Too Late, Too Little

It's official - the true conservative in the 2008 Republican presidential race is out:

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

If the party had wanted to benefit from Fred's candidacy, it would have nominated him.  That it looks to be turning to the Dark Side dismayingly suggests that it hasn't learned a thing from his efforts, and that if it ultimately does, the lesson will be a lot longer and hellish than anybody apparently realizes.

So be it.  Fred got in too late, but the truth is his campaign was the contemporary equivalent of somewhere between Ronald Reagan's 1968 and 1976 bids.  He was the right man, but he chose about the worse election cycle imaginable to run, in which everything he brought to the table - Reaganesque conservatism (and style), serious leadership, and more genuine "straight talk" than John McCain ever dreamed of - was the antithesis of what even Republican voters appear to want.

A GOP that was energized and motivated to go out this year and win, regardless of the odds, would not be flailing around between various shades of decades-obsolete Rockefeller liberalism.  It would know what it stood for, what it wanted to accomplish, where it came from and how it got where it is, where it wanted to go,and who could best take it there.  Maybe - probably - it still wouldn't win, but there'd have been the solace of having left everything "out on the field".  We'd lose, but we'd have no regrets - and no excuses.

The GOP that is is divided, demoralized, dazed, and dizzy.  Its "brand" is in the septic tank, and it stands on the brink of nominating its own Benedict Arnold and in so doing unraveling every last smidgen of the hard-won progress it has made from irrelevant rump entity to governing majority in my lifetime.  It is about to go from unified control of the federal government all the way back to irrelevant rump entity in the space of two years.

Could nominating Fred Thompson have averted that?  Again, probably not.  But we would at least not be forgetting, and willfully abandoning, who we are and what we stand for for the electoral equivalent of three magic beans.  And the foundation would still have been there for a near-term, 1994-like comeback.  After this campaign, though?  Fughedaboudit.

Our prayers are with Fred, Jeri, and their family, and for the recovery of his ill mother, as well as our gratitude for carrying the discarded Reagan mantle as best he could in a time when it was, and is, so short-sightedly unappreciated.  FDT and the GOP deserved so much better.

How much better will become excruciatingly apparent (barring a Romney triumph) over the course of the next few months and years.

UPDATE: Count me in, Dr. Shackleford.  With Fred's departure, where else but to Mitt's banner are we going to go?

UPDATE II: If Pat Ruffini's poll of Fredheads' second choices is accurate, FDT's withdrawal would transform the current Florida polling composite to: Romney 25.6%, McCain 23.9%, Giuliani 21.8%, Huckabee 17.1%.

The term "taking one for the team" comes to mind.