No silly squabbles over the line item veto this time, which is good. Fred looked a a lot better in this debate. Still as Bryon York says, this is a wide open race. Time is running out for conservatives to coalesce behind a candidate to stop Rudy. If we split four ways, he’ll be the nominee, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. I prefer Rudy to Hillary, and won’t be voting for a third party candidate. But we ought to demand a conservative candidate now, while we have time. I’m going with Thompson myself. I like his stand on federalism, I like his common sense conservative positions across the board, and I am hopeful that he will be able to shake off the rust and run a the vigorous campaign he has to run. I think he’s getting better as he goes. What does everybody else think? Where do you all stand on candidates? Too early to tell? Love for Ron Paul? Mittheads?

Republican Party leaders on Monday recommended punishing five states for shifting their nomination contests earlier, moving to strip New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming of half their delegates.At least one state, South Carolina, is considering legal action in an effort to keep its delegates to next year’s Republican National Convention.

Iowa, which plans to hold Republican caucuses on Jan. 3, would not be penalized because, technically, the caucuses are not binding on convention delegates. Nevada, which plans to hold its caucuses on Jan. 19, would not be penalized for the same reason.

“It’s very important that our party uphold and enforce the rules that we unanimously voted into place at the Republican National Convention in 2004,” said Mike Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The rules ban holding votes before Feb. 5.

Wilmington Star

I don’t really know anything about this Mike Duncan, but after reading this my first impression is that he might be as much of a bonehead as Martinez. Howard Dean gave the Republicans a small gift in Florida and Michigan when he decided to not count the states’ votes in the Democratic Presidential nominations. I think the party could seize that opportunity to pull over some disgruntled Democrats disenfranchised by the DNC’s decision (the alliteration here was not intentional) and maybe help us win those two states next year. Instead Duncan wants to do almost the same thing.