Porkbusters of the World, Unite and Take Over

David Weigel | January 16, 2008

The big South Carolina news of the morning was Sen. Tom Coburn's endorsement of Sen. John McCain. Says Jonathan Martin:

Who else, btw, besides McCain could have Tom Coburn and Joe Lieberman in South Carolina stumping for him at the same time?

Romney's folks will dismiss it all as so much Washington'ness, but what the three have in common is that none are beloved by their own party.

By their party, yeah... but early last year I had conversations with anti-pork, anti-spending types—the kind of people who bankroll the Club for Growth's occasional jihads—who dearly wanted to draft Coburn. The only one who went on the record with me was Stephen Moore.

"I've urged Tom to run for president," says former Club for Growth chief Stephen Moore, who now is an editor at the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. "I think he could do quite well. He could win primaries. I don't think he's going to do it, of course. But if he did...it would shock people. He would be the Steve Forbes or the Pat Buchanan candidate of 2008."

They floated this rumor as late as May, then it sort of petered out, mostly because Coburn would rather chew Ted Stevens' tie than mount a presidential bid. And he has a list of inflammatory comments (mostly from his first political career in the House, from 1995-2001) that would come up again and (as happened when I spoke to him last year) tick him off royally. They would, though, make him a household name... which he isn't right now. The utility of this endorsement seems to be to draw warmth from the conservative press, to build up that maverick cred, and to demonstrate how ding-dong-dead Fred Thompson's campaign is.

The Moore quote comes from my lengthy profile of Coburn, available here. Headline explained here.

Comments

|1.16.08 @ 4:59PM|#

Looks like Morrissey is porking the empty space in front of him in that video.

Episiarch|1.16.08 @ 5:01PM|#

and to demonstrate how ding-dong-dead Fred Thompson's campaign is

You're so heartless. Don't you know he's OLD?!?

|1.16.08 @ 5:03PM|#

Don't you know he's OLD?!?

No, he's not. The wheel is old. Fire is old. Dirt is old. Thompson? He's ancient.

Colin|1.16.08 @ 5:46PM|#

If you ask me, the wrong doctor ran for president.

You think Morrisey's a libertarian?

|1.16.08 @ 5:50PM|#

The right doctor ran for President but, until now, I was holding out a tiny thread of hope that Sen. Coburn would be Paul's running mate. Looks like all those emails I sent the senator went for nothing.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Brandybuck|1.16.08 @ 6:06PM|#

How long until Dondero pops up to declare that this is another feather in the cap of the Mainstream Libertarian McCain?

|1.16.08 @ 6:13PM|#

You think Morrisey's a libertarian?

Well, every time he opens his mouth, he gets into trouble. That's a good start....

Wayne|1.16.08 @ 7:16PM|#

How could Tom endorse a liberal like McCain?

If Tom runs again in Oklahoma he lost my vote.

|1.16.08 @ 8:07PM|#

I'm pretty sure it was Morrissey who wrote those articles in the Ron Paul Newsletter back in the early nineties.

cgee|1.16.08 @ 8:58PM|#

I tried to RTFA, but I was bored before I even began

|1.17.08 @ 8:47AM|#

Where in Oklahoma are you from, Wayne?

Ron Morrissey|1.17.08 @ 6:22PM|#

Six months is a long time.