John Hawkins polled a number of bloggers to get the pulse of where their support lies when you take various candidates out of the mix.
I found it pretty hard to pick a candidate when Thompson was out of the race because I really don’t have a second candidate picked out. I had been thinking about Huckabee as my second choice because I thought he had a chance of breaking out and because I thought he was a conservative but then I discovered his record in Arkansas and heard his speech on foreign policy and I realized not only would he continue the destruction of the Republican party that Bush and the last Congress started, he wouldn’t be as strong as Bush in fighting the global war on terror. He has Bush’s weaknesses but not his strengths.

The rest of the field is better on the war but worse on the social issues and as bad on the fiscal. I don’t trust Romney but at least he’s saying the right things though his record is just as bad as Huckabee’s and saying that he “loves mandates” makes me think he doesn’t quite get the whole small government thing. I think McCain would be the most self involved president since Clinton and I think he’s the Bob Dole of the race. He will be killed in November. Giuliani would be great on the war but terrible on life issues and I totally don’t trust him on taxes or spending.
For the poll when it came to Giuliani and Huckabee, I decided to go with Giuliani over Huckabee but now I’m having second thoughts because Huckabee would be able to get up to speed on the war eventually but Giuliani won’t be changing his position on abortion. Both will probably do great damage to the Republican party, Giuliani with his pro-choice stand and Huckabee with his big government solution to the problems of the nation (which he didn’t deny during the debate).
Hopefully Thompson stays in until Tsunami Tuesday so I don’t have to choose between bad and worse 🙂