For whatever it is worth, here are some endorsements on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses:

For Republicans: Fred Thompson

For Democrats: Barack Obama

For Republicans: Fred Thompson

I find criticisms of Thompson’s supposedly lackluster campaign style to be frankly misplaced. Thompson has cast a solid and consistent issue-oriented campaign that stands in sharp contrast to most of his rivals. The fact that he pursues that campaign with a style that departs from the glitzy and polarizing bash-fest that has unfortunately become the norm in American politics should not be held against him as a negative.

Other Republican candidates just don’t quite make the grade. Mitt Romney is tempting, though his candidacy seems over-programmed and the candidate at times approaches the animatronic. His embrace of negative campaigning when his lead was challenged was eager and telegraphed a candidate that is insecure on the issues, especially in light of his questionable record for philosophic consistency. Contrary to conventional wisdom, candidates should be allowed to change their minds when given good reason to do so, but Romney’s shifts on health care, immigration, and social issues appear merely opportunistic rather than principled.

Mike Huckabee is running merely as the non-Romney alternative for Christian evangelicals. His willing acceptance and even tacit promotion of anti-Mormon bigotry should not be rewarded, even if one were inclined to overlook his often bizarre past statements.  Furthermore, Huckabee’s strange brand of wink-nudge hypocrisy has recently been on full display, with his  holding a press conference to cynically show reporters a negative ad that he supposedly was too ethical to run.  That came after Huckabee’s supposedly innocent and supposedly unintentional smearing of Romney’s religion in an interview followed by an “apology” that served only to provide the candidate with deniability while doing nothing to remove his slander from the public sphere.  Such transparent gambits belie the saintly image that Huckabee has tried to cultivate and leave Huckabee holding the award for the most dirty tricks thus far in the campaign.

John McCain remains tempting for endorsement and has certainly been the darling of newspaper editors in recent weeks. But McCain simply fails to inspire. His warmed-over repetition of his 2000 presidential run is stale and his issue positions seem little more than conventional boilerplate.  McCain remains a tolerable “second choice” (though only Democrats use this rather odd technique for actually counting such votes) and seems likely to receive Thompson’s endorsement if the former Tennessee senator withdraws from the race after a disappointing Iowa showing.

Ron Paul remains the champion of brigades of internet fans who repeatedly Google his name in search of the latest site upon which to descend like locusts with their message of prodigious fund-raising and the novelty of an anti-war Republican candidate. But once one goes beyond merely scratching the surface, Ron Paul becomes revealed as a candidate with positions that are, at best, non-responsive to the realities of the modern world. Paul’s position on economic issues remains stuck in the 1870s and his refusal to spell out the details of what a “non-interventionist foreign policy” would actually look like in practice seriously limits the persuasiveness of his appeal. Also, the bizarre and frequently abusive behavior of so many of his supporters raises serious questions about just what kind of spirit lies beneath the passion of the Ron Paul movement.

For Democrats: Barack Obama

Obama provides what Democrats and, by extension, American politics generally lacks most — fresh blood and an openness to new ideas. While concerns about his level of experience are valid, Obama appears willing to both reach out to experts in various policymaking areas for new ideas and to reevaluate his opinions when necessary. As the failures of the current administration have adequately demonstrated, a good president is not the one who already thinks he or she knows everything, but rather the one who is open to new information and new ideas. Also, the fact that Obama is drawing heavy support from genuinely centrist independents may be a consequence of his clear preference for a consensus-building politics that moves beyond the politics of polarization and hatred that has come to dominate his party in recent years.

Hillary Clinton is tempting to endorse as a consequence of her more centrist and even conservative orientation on many foreign policy issues, but one cannot escape her past. Clinton represents a return to the politics of demonization that were honed and perfected by the Clinton “war room” that she ran well before anyone even knew who Karl Rove was. Her campaign’s embrace of backchannel whispering campaigns and brutally hard-hitting “rapid response” tactics combine with her campaign’s propensity to object to as unfair any attempt to ask the candidate any questions to produce the image of a candidate that is, frankly, too arrogant, brittle, and bitter to be entrusted with the presidency, especially in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s White House.

John Edwards’ reprise of his “people against the powerful” class-warfare theme from 2004 is even more frightening the second time around. Edwards seems to represent the wing of the Democratic party that has appropriately been tagged with charges of gross hypocrisy on economic and environmental issues and concerns about a willingness to be punitive and vindictive towards a a supposedly “wealthy” class which already pays a vastly disproportionate share of taxes anyway and which, in reality, includes many people who are distinctly middle class at best. Edwards’ hard turn towards the pacifist and occasionally even anti-American segments of his party also raise very serious concerns about his willingness to adopt a strong position confronting the threats that face the United States. The U.S. does not need a president who might be inviting a Noam Chomsky or even a Dennis Kucinich to help shape foreign policy.

Endorsements reflect only the opinions of the author and not any institution with which the author may be affiliated nor the Poligazette management team in general.