Rubbing raw the wounds

Just when I start to think that Mike Huckabee might be worthwhile, he begins to unravel and undermine any notion that he has something positive to contribute to the conservative movement.

The Huckster is on a book tour now bashing Mitt Romney again. And in a way Huckabee is the perfect foil for Romney. For all Romney's class and dignity, Huckabee is petty and classless. For all of Romney's patient logic, Huckabee is highly emotional and illogical. Who knows, if not for the collusion of McCain and Huckabee conspiring to destroy Romney in the Republican Primary, we may now have a president who actually knows something about the economy heading into this recession. Would have, could have, should have.

There is no point in rehashing the Republican Primary now. I've attacked Huckabee many times on this blog but even I tire of thrashing anyone who still wants to regard themselves as conservative. So I won't say any more about Huckabee other than to point out why his attacks against Romney are so laughable, namely this: All of Romney's criticisms of Huckabee, which occurred early on in the primaries and went away as soon as Huckabee became irrelevant, are provably true (that he raised taxes as Governor, for example). The converse also applies: All of Huckabee's attacks against Romney are provably false (that Romney is responsible for gay marriage in Massachusetts).

Mike Huckabee does himself a disservice by continuing to attack Romney simply because he's still smarting from Romney's legitimate and substantive attacks that were made nearly a year ago now. Think about this, would Huckabee be reacting this way still if Romney's attacks were baseless? People don't respond this vigorously to ridiculous and blatantly false accusations. It's precisely because Romney's critisms of Huckabee hit home so effectivley that the Huckster can't let this go.

Notice how Romney ignores Huckabee? That's the appropriate response to attacks that are not worth the time of day.

the Huckster: part deux

As a Romney supporter, there's one thing I can always safely rely on John McCain for. That is, doing whatever it is that hurts Mitt Romney and those that support him the most.

So to find out that McCain is about to pick the amiable Southern Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee as his vice presidential running mate is clearly more disappointing than it is surprising. Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense for the pseudo-Republican "Maverick", John McCain, to have Mike Huckabee, the populist preacher/charlatan, as his right hand man. And then there's all the electoral benefits of the political betrothal of Juan Pablo McCain and Mike "Chuckabee" Huckabee detailed here.

reprint

from some months ago...

Rick Santorum and Laura Ingraham both came out tonight in support of Romney. I’m not sure what they have been waiting for however, because it may be too late. I pray that is not the case. It’s not enough to simply be anti-McCain, we have to rally behind Mitt immediately.

The misgivings some conservatives have about Romney are so minor, in the grand scheme of things. Such as, he was effectively pro-choice 8 years ago. Well the man is telling you now that he is pro-life, why won’t pro lifers take yes for an answer? Is he somehow lying? What evidence is there that Romney is not an honorable man?

It just frustrates me that it took this long for many of us to come around on Romney. The McCain bandwagon train has left the station at this point. And with scant few days until super Tuesday, only now are conservatives beginning to coalesce behind Romney.
The man can’t do everything himself, he needs our vocal support! Conservatives have let him twist in the wind for far too long while they idly shopped around for a candidate. Well the store is closing now, please bring your final selections to the check out lane. There are only 3 days left to save the conservative movement.
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My conception of Mike Huckabee has progressed to the point where I would now be willing to suggest that the Romney campaign may want to at least consider co-opting the Huckabee campaign and base of support by offering him the VP slot.

This would obviously be a purely tactical maneuver designed to consolidate the social conservative vote rather than divide it.

The main problem is that Huckabee seems to be a big fan of McCain and hates Romney. But cannot an appeal be made to Huckabee’s better nature? The man is not a complete moron after all. Can’t it be explained to him that, in terms of ideology, he has more in common with Romney? What sort of supreme court justices would he want appointed for example? Wouldn’t he favor a strict constructionist pro-life judge like Romney would? In the unlikely event that McCain becomes president, who knows what sort of appointees we could see.

Given McCain’s proclivity to stick his finger in the eye of conservatives, we’d be more likely to get a Ruth Bader Ginsburg than a John Roberts.

This plan also assumes that the Romney people would be able to swallow some pride and do what is tactically the strongest play in the interest ultimately winning the nomination. And Huckabee’s irrational dislike of Romney seems to supercede his supposedly conservative principles.

Like Huckabee’s fair tax, this idea might be too radical in the end to be workable, but if it could be pulled off I would feel a lot better about Romney’s chances and the likelihood of conservatism not coming to a screeching halt in the form of a McCain nomination.
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If Republicans are collectively too foolish to figure out what is going on and they continue to vote for Huckabee in droves, for example, then they don’t even deserve to win the presidency anyway. Dark days will be descending on Republicans and conservatives if we continue down the dreary path that is a John McCain nomination.

Coda

The last hope of conservatives that they might have some representation in November has dwindled away to nothing. Mitt Romney has just suspended his presidential campaign.

Despite all the heaps and heaps of criticism and questioning of everything from his religion, to his conservative credentials, to his stance on the Iraq war, this man was a great candidate. Today is a sad day for conservatives, for Republicans, and for America.

Conservative talk radio decided too late to support Romney and now they have ended up with a presidential candidate who has been the bane of their existence for decades in John McCain who has taken the opportunity to side against conservatives and conservatism almost whenever given the chance.

I suppose Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul remain in the race which isn't a surprise given the politically tone deaf nature of their campaigns. By suspending his campaign now, Romney graciously allows McCain to consolidate Republican support behind him. I would expect nothing less from the man I have passionately supported for years. Today Mitt Romney has acted in accordance with the way he ran his campaign, with class and selflessness.

"We'll always stand strong together"

Fred Thompson has officially withdrawn from the presidential race. With no campaign events planned in Florida and a top adviser explaining why Fred would make a good vice-president, one might have seen the writing on the wall. His final speech was sadly one of his most forceful, as if to lay to rest once and for all the notion that the man is without passion.

"We will always be bound by a close bond because we have traveled a very special road together for a very special purpose. We'll always stand strong together... we'll always stand strong together, and I can't thank you enough for that."

I hope that we do all stand together. And by 'together' I mean with Mitt Romney, the only remaining conservative in the race who is not required to finish first in Florida in order to justify further campaigning.

With the Fred votes now up for grabs, we have to focus on the next order of business: John McCain. Having him in the race is like having a Democrat in the Republican primary. He must be defeated as the first order of business. In order to do that, Republican voters will have to settle on a single alternative sooner than they might have wanted to.

Of course, it would be nice if pastor Huckabee realized that his own one-dimensional appeal precludes his viability, but driving McCain out of the race takes priority at the moment. So, to the conservative forces of the blogosphere and elsewhere, train your rhetorical guns on McCain and commence firing!

Strategery

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune is urging conservatives to cease the 'whompin' of John McCain.

"While they're whomping, they might want to answer this question: Don't they want to win the White House?

Or would they feel better if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were commander in chief, dealing with the Islamofascists, filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court and turning the Justice Department over to a big city political machine?"

As a Romney supporter, I have to admit that I have used this kind of an argument to attempt to convince people not to vote for Mike Huckabee. My rationale is simple; if Huckabee wins the nomination, he will certainly lose the general election almost solely because he does not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. I simply don't believe that Americans, in this day and age, would elect such a blatant enemy of science and scientific advancement.

But the argument that I had better embrace McCain or face the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency, for example, is not convincing. I know that it's a conservative apostasy to say this, but I think I would prefer Obama to McCain at this point, so to try to scare me with an Obama presidency rings hollow.

Hillary Clinton is attacking Obama on the campaign trail today because in a radio interview Obama conceded that, "I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10 to 15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

Obama is of course, correct. Whether Republicans can still claim to be the party of ideas is perhaps debatable, but this statement by Obama shows remarkable frankness and an accurate grasp of reality.

Hillary responded in a nasty tone, "That's not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years."

Here we have an example of the stark contrast of old style partisanship -not willing to concede anything- versus forward looking open-mindedness and a willingness to bring in new ideas, regardless of the source. This is a mature attitude for Obama to adopt and I have to say that I am impressed.

In another study of contrast, McCain seems anything but mature at times. In his ABC New Hampshire debate performance he looked at times childish, petty, and thin-skinned. Couple this with the fact that his 'maverick' attitude seems at times to adopt the contrarian view simply for the sake of being contrarian and we have a picture of a man who, like Hillary, represents the old style of ego-politics. McCain seems obsessed with showing that he is own man at the expense of his own willingness to listen to good ideas. In this regard Obama seems to have much more of a sensible and reasonable approach. As right leaning individuals, we don’t ask that liberals become conservatives overnight, but a willingness to at least listen to conservative ideas and not dismiss them out of hand like Hillary Clinton would is refreshing. Maybe there is something to the ‘new politics’ that Obama seems to be peddling. One thing is sure, Hillary Clinton represents the old guard, characterized by bitter partisanship, the politics of polarization, and the politics of personal destruction. There is not a more divisive figure in American politics than Hillary Clinton.

I would welcome a debate on ideas between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and I hope that they both win their respective nominations. Both men strike me as honorable and earnest in their desire to improve the country. Of course, because Republicans are more interested in substance than they are flowery rhetoric, we have the benefit of knowing a lot more about what Romney would do as president when compared to the tabula rasa of Barrack Obama. And While Romney has had to go into much greater detail about issues of policy than any Democrat has ever been asked to, we can at least have the 'audacity to hope' that Obama would be a president who would listen to well reasoned ideas regardless of the source.

I really don’t care if Hillary is considered more beatable than Obama in a general election and similarly, I don’t care if McCain is considered more viable than Romney in a general election. It’s time to dump the old guard, time to bring about more solutions instead of more Hillary Clinton 90’s style partisanship and/or the ego trip of John McCain.

"Manifestly the best candidate."

Ann Coulter has written a very illuminating and somewhat scathing article explaining to Republican voters, hopefully once and for all, that Mitt Romney is "...manifestly the best candidate."

Coulter makes an argument that I have been making for about six months now and that Rush Limbaugh has been hinting at lately. The argument is essentially this:

"The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide."

Coulter chides voters who have thus far supported Mike Huckabee and/or John McCain. And as I have pointed out in various formats, the votes for McCain or Huckabee are derived from almost any other method than critical thinking. Emotion, identity politics, popularity contest, nostalgia, random implulses ... pick your poison, but those who take a moment to think things through in only even the most minor of ways will arrive at the same unmistakable conclusion that Ms. Coulter has.

"One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain."

Coulter brazenly chastises her own audience, urging Republican voters to "...please do one-tenth as much research before casting a vote in a presidential election as you do before buying a new car."

I share her frustration with some of the voters so far who, other than in Michigan and Wyoming, seem to treat the election with a noticeable lack of seriousness and due diligence. It would be nice if voters could take a break from watching American Idol and tracking the latest Britney Spears news long enough to put at least some thought into who should be elected as the next leader of the free world.

Escape & Evasion

Fred Thompson was strong in last night's South Carolina GOP debate. For once, it wasn't only Romney who effectively targeted Mike Huckabee for the pretender that he is.

In one exchange, Thompson ticked off a devastating litany of the not-so-conservative credentials of Mr. Huckabee. When given the chance to respond, as pointed out by the guys at Powerline, Huckabee addressed exactly none of the very valid points made by Thompson.

Instead, Huckabee smiled and trotted out one of his tired cliches:

"The Air Force has a saying that says that if you're not catching flak, you're not over the target. I'm catching the flak, I must be over the target."

This huckster-ism wasn't even appropriate. He's certainly not "catching flak" because he is too conservative, that's for sure. In fact, exactly the opposite. If the "target" is Reagan conservatism, he's at least three timezones away from being "over the target". Chuckabee must have zoned out during Thompson's laundry list because this generic answer, meant to charm the audience, was not a good fit rhetorically based upon what Thompson said.

I, for one, have had my fill of one-liners and quips in this election cycle. Mike Huckabee is trying to smile and wise crack his way into the White House at this point. He's the used car salesman of Presidential politics.

Here's what Thompson said of Huckabee to which the silver tongued Huckster escaped and evaded with no substantive response:

"This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future. On the one hand, you have the Reagan revolution. You have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security.

On the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies. He believes we have an arrogant foreign policy and the tradition of, blame America first. He believes that Guantanamo should be closed down and those enemy combatants brought here to the United States to find their way into the court system eventually. He believes in taxpayer-funded programs for illegals, as he did in Arkansas. He has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers. He said he would sign a bill that would ban smoking nationwide. So much for federalism. So much for states' rights. So much for individual rights.

That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party."

Right on Fred, right on.

Non-pundit review

The cool kids

A few thoughts on last night's ABC GOP debate.

How is it that someone like McCain attacks Mitt Romney for changing his position on abortion over the years while McCain himself changed his position on illegal immigration during the campaign? McCain has drastically changed his position on one of the most pressing issues of the day within the last few months. McCain is a candidate who will prevail only if adequate scrutiny is not paid to his record as a senator. The McCain-Kennedy bill and the McCain-Feingold bill are not exactly hardcore conservative credentials.

And when has Romney ever changed his position on the war in Iraq? Huckabee supposedly scored a hit when accusing Romney of changing his position on the war? This is the same man who accused Bush of having bunker mentality? How Huckabee has any running room criticizing some one else's foreign policy ideas is beyond me. In last night's debate Huckabee again proved himself to be an utter hack, representing the worst kind of opportunistic and substance-free politician.

Then we have what I call the 'cool kids' factor. The piling on of personal insults and marginal policy critiques by every candidate upon Romney. First of all, the fact that no one piled on say, Fred Thompson is revealing enough. You don't pile on a non-factor. But beyond that, what we saw last night was reminiscent of high school cafeteria table where the cool kids gang up on the smart kid. (Often times in 7th and 8th grade I was with the cool kids, I'm not proud to say.) We've all seen versions of this phenomena countless times in life, some people are threatened by smart, capable individuals. It's just easier to team up and pile on than it is to compete on a legitimate basis. In the case of last night's debate, it was easier to rely on personal attacks, one-liners, and quips in an attempt to hide mediocrity.

During the debate, John McCain snickered at his own supposed jokes and sat back in his chair with an over-confident smirk after delivering insults. As Romney's press secretary suggested, McCain "Looked like the guy who had just pushed someone down a stairwell." He's right, McCain looked childish, the ringleader of the brats who are tired of having their not-so-conservative record being pointed out.

If Romney were to drop out of the race, all other candidates would look much better. Guiliani would look like a genius. McCain would look like a wise elder statesmen and not a petty, sinister, grumpy old man. Fred Thompson would look like the only legitimate conservative choice. Huckabee would be the sole 'family values' candidate. Ron Paul would be... well he'd still be Ron Paul, the natural foil to any Patriotic American who believes that the Islamo-fascists are the enemy, not our own foreign policy.

The more the Republican candidates pile on Romney exactly because he is a worthwhile candidate, the worse they look. Romney wanted to have an honest policy discussion last night and largely succeeded. But by teaming up on the smartest guy in the room and playing the role of the cool kids, the other major candidates (aside from maybe Fred Thompson) merely succeeded in looking petty, vindictive and loser-ish. These are not the qualities I would want in a president.

The man from hope

Today is one of those days I remember why I consider myself a conservative, if anything, rather than a Republican. If Mike Huckabee represents what it is to be a Republican, then I want no part of it.

I'd consider voting for Barack Obama rather than Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee, cultivating the popularity of populism.

Why I don't 'Like Mike'

By now Mike Huckabee has proven himself to be an utter fraud, a complete charlatan.

He was "for negative attack ads before he was against them".

He has despicably played the 'religion card' against Romney and is playing, as Rush Limbaugh calls, 'identity politics' to the highest degree.

His shamelessly populist rhetoric has been, at this point, vetted and analyzed to be the thinly veiled liberal philosophy that it is.

His main criticism of Romney, the amount of money Romney has spent in Iowa, is classic liberal backwards logic. The Huckabee campaign would have us believe that being able to raise money and run a well-organized campaign is a bad thing. What does the Huckabee campaign imagine is a good approach to beating say, Hillary Clinton I wonder? That running a campaign "out of your back pocket", as Rich Lowry calls it, is somehow a viable way to defeat the entrenched Democratic apparatus? This kind of John Edwards-esque backwards logic is what we can expect from the other side of aisle, which represents yet more evidence that Huckabee is a RINO.

Pastor Huckabee has bungled every single opportunity to prove he knows a thing about foreign policy. Even his most ardent supporters would concede that, as Huckabee himself would probably quip, that his foreign policy experience amounts to that he has twice eaten at the International House of Pancakes.* He actually did say something like “I may not know a thing about Pakistan, but I did stay at a Holiday inn Express last night.” Sorry Mike, we are not electing a comedian-in-chief, we would prefer that our candidate at least know that illegal immigrants from Pakistan do not outnumber those from all other countries but Mexico.

That I haven't heard more about his completely inappropriate responses to the so-called negative ads that Romney has been running is somewhat puzzling to me. Huckabee has vindictively whined about the Romney campaign contrast ads running on TV in Iowa and elsewhere. The ads, which stay miles away from any personal attacks, highlight the substantive differences between the two candidates. Claiming that he is running a positive campaign, Huckabee counter attacks Romney about the ads with all the pettiness and vitriol of a classic Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi anti-Bush rant, yet never does he address the substance of what Romney is saying. Does anyone still fall for this kind of obfuscating, smoke screening defense? I'll make it very simple. If candidate A makes a charge against the record of candidate B, candidate B when addressing the charge, should do so squarely. Save the one-liners, the folksy quips, the homespun logic, and the personal attacks, just address the direct subject at hand. Such as, do you support in-state tuition for illegal immigrants under any circumstances or not? Or, did you grant pardons to X number of violent criminals while governor or not? I have to believe that I'm not one of the only people to notice that for all the caterwauling regarding Romney's ads, never does the Huckster address the substance of the ads.

I could go on for days about Huckabee and why he is a fraud but I just hope he does not win Iowa tonight.

Like Susan Estrich, all those who want Republicans to lose in ‘08 want Huckabee to finish first place in Iowa.

*credit, Jay Severin

Backtrack-abee

At this point Mike Huckabee has distanced himself from his own belief that illegal immigrants should be entitled to pay instate tuition as well as distancing himself from his own disbelief in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The other day Huckabee raced to assure Larry King, of all people, that his own disbelief in evolution would in no way change or effect his public policy if elected president.

Today Huckabee, in response to Condi Rice's ardent defense of Bush foreign policy, is essentially backtracking on his comments about the Bush administration's "bunker mentality" as he called it. He's parsing, dodging, and weaving even suggesting that he was not responsible for writing his own commentary which appeared in the most recent issue of "Foreign Affairs Journal".

Huckabee is man who seems to come out proudly and say the wrong thing and when pressed on it, rather than admit he was wrong, he prefers to backtrack and/or obfuscate. "Did she actually read the article?", he said today in an obvious attempt to muddle the issue by suggesting that his criticism of the Bush Administration has been some how misinterpreted or taken out of context. No Mr. Huckabee, nice try though. We all knew what you meant. We've heard the exact same refrain countless times from your leftie brethren and other agenda driven critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

I'd have more respect for Hackabee if he just flopped and said," I was misinformed or mistaken and I'm sorry, I was wrong." Instead we have this bad Bill Clinton impersonation of parsing the truth. "My comments were taken out of context." Yeah... sure they were.

Christmas Message (and response)

No Mr. Huckabee, I'm not worn out from all the political ads but I can imagine why you are. For your sake, the less conservatives know about you the better. So I'm not very surprised to see that you seem to be advocating a moratorium on political ads.

Sorry Huck, but we're not suspending civics and politics because it's Christmas time. Christmas will come again next year, but the opportunity to expose you for the closet liberal that you are is a now or never proposition.

Huckacide

Rich Lowry of National Review is quickly becoming one of my favorite political analysts. In the following brilliant piece he succinctly lays out why Huckabee winning the Republican nomination would be a disaster for Republicans.

The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class. As soon as a candidate of either party spikes up in the polls, he is compared with Dean, who had a spectacular boomlet in the second half of 2003 only to deflate as soon as people began to vote in early 2004.

After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

Like Dean, Huckabee is an under-vetted former governor who is manifestly unprepared to be president of the United States. Like Dean, he is rising toward the top of polls in a crowded field based on his appeal to a particular niche of his party. As with Dean, his vulnerabilities in a general election are so screamingly obvious that it’s hard to believe that primary voters, once they focus seriously on their choice, will nominate him.

The GOP’s social conservatism inarguably has been an enormous benefit to the party throughout the past 30 years, winning over conservative Democrats and lower-income voters who otherwise might not find the Republican limited-government message appealing. That said, nominating a Southern Baptist pastor running on his religiosity would be rather overdoing it. Social conservatism has to be part of the Republican message, but it can’t be the message in its entirety.

Someone needs to tell Huckabee. His first TV ads in Iowa touted him as a “Christian leader,” and his target audience of evangelicals has responded. But according to a Pew poll released in early December, only 1 in 7 nonevangelical Republicans support him in Iowa and 1 in 20 nonevangelicals in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Huckabee has declared that he doesn’t believe in evolution. Even if there are many people in America who agree with him, his position would play into the image of Republicans as the anti-science party. This would tend to push away independents and upper-income Republicans. In short, Huckabee would take a strength of the GOP and, through overplaying it, make it a weakness.

He’d do the same on taxes. In general, the public tends to support Democratic proposals for bigger government, which Republicans counter by saying that the proposals will require higher taxes. Huckabee will be equipped poorly to make this traditional Republican comeback, given his tax-raising history in Arkansas. Huckabee tries to compensate with a sales-tax scheme that allows him to say he supports eliminating the IRS, but is so wildly implausible that it would be a liability in a general election.

Then, there’s national security, the Republican trump card during the Cold War and after 9/11. Huckabee not only has zero national-security credentials, he basically has no foreign-policy advisers either, as a New York Times Magazine piece this Sunday makes clear. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September, Huckabee struck notes seemingly borrowed from Barack Obama, hitting the Bush administration for its “bunker mentality” and strongly supporting direct talks with Iran. A foreign-policy debate with a Democratic nominee would be a competition over who can promise to be nicer to foreign countries.

None of this is a winning formula. Huckabee has been running his campaign out of his back pocket, and has done it extremely well. There’s a reason, though, that serious candidates surround themselves with policy experts. It’s necessary to running a campaign based on more than sound bites. Wherever you scratch Huckabee on policy, he seems an inch deep. Do Republicans really want to enter what is already a tough political year with a candidate apparently allergic to preparation, and who has shown no predilection for organizing or fundraising, when he can do cable TV appearances instead?

Democrats have to be looking at Huckabee the way Republicans once regarded Dean — as a shiny Christmas present that is too good to be true.