the end of the debate. CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo asked Giuliani if London would ever replace New York “as the world’s financial capital.” As I wrote on my blog, live during the debate, “Rudy basically gave her the New Yorker Single Finger Salute.” Ain’t nobody bigger ’an New Yawk, lady. When asked the same question a moment later, Romney gave a canned answer, which included mention of some obscure provision of the impenetrable Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

You have to give this debate to Rudy on points and style, and hope that the real Fred Thompson shows up at the next one – if ever.

I watched the first hour. Thompson seemed surprisingly nervous and unprepared to me. He also looked unwell. He kept his head bent forward in a perpetual stoop, as if he had to minimize his height to get into the angle of the camera, and he looked drawn and cadaverous.

The Romney-Giuliani exchange was telling, and left a little blood in the water. Giuliani boasted he cut taxes 23 times as New York mayor, and Romney nailed him by noting that it was hizzoner who sued all the way to the Supreme Court to kill the presidential line-item veto. Giuliani scuttled to hide under the protection of the Constitution, claiming it was only what a strict constructionist like himself had to do. A few moments later, he admitted that retaining NYC’s share of federal pork had also motivated him.

I did not even initially recognize second-tier candidates like Brownback, Tancredo, Huckabee, and Hunter, and I was surprised by how articulate and comparatively substantive all of them were. Brownback and Huckabee distinctly increased my interest and respect. But, unfortunately, the way US politics operates, with our dimbulb celebrity-culture media functioning as the filter between reality and the voting public, however meritorious any second-tier candidate might be, unless he starts dating Paris Hilton, he is just not going to get the attention needed to compete effectively.

Ron Paul was also an effective speaker, but I doubt that his economic prescriptions (which implicitly demanded a return to the Gold Standard) or his foreign policy of isolationist pacifism are going to win him a lot of support.

Thompson survived, but his performance can only have disappointed and alarmed those of us hoping he’d provide a conservative electoral choice. Fortunately, only journalists, bloggers, and the rest of an infinitesimal minority of intensely political Americans were watching. He still has lots of time to get into shape and improve.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft expresses a European’s natural astonishment at the willingness of the American Republic to take seriously candidacies to high public office based entirely upon dynastic pretensions.

Among so much about American politics that can impress or depress a friendly transatlantic observer, there’s nothing more astonishing than this: Why on Earth should Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton be the front-runner for the presidency?

She has now pulled well ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, both in polls and in fundraising. If the Democrats can’t win next year, they should give up for good, so she must be considered the clear favorite for the White House. But in all seriousness: What has she ever done to deserve this eminence? How could a country that prides itself on its spirit of equality and opportunity possibly be led by someone whose ascent owes more to her marriage than to her merits? …

..in no other advanced democracy today could someone with Clinton’s résumé even be considered a candidate for national leadership. It’s true that wives do sometimes inherit political reins from their husbands, but usually in recovering dictatorships in Latin America such as Argentina… or Third World countries such as Sri Lanka or the Philippines — and in those cases often when the husbands have been assassinated. …

What a contrast (to Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher) Hillary Clinton presents! Everyone recognizes the nepotism or favoritism she has enjoyed: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written that without her marriage, Clinton might be a candidate for president of Vassar, but not of the United States. And yet the truly astonishing nature of her career still doesn’t seem to have impinged on Americans.

Seven years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had a somewhat tenuous connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation (particularly once Rudy Giuliani decided not to run against her). Until that point, she had never won or even sought any elective office, not in the House or in a state legislature. Nor had she held any executive-branch position. The only political task with which she had ever been entrusted was her husband’s health-care reforms, and she made a complete hash of that.

The DesMoines Register reports:

Mitt Romney still leads in Iowa but Fred Thompson, a relative newcomer to the presidential race, has emerged as his nearest competitor in a new Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus participants.

Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani are in a close fight for third place in the Iowa Poll taken over three days last week.

It’s early October, Thompson is moving up in the polls, and Manhattan’s vest pocket Mussolini is doing about as well as an obscure governor of Arkansas. Not bad.

ABC News:

An eagle-eyed reporter for the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, noticed something missing from Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., lapels.

“You don’t have the American flag pin on. Is that a fashion statement?” the reporter asked, at the end of a brief interview with Obama on Wednesday. “Those have been on politicians since Sept. 12, 2001.”

The standard political reply to that question might well have been, “My patriotism speaks for itself.”

But Obama didn’t say that.

Instead the Illinois senator answered the question at length, explaining that he no longer wears such a pin, at least in part, because of the Iraq War.

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

Obama could also have just said that he thought politicians wearing US flag lapel pins had become a cliche, but he did not.

However diplomatically he puts it, stating publicly that he isn’t wearing the US flag because he does not support the war in Iraq is an extremely striking gesture of anti-patriotism.

There really ought to be an alternative lapel pin Obama could substitute, something featuring an emblem identifying the wearer’s membership in what Thomas Sowell likes to refer to as “the elect.” Perhaps a blue background pin with a gold halo on it would do the trick.

In an Iowa interview with Roger Simon, Fred Thompson, promises to fight the good fight to keep the Republican Party principled and conservative.

Fred Thompson has a folksy, good old boy persona on the stump, but it may not last much longer.

When I asked him if he is an 11th Commandment man — Never speak ill of a fellow Republican — he responded, “I am more of a 12th Commandment man: Don’t speak ill of them until they speak ill of me. And then really speak ill of them.”

Thompson’s stump speech contains the warning that Republicans must “stay with our principles” when it comes to choosing a nominee.

I asked him if that was a veiled reference to Rudy Giuliani.

Thompson made a face of mock horror and laughed.

From the New York Times’ point of view, the Council for National Policy (CNP), is some sort of slightly sinister and secretive conspiratorial organ of the Religious Right. When I Googled this organization, and read over the names of members and officers, my own impression was the CNP appeared to be a slightly more diverse networking group of influential and activist movement conservatives, including many famous names. Some, but not all, were prominent figures in the Religious Right.

Not surprisingly, this group of activists did a certain amount of saber-rattling over the possibility of the Republican Party nominating Rudolph Giuliani.

Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

The threat emerged from a group that broke away for separate discussions at a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative networking group. Participants said the smaller group included James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps its most influential member; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer; and dozens of other politically oriented conservative Christians.

Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said.

The participants said that the group chose the qualified term “consider” because it had not yet identified an alternative candidate, but that it was largely united in its plans to bolt the party if Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, became the nominee. The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the Council for National Policy meeting and the smaller meeting were secret, but they said members of the smaller group intended to publicize the resolution.

The CNP leak to the New York Times focussed on the Abortion issue, but I’d say that’s merely one of a number of important reasons that the movement conservative core will never support the former New York City mayor.

Giuliani’s record is that of an opportunist, statist, and populist politician. He originally came to prominence via a series of questionable prosecutions of prominent figures in the financial industry, conducted ruthlessly and in the spirit of class warfare.

Giuliani was so liberal that, back in 1994 when nearly everyone mistook George Pataki for a conservative, Giuliani tried to torpedo his gubernatorial candidacy with a last-minute endorsement of Mario Cuomo.

Neither opponents of abortion nor defenders of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms can have confidence in Giuliani’s current promises or future court appointments.

Nominating Giuliani would be a far greater disaster than nominating Nixon was. A Giuliani nomination would reverse the results of the Conservative Movement’s long and ultimately victorious struggle for control of the Republican Party, and return national control of the party to Northeastern liberal Republicans-in Name-Only.

Giuliani is an unacceptable Republican nominee, period. Real conservatives, both libertarian and traditionalist, will not support him.

Atlanta Constitution reports Harris Poll results:

After officially declaring his candidacy, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson moves ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Fred Thompson on HillaryCare.

1:24 video

Darlene Click had a bit of Photoshop fun over Jane Hamsher’s little lesson for Elizabeth Edwards about never ever (Just Don’t Do It!) criticizing the left.

Hat tip to Jeff Goldstein.

AP:

For months, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised a plan to bring health care to every American.

She was to make good on that pledge Monday, unveiling a sweeping proposal requiring everyone to carry health insurance and offering federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage.

With a price tag of about $110 billion per year, Clinton’s “American Health Choices Plan” represents her first major effort to achieve universal health coverage since 1994, when the plan she authored during her husband’s first term collapsed.

Free federally-provided coverage for the uninsured, mandated policies (paying for the former) for the rest of us, producing dramatically increased consumption of free medical services. Just imagine how much free health care the substance-abusing urban democrat constituent on welfare can consume. Result: federal regulation of physician charges, shortages and queues for the rest of us.

What a deal! The working American gets to pay for free health care for the bums, and then gets to stand in line right along with all the bums he’s paying for. When he finally gets to the head of the line, he will get exactly what the bum who didn’t pay anything gets. That end result will be significantly inferior health services than the American consumer gets now, because those services will need to be spread a lot thinner.

The most able and ambitious doctors will open unregulated clinics in the Caribbean, and the wealthy will fly off in their private jets for health care, while everyone else waits in line for his share of socialized and rationed services.

If Republicans succeed in explaining for a second time what socialized medicine really means, Hillary will be looking like this after the votes are counted.

(used by Taylor Marsh to admonish Elizabeth Edwards)

As the DesMoines Register, Mrs. Candidate Edwards broke the party-line this week by criticizing MoveOn.org’s New York Times ad.

MoveOn.org should not have labeled Gen. David Petraeus “General Betray Us” in a controversial newspaper ad, Elizabeth Edwards said in Des Moines Friday.

So leading left-blogger Jane Hamsher takes Mrs Edwards out to the woodshed and lays down the law.

Here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It. …

When offered the opportunity to cudgel your own side, you pivot and attack. …

There are any number of ways you can answer that question well and none of them involve attacking MoveOn. They’re out there on the left so you can look “moderate.” They’re saying what needs to be said, opening the conversation up so John Edwards isn’t considered the left-wing fringe loon that nobody should listen to. Understand that they have contributed a lot to the anti-war movement and that from a practical standpoint, the Edwards campaign needs the solid support of the base to get where he needs to go and everybody’s feeling a bit played this week because nobody other than MoveOn seems to want to take on the carefully orchestrated dog-and-pony show that just bought us a few more Friedman Units of war. And we’re not very happy when the people we defend turn around and start kicking them for it.

We love you. We want to love you.

Knock it off.

The Giuliani campaign takes a nice shot at Hillary.

1:50 video