1. Rush LimbaughI was among the bloggers polled; my top twelve votes were:
2. Michelle Malkin
3. (tie) Sean Hannity & Mark Steyn
5. Ann Coulter
- William Kristol
- Rush Limbaugh
- Glenn Reynolds
- James Taranto
- Michael Barone
- Mark Steyn
- Charles Johnson
- Jonah Goldberg
- Ann Coulter
- John Kyl
- Thomas Sowell
- John Hawkins
Ronald Reagan is tied for 21st on Hawkins' list. I limited my vote to the living; as I told Hawkins, my top ten conservative influences who are now dead were: Buckley, Reagan, Hayek, Friedman, David Ricardo, Adam Smith, Whittaker Chambers, Hamilton, Lincoln and Martin Luther.
Hawkins' Top 25 is available here.
5 comments:
Lincoln, it seems to me, swings both ways:
On the one hand, he pretty much initiated the modern consolodation of power into the hands of the Fed, over the States (not to suggest that, via slavery, they weren't abusing the f*** out of that power).
On the other hand, he did act to free those slaves (despite claims to the contrary, even "in his own words", I believe he had their freedom as an ultimate goal -- I believe he just did not want to go to war over it if it could be attained by persuasive means. That fits his apparent personality and abilities, as a man of great oratorical skill)
It would have been very interesting to see his longer legacy had Booth failed.
Coulter gets a lot of attention, and maybe she should be on the list, but I don't think she persuades many people. I don't know who I'd put in instead. Cheney? Volokh? Horowitz?
AVI:
Attention is influential. But you're right that I slighted, mistakenly, Horowitz.
Carl, It occurs to me that one other person, regardless of his intent or politics, has been quite influential, too:
Michael Yon.
P.S., you also missed Walter Williams.
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