Remind me, Fred, who was President in 2005?  Also, I love the accent you use in South Carolahnuh.  It will be interesting to see whether that's the same accent you use in New Hampshire.

as millions of illegal immigrants have poured into this country to help enrich Republican-friendly corporations?  How people don't see this is beyond me, but it's true: the Republican Party is weak on illegal immigration, enforcing the law, and securing our borders.  And now, to cover up for their weakness, they're resorting to absurd statements and scare tactics like Fred Thompson's about the "terrorist" Cubans.  Lame.

The rules are simple: if they touch American soil, they get automatic legal status. So by definition, there is no such thing as Cuban illegal alien.

It is funny that Republicans are turning against Cubans though. Cubans are the one solid Latino demographic that they have, and they don't take these kinds of attacks kindly.

Let's see what happens.

Today's Virginian-Pilot, in their section that carries excerpts from various Virginia blogs, includes some great lines from this Democratic Central post.  "If Fred Thompson runs for President, he will run as the "true conservative."  Christian right wingers have convinced themselves that he is pro-life.  They forget that when he was in the Senate, he had a 33% ranking from one pro-life group; that when he ran in 1994 and 1996 he cast himself as pro-choice, and that he filled out a questionnaire that has him saying that the government should not be involved in the decision-making.  So which is it?"

pro-choice.  Where conservatives get the idea that he's "pro-life" (e.g., anti-abortion) is beyond me.  Same with Romney and Giuliani.

I'm sorry, Lowell, but I have to correct you on your use of the term "anti-abortion".

The conservatives' so-called "pro-life" position is "anti-choice", not "anti-abortion".  This is very important.  To use the phrase "anti-abortion" is to suggest that we are "pro-abortion", which we are not. We're "pro-choice" (and the opposite of that is "anti-choice").  All Democrats and candidates should practice that phrase and not let the conservatives frame our message.

aren't "pro-life" as they claim.  If they were, they'd also oppose the Iraq War and capital punishment.  They'd also support efforts to improve womens' access to contraceptives and health care more broadly around the world.  But they don't.  As far as being "anti-abortion," I definitely think conservatives are that, although I also agree with you that they're even more fundamentally against women having the right to choose what to do with their own bodies.  That's just one of the many insidious features of conservative ideology, that it aims to take womens' rights away from them.

For the GOP, but he's not even doing that good in places he should.  The Rural tracking poll put out by the Center For Rural Strategies shows Fred getting a slim 22 percent of the rural vote. 

People are getting more sophisticated, and they just don't respond to some over-hyped movie actor like they used to. If Fred gets the nomination, get out the blue paint.  The White House is getting a new coat.

The GOP hold over rural America is slipping dramatically. Both parties have ignored Rural people for different reasons.

The Dems have because they like to sneer at the rural way of life. Everything from the music, the food, the type of jobs they work....it all has been ridiculed by the Dems in the Northeast and elsewhere.

The GOP has pandered to the traditionalism of rural America by frightening them with false images of different lifestyles while ignoring the fact that the working people in rural America are getting fucked but good.

Anyone who reached out with respect will win them. Whether it is the GOP or Dems. I hope the Dems do. Let's get the FDR Democrats back. Those who drifted away during the Reagan years.

Haven't we welcomed the Cubans since 1959 when Castro's Communists gained power?  Now I'm starting to believe in the lazy rumours. Senator whose been in Washington how many years, and doesn't know our Cuban policy.