pageviewsMike Huckabee on his campaign's recent surge:
I know, right?
Paul Waldman at TAPPED: "Isn't that a tad presumptuous? Or is Huckabee just saying that God is giving him a temporary bump in the polls, only to send his campaign crashing down later, in order to demonstrate to His earthly subjects the danger of hubris and the importance of early fundraising?"
MotherJones says he Huckabee clarified saying he only meant that when people pray things happen-- not that God wants him to be President. That sounds better but why isn't God listening to all the people praying for Fred Thompson? Since presumably a number of Republican candidates have people praying for them and only one can be nominated God has to be listening to some people's prayers and ignoring others. Now I'm sure He must like candidates with theology degrees; but if Huckabee thinks his supporters have the ear of God and the supporters of other candidates don't, he should just say so. All of this sounds so silly but we've seen what messianic thinking can do:
And while we're at it: why does God hate amputees?
Mike Huckabee is now the front-runner for the Republican nomination in Iowa. If that’s surprising to you, it shouldn’t be—though his numbers in the polls were slow to pick up momentum, there’s something about Mike that might appeal to Republican voters more than Romney’s polished charisma, Giuliani’s middle-of-the-road electability, or McCain’s resume. Huckabee has genuine, down-to-earth personality and an earnestness that just might play to his advantage in less than a month, when Iowa takes the first step towards choosing our presidential nominees.
Huckabee is now leading in Iowa polls by an even greater margin than Obama, supported by 29% of likely caucus-goers. His campaign has been slowly building him up to be a candidate with an almost universal appeal: an ordained Baptist minister, Mike plays bass in a band and is now running campaign ads that boast of Chuck Norris’ support. With his staunch Christian values and his socially conservative bent, Huckabee caters easily to values voters. But this isn’t the be all and end all of his campaign, as he is also an advocate for issues such as health care, federal arts funding, and climate change. With his wide range of issues and his pop-culture endorsements, he is reaching for the support of all conservatives.
And he just might be getting it. With the Iowa caucus just a month away, conservative voters are thinking hard about candidate electability. Only time will tell, but Mike Huckabee might pass the test. Due to the relative lack of attention given to his campaign in the early months of election coverage, he has come out with an untarnished reputation. What’s more, he has a sense of humor that might appeal to younger conservative voters.
Says Huckabee, “I certainly think social issues matter, because they go to the core of our convictions and principles. But I don’t think that’s all there is…People look at a history of effective government. People want somebody who actually has a record of being able to accomplish something — not just talk about it, but do it.”
As of now, It’s hard to tell whether voters are really taking Huckabee seriously. Still, though the cards have yet to be drawn, Democrats might be faced with an unexpected opponent next fall. The question is, how far will Huckabee’s charm take him in wooing the nation’s undecided voters?
As I’ve obsessively watched the race for the GOP nomination, I have noticed that despite its vicissitudes and seeming volatility, one thing has remained constant: Republican voters have consistently underestimated their best (perhaps only) chance of retaining the White House in 2008.
John McCain is not someone I like, but he’s someone I can respect. It’s not just that he’s a bona fide war hero. It’s not just that he has more governing experience than Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson combined. He’s the only Republican in the race with any semblance of integrity.
McCain didn’t just come out of nowhere or invent an identity to run for president. Look at the rest of the Republican field. Fred Thompson was undistinguished as a US Senator, and seems to have been largely drafted into the race by deceptively optimistic poll numbers; a wealthy lobbyist and Washington insider, he’s now being marketed as the simple man’s pickup-truck-and-gun-show candidate. Giuliani and Romney have been tripping over themselves downplaying and apologizing for their past liberal positions. Despite the extensive repackaging they’ve gone through, the only reason they’re still contenders is because they’ve had the good fortune of being mayor on 9/11 and rich, respectively. Ron Paul is still a joke; and –though he’s run a fine campaign—who the hell is Mike Huckabee?
In the parlance of our times, McCain is legit. Unlike the rest of the field, he’s running as himself, not McCain 2.0 (New and Improved), McCain* (A True Conservative - Since April 2002), or John! (Now With Personality). He may be a warmonger and an idiot, but at least you know his belligerence and stupidity are genuine and not the highly-polished product of a skilled marketing campaign to appeal to the jingoistic and dim-witted Republican electorate.
I’ve heard Republicans say that the very fact that liberals like me can respect John McCain suggests that he is too much of a moderate to be nominated by the modern GOP. But if you look at his opponents, Giuliani is clearly the most socially liberal and Huckabee is much farther to the left on economic issues, while Ron Paul takes that honor in the realm of foreign policy.
Like Barack Obama, McCain has centrist appeal without actually being a centrist on policy. Despite his reputation as a ‘maverick’, for the most part McCain’s independent image is greatly exaggerated. He has taken a lot of very public, seemingly audacious stances, breaking GOP taboos by shunning the religious right, supporting campaign finance reform, opposing Bush on torture, and taking a moderate stance on illegal immigration. Although he ultimately caved to the right on all of these issues except campaign finance, he still gets a lot of the credit for it and to this day is mistakenly referred to as independent by the media.
Republican primary voters have rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to nominate somewhat as conservative as McCain who is simultaneously adored by the media and popular among independent voters.
Thank God they’re too stupid to realize it.
Amid all the hoopla about Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani last week, another endorsement got lost in the mix that may signify an even more important development.
Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a former presidential candidate who is very respected among religious conservatives, decided to endorse John McCain for president. His logic: “I am endorsing the best pro-life candidate to beat Hillary Clinton.”
McCain’s candidacy has been thought to be dead in the water for quite a while now. The conservative base rose up in arms when McCain included a path to earned legalization in his proposal for comprehensive immigration reform. Furthermore, his unwavering support for the war in Iraq alienated his natural constituency of independents and Republican moderates.
But after all the long months of campaigns, debates, and mud-slinging, Brownback’s endorsement shows that this race could very well end up turning out the way most political observers predicted over a year ago. At that time, the three leading Republican contenders were Giuliani, McCain, and Mitt Romney. Giuliani is pro-choice and Romney was pro-choice pretty much right up until the start of his presidential campaign (in addition to being a Mormon), so many believed that the Christian right would eventually find McCain to be the only acceptable option and ensure his nomination.
No other candidate has acquired a lock on the support of religious conservatives. Fred Thompson seemed to be the perfect fit for the Christian right based on his solidly conservative voting record, but he has run an extremely lackluster campaign so far. Mike Huckabee has been gaining support among the grassroots of the religious right, but evangelical leaders have been reluctant to back his candidacy, probably because they fear he has no chance at winning the nomination due to his still-limited name recognition and poor fundraising.
This means that Christian conservatives might still end up backing McCain as the lesser of two (well, actually three) evils. Brownback’s endorsement is the first step in this process, and it means that the old and weathered warrior is certainly not down for the count.
I don't mind people who support Hillary Clinton. I may make some noise about it sometimes, but I can understand why they do. Senator Clinton is a very smart woman, who understands the minute details of public policy better than also anyone. She is a good speaker and can be very charming in person. She is experienced in both domestic and foreign policy, and has been through enough campaigns to know how to win.
But nominating Senator Clinton is a very dangerous message to send to our country.
Our politics has devolved. Instead of nuanced, eloquent, and substantive debate about very complicated matters of public policy, ethics, culture, and law, we reward politicians who can produce the quickest, funniest, and least threatening one-liner.
Instead of respecting and encouraging a dialogue between those with differing opinions, we belittle the other side's ideas, claiming them to be the product of evil, hatred, and greed.
Instead of getting public policy passed as legislation and enacting important programs and policies, we engage in a protracted game of one-upmanship where the goal is winning elections every year. It seems that many in our politics today hope to win a long-awaited Battle Royale which one day, in the distant future, when the other party is extinct, will produce the agenda we seek.
Instead of bringing new people into the process, and inspiring our citizens to break out of their cynicism and work for a politics of producing a better world, we play to the lowest-common-denominator, producing bland proposals that aim to slightly influence a small set of middle-aged, middle income white men in the suburbs of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
This old politics has to come to an end.
But Hillary Clinton, unfortunately, can't do it.
In fact, her advisors are the problem. Take a look at what her top two advisors, Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald, thought of the massive turnout of young people that Senator Obama brought to the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner last night.
An estimated 9,000 people showed up here at Veterans Memorial Auditorium Saturday night and the Obama campaign claimed that 3,000 of them were Obama supporters.
“The JJ is a place to deliver a message,” Tommy Vietor, Obama’s Iowa spokesman told me, “but it is also a place to show organizing muscle. It shows you can get people to show up at the same place at the same time.”
At least two of Hillary Clinton’s upper-echelon advisers, Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn, were decidedly unimpressed .
“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”
Penn added, "Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state."
Mark Penn would be a top advisor to a President Hillary Clinton. If this is the tone and opinion of one of our country's potential top White House staffers, I think we are safer without nominating Senator Clinton.
We must break out of the cycle of cynicism and the stranglehold that the chattering classes of pundits, consultants, and pollsters have on our political discourse. Mark Penn is a continuation of the past. We should not let him extend into the future by voting for his benefactor.
In the state of Iowa, a scandal is brewing. No, it doesn't have anything to do with a stained dress or fabricated intelligence but with something far, far more urgent. Or, to be more specific, a lack thereof.
Yesterday, NPR Morning Edition aired a story in which a waitress, Anita Esterday, at a diner called Maid-Rite stated that "nobody got left a tip that day" -- and none other than Hillary Clinton and her staff had stopped by earlier for a meal. Naturally, when this little bit of news hit the internet, the campaign rushed to control the damage lest their candidate be seen as, well, less than sympathetic to the working class. Meanwhile, the Fact Hub over at the Clinton campaign refuted the claim, while a spokesman for the campaign e-mailed the folks over at NPR: "The campaign spent $157 and left a $100 tip at the Maid-Rite Restaurant. Wish you had checked in with us beforehand." NPR has since revised its story, but there are still questions circulating about where the tip ended up.
Perhaps the most poignant comment made thus far comes from Ms. Esterday herself: "You people are really nuts. There's kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now -- there's better things in this world to be thinking about."
Today, Rudy Giulinai just might have secured himself the republican nomination for president. How you ask? By managing to gain the endorsement of arguably one of the most famous—and outspoken—televangelists of them all, Pat Robertson.
That’s right, Mr. feminism is a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians,” Mr. homosexuality will lead to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks and “possibly a meteor” has publicly given his blessing to Rudy Giuliani, and it actually means something to his campaign.
In a press conference held Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, Robertson said, “It is my pleasure to announce my support for America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans”—oh Pat, just how much of your ass did Rudy kiss (and how much money did he donate to The 700 Club) to get you behind him? Although Robertson is staunchly against abortions, he has even stated that they were the reason for the 9/11 attacks (together with the gays, feminists, pagans and those atheistic hippies at the ACLU), and Rudy has remained cautiously pro-choice thus far in his campaign, Pat was somehow able to overlook Giuliani’s baby-killing ways and find it in his heart to support him in his campaign.
It is believed that Robertson’s support will drastically improve Giuliani’s standing among evangelicals, and could in effect solidify his position as the republican presidential nominee in 2008. Rudy has been struggling with the Christian-conservative base because of his slightly more liberal stances on social issues like abortion, but with Robertson’s endorsement, much of this hesitation is likely to evaporate.
And yet, I can’t help but wonder just how Rudy was able to finagle Pat Robertson onto his team. Was it his stance on the war on terror? Was it a “donation” to one of Robertson’s organizations? Or maybe, Pat was just a fan of this.
Still riding the wave of publicity he received after reporting a surprising $5 million dollar haul in the 3rd quarter, Ron Paul is now the beneficiary of a daylong fundraising blitz which the NYT reports netted $4.07 million.
This figure is astonishing for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that Ron Paul had almost nothing to do with this particular drive. The idea of staging a fundraising drive on Guy Fawkes Day (which commemorates the day when its namesake tried to blow up Parliament) actually arose independently from ThisNovember5th.com, and the campaign spread virally.
Thanks to this grassroots triumph, Paul has now raised $7.2 million in just 5 weeks, putting the campaign’s $12 million goal within reach. It also raises the possibility that he could conceivably lead the entire Republican field for the 4th quarter, assuming Romney doesn’t inflate his numbers with another $6 million of his own money (he will). Given the importance the media places on fundraising, how long could the GOP fundraising leader remain in 6th place in the polls?
Paul’s grassroots power may actually spell trouble for the GOP, however. He has not promised to endorse the eventual GOP nominee, and his fundraising power and internet support may encourage him to continue his campaign as a third party candidate, particularly if Giuliani is nominated. Is it worthwhile to note that Paul already made one 3rd party run for the White House as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988.
This historic haul also suggests that the race for the Republican nomination is still wide-open, with six viable candidates if one counts Paul, as the national media will increasingly do. This dynamism is driven both by discontent within the Republican ranks and unresolved conflict between the merits of ideological purity and electability. While in other election years pro-choice or anti-war views would be a deal breaker for any potential GOP nominee, the sense that a tradition conservative can’t win following the Bush fiasco has created an opening for a Giuliani or Ron Paul.
While I still maintain that Ron Paul is too far outside the mainstream to ultimate have a significant electoral impact, his grassroots support and fundraising power are shaking up the campaign and ensuring that the Republican race will continue to be more exciting and unpredictable than its Democratic counterpart.
Even though the filing deadline for the New Hampshire presidential primary was last Friday, candidates still do not know when the actual primary will take place.
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner said that he will wait to set a primary date until Michigan chooses the date of their primary. Michigan has until November 14 to set their date. State law in New Hampshire dictates that the state primary must occur at least seven days before any other “similar contest”, generally interpreted to mean any other primary. Michigan is expected to choose January 15 as their primary date, which would allow New Hampshire to set its primary for January 8.
However, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan has threatened to try and set his state’s primary date even earlier, which could force New Hampshire’s primary into December 2007. Some experts believe that New Hampshire would look ridiculous holding a 2008 presidential primary in 2007, which could significantly damage the state’s political standing in the future. This is exactly what Levin wants, as he believes New Hampshire has a disproportionate influence on the political process.
On the other hand, some political figures in New Hampshire are embracing the idea of a December 2007 primary. Jim Splaine, a Democratic state legislator in New Hampshire, is urging Gardner to set the state’s primary for December 11. We could be voting for president sooner than we think…
