Today is the first day for candidates to file for the Oklahoma primaries. The radio report I heard says that Huckabee and Edwards are early favorites. You may recall from previous posts (and the banners on this page) that I am supporting Fred Thompson. That has not changed. I do believe that a conservative is best for America, including those of us religious types, and Fred is the true conservative (with the record to support the claim).

That said, I fall into the camp that most any Republican candidate would be better than any of the Democratic alternatives. But, I like to talk about who is best–not just who is better than the worst.

I am not fond of Giuliani, mainly because he is very socially liberal. I know he has a good record in New York City (how could we forget? He mentions is every three seconds). But his stances on abortion (I don’t think he even knows what it really is) and gun rights (when he decides you are safer unarmed, that’s what is best), and immigration (y’all come and bring the kids!) are enough to turn me way off, however good he may be on fiscal issues.

But then there’s Huckabee, who is really emerging as the darling of the religious base. I don’t doubt Huckabee’s faith in the least. We are Christians of the same denomination, and he very well might have been a wonderful minister. If we were voting on whether he should be called as pastor or even to a denominational post, he’d probably be very appealing. However, I have the same issue with Huckabee as I do Giuliani. He’s a half conservative. What I mean is, he may be socially conservative on all the issues I care about, but reports are showing him to have been very moderate liberal fiscally. From what I can tell, Huckabee amounts to Bush 43 44 [What a stupid mistake! I meant to indicate that Huck would be another in the model of Bush on conservative principles, but I used W's number by mistake. Duh!]. Big government, nanny state, compassionate conservatism liberalism socialism (I really do love President Bush. He has been great on things like the war, judges, and taxes, but he has also spent more then Clinton ever thought about, made some serious mistakes regarding the Law of the Sea Treaty, and created some monstrous government bureaucracies. I had hopes that he would be more staunchly conservative, but he told us about the whole compassionate conservatism thing when he ran).

Don’t get me wrong, if it were a choice between Huckabee and Giuliani, I take Huckabee in a walk. With him I just lose more of my money. With Rudy we lose our guns, our sovereignty, and our babies.

I remain committed to the idea that a solid conservative, on both fiscal and social issues, is best for all Americans, us theo-cons included. A small-government, tax-cutting, spending-slashing, freedom-spreading conservative giant is who we need. The closest option we have is Fred Thompson. And I know there are many who have all kinds of comments about him. They sound eerily to what I have read were said about The Ronald when he ran (cut me some slack, I was 3). And that didn’t turn out so bad.

There is a real danger in voting for something just because 1) he’s a Baptist (so were/are Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Brad Henry–how’d that work out for ya?) and 2) he has a charming persona (and we’re back to Clinton). Those are not reasons to vote against a person, either. I am just saying there should be some genuine substance behind the faith and charm. Plus, I saw Huckabee on Kenneth Copeland’s show the other day calling him “Brother Kenneth.” That causes me some real pause as to his judgment.

My one huge like regarding Huckabee is his support of the FairTax. He’s smart enough to know it’s a winning issue/concept, even if he was a big tax increaser in Arkansas. And, I’ll admit that I wish Fred would jump on the FairTax like a rabid howler monkey. But, his camp seems to recognize the reality that the FairTax (which Fred has said he would sign if passed) will take significant time and effort to ramrod through the K-street lobbyists and into and out of Congress. Thus, Fred has released a plan for significant reform to the current tax code. It’s a good plan, and we cannot let the perfect be enemy of the good. In my little mind, it would seem to make sense to proceed with Fred’s reforms while launching an all-out campaign for the FairTax. A Thompson/Huckabee ticket, with the VP’s sole task being the pursuit of the FairTax, would be very attractive to me.

We’ll see how it goes…