I conservatively estimate my endorsement to count for precisely 0 votes, but I'm going to endorse Fred Thompson.

This is not based on any of his particular views other than his repeated support of stronger Federalism, per my recent posts on the topic.

If I had to sell Federalism to the general public, rather than discussing pragmatics, I'd point out that on average, with stronger states, "everybody wins". Or at least at the state granularity, states hardly being politically homogenous, everyone wins. Californians can go be liberal, Texas can go be conservative, and we can all get on with it. Maybe even learn something about policy by seeing what happens when different people do different things.

Oh, of course it's still important to like the President and I wouldn't expect that to sway you from voting Democratic if you swing that way; after all, he still gets to pick Supreme Court justices and there are certain issues that can only be resolved at the Federal level, such as whether state A is obligated to honor state B's marriage that would have been illegal in state A. But other than the Justice issue, I think a lot of us can get behind a guy whom we can hope will wield the veto pen somewhat more freely on all kinds of things and let our local state sort it out.

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... Do I really believe his Federalism would survive his first day in office? Naw, I'm way too cynical for that!

But at least he's talking the talk. That puts him ahead of the rest of the field.

Update: A-yup.