Washington state Republican caucus - vote rigged for McCain?

It looks like the Republicans may have gone too far in vote stealing. It's bad enough when they steal votes and elections from Democrats, but this time the establishment Republicans may have tried to steal the Washington state caucuses yesterday from Huckabee for McCain. Here, from The Seattle Time's David Postman is what Huckabee's campaign manager, Ed Rollins, has to say:

“The Huckabee campaign is deeply disturbed by the obvious irregularities in the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses. It is very unfortunate that the Washington State Party Chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87 percent of the vote was counted. According to CNN, the difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted—with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted. That is an outrage.

“In other words, more than one in eight Evergreen State Republicans have been disenfranchised by the actions of their own party.

I'm sure the Washington state establishment Republicans have a good reason for calling the election for McCain when only 87% of the votes were counted and the difference between McCain and Huckabee was a mere 242 votes. Like, for instance:

"What? You mean that Huckabee voters are Republicans, not Democrats? Are you sure?" or

"McCain is going to win anyway. We have our orders." or

"We just figured the Huckabee social conservatives would shut up and follow orders for the good of the Party. They always have in the past." or

"Huckabee? You mean that's not a joke name, like Mickey Mouse, that some prankster added to the ballot when they were being printed? We just assumed it was a joke." or

"Don't get your knickers in a twist. We'll count the rest of them along with the Florida 2000 ballots - someday." or

"We're just practicing for the general election."

I'm sure there are hundreds of similar good reasons. Has the Republican National Committee weighed in yet?

The South Carolina Republican primary

John McCain won the primary, with Mike Huckabee coming in second. Fred Thompson was a distant third, but apparently drew enough conservative votes from Huckabee to assure McCain's win. Thompson may withdraw, but even his withdrawal announcement is being presented lethargically. Romney apparently was focused on last Tuesday's primary in Michigan, since without a win there he had no campaign going forward. Giuliani is saving his energies for Florida since South Carolina is not his kind of state, and Ron Paul got the maximum he could expect. Apparently the South Carolina Republicans have room for only one crazy, and they chose Huckabee over Paul as having the religion they preferred. Duncan Hunter has announced that he is dropping out of the race.

McCain gets 19 delegates and Huckabee gets 5, no one else gets any. Clearly loaded in favor of whoever wins. South Carolina will have 47 delegates at the Republican convention. Nope, I don't know who gets the other 23 delegates.

The Washington Post discusses how McCain was able to defuse the attacks by conservative Republicans who don't want him as the Republican nominee. Both Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay (among others) have been literally foaming at the mouth over the threat that McCain represents to the Republican Party, and the Republican voters in South Carolina rejected their fulminations. A number of conservative Republicans had blocked his run for the 2000 Republican nomination in the South Carolina Primary, but couldn't do it this time.

MSNBC offered these results for the Republican South Carolina primary:

Candidate	Votes	% votes	Delegates
John McCain	143,224	33%	19
Mike Huckabee	128,908	30%	5
Fred Thompson	67,897	16%	0
Mitt Romney	64,970	15%	0
Ron Paul	15,773	4%	0
Rudy Giuliani	9,112	2%	0
Duncan Hunter	1,035	0%	0

---

Here are the MSNBC South Carolina exit polls.

One thing about the presentation is confusing. Within each category they list the percentage of the different answers in that category. The first column in each category totals to 100% of all those answers. So given 51% male voters and 49% female voters, between them they are 100% of all the voters in that category. But the rows are different. The numbers in each row to the right of the first column are percentages of the first number in the row.

Let me say that again. All the numbers to the right of the first number in the row total 100% of that first number and only of that first number. This is the confusing part. The first number in each row is a percentage of all the first numbers in each category in the first column total 100%, but the numbers in each row to the right of that first number are given as a percent of the first number in the row.

So 2% of all the male voters voted for Giuliani, 28% of the males voted for Huckabee, 32% of the males voted for McCain, and so on. All the numbers after the first number in the row for male voters total to 100% of that first number in the row for male voters. There is nothing in the display to show that the percentages to the right of the first column are not the same kind of number as the first number in the row.

Nothing in the presentation indicates that all the percentages to the right of the first number of each row are weighted by the percentage of males or females who voted. So why does that matter? In the "age" category for example, Huckabee bested McCain in the "age 18 to 24" groups by 34% to 26%. That appears important, but since only 5% of the total voters were age 18 to 24, that's a lot less important than the fact that of the 24% of the total voters who were over age 65 McCain won 40% to Huckabee's 26%.

When you see a presentation of a percentage, it is always extremely important to know what total it is a percentage of. In this case, the percentages in the first column are percentages of the total votes in that question, but every number to the right of the first number is a percentage of only the number in the first column. The two percentage numbers cannot be compared to each other.

---

With that minor piece of confusion in mind, let's look as some of the questions.

McCain and Huckabee were roughly equal with those who considered themselves Republicans, but McCain's big edge was with independents. That suggests that McCain probably will be weaker in the many states with closed primaries where independents can't help him.

McCain got significantly more self-identified moderates than Huckabee did, while Huckabee got more self-identified Conservatives. Without Thompson in the race, that probably would have been an even greater advantage for Huckabee.

It looks like Huckabee got the younger Republicans and McCain got the fogies, while income except at the extremes was pretty much the same for each.

Huckabee did get more of those with incomes under $30,000 a year while McCain really got the ones with income over $200,000 per year.

There are a number of questions on religion. The most significant such questions appeared to be "How much does it matter to you that a candidate shares your religious beliefs?" (Huckabee had a big advantage in "A great deal / Somewhat" while McCain had an even stronger advantage in the much smaller group that stated "Not much / Not at all".) While "White Born-again or Evangelical Christians" strongly preferred Huckabee to McCain. The religious issue appears to be a big advantage to Huckabee in the South, and probably a disadvantage everywhere else in the U.S. That's probably a large part of Giuliani's calculation for not contesting the South Carolina primary.

Education was not a big differentiator, except that McCain did get more of those with postgraduate degrees.

Those who think that abortion should be illegal went strongly for Huckabee.

Huckabee won strongly with those who said that he shared their values, while McCain got almost all those who said one of the candidates has the experience needed.

---

Overall I'd say that McCain "won" South Carolina because Thompson took just enough votes from Huckabee to keep him from winning, while there were enough independents to put McCain over the top. With Thompson out, McCain won't be especially competitive as the top vote getter in the Republican Southern state primaries. That will be even more true in closed primaries.

Tom DeLay represents those Republicans who detest McCain but like Huckabee. Limbaugh hates them both. Will he go for Romney or Giuliani? The money Republicans will go for Romney or McCain, but be effective only outside of the Southern states where evangelical religion won't matter so much. Since McCain remains weak with Republican voters, the close primaries will probably do him in and throw it over to Romney.

Giuliani is going to be a wild card, assuming that he still has any cards left to play. We'll know after Florida on Tuesday Jan 29th if Rudy is still in the game. If he can still do anything at all outside of the big city states of New York and New Jersey I'll be surprised. But I've been surprised a lot this year already.

I don't see anyone in the Republican party (yet) who can pull the Reagan Republican coalition back together, though.

The Republican nominee for President will be Mitt Romney

We now know that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for President Why? See Kevin Drum.

Kevin explains clearly why the nominee cannot be John McCain. Fred Thompson peaked when he announced his (long anticipated) run for the nomination. Rudy Giuliani has collapsed, and his fantasy of a win in Florida is unsustainable. Mike Huckabee? No chance he will get any support outside the Evangelical Republicans (Thank God!!) And Ron Paul? He, too has his loyal supporters, and everyone else (according to the polls) has good sense. Newt Gingrich realistically recognized that he has no chance. That leaves Mitt Romney and Bart Simpson, and Bart won't be age 35 by January 2009.

So - the answer is Mitt Romney. The question is "Who will be the Republican sacrificial lamb Presidential nominee for President in 2008.

Any questions?

Romney's father was an illegal immigrant from Mexico

I wonder if Tom Tancredo knew this history before he dropped out of the race for the Presidential nomination and endorsed Mitt Romney.

It seems that Mitt Romney's father was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and illegally entered the U.S. across the southern border.

Here's one reason for the Ron Paul phenomenon

Taylor Marsh reports discussing why all her Mormon relatives like Ron Paul and detest Mitt Romney. Go read it.

If I hadn't lived in Ron Paul's district for an election, I might have agreed with them. They're right that the speaks his mind honestly. And he has some really good ideas. Unfortunately, he has some ideas that are really screwed up, too. His comments on the American Civil War simply run off into insanity. Not that his approach wouldn't have been far better in 1860 - had it been close to possible, but Jesus, Man, this is 2007!

He is right that it would have been far cheaper to have the federal government simply buy up the slaves and free them, but at the time the Southerners fired on Fort Sumpter and Lincoln properly sent in troops to put down the local rebellion (similar to Shay's Rebellion under George Washington), no one seriously thought combat would last six months or that the rebellion would spread to the entire South and become serious warfare. With that attitude, how could a bill to buy the slaves and free them ever pass Congress? Not to mention the fact that the Southerners could have easily blocked it and certainly would have. Which is entirely beside the point. Ron Paul may think this is 1860, but it's really not. Ron Paul is simply a wack job and a fruitcake. It's just that sometimes only the insane dare speak the Truth publicly. That doesn't make him acceptable as President on all these issues.

Back to Taylor Marsh's relatives, though. They want Ron Paul to run as an independent when the Republicans refuse to nominate him, and Ms. Marsh thinks that if he does he will also get a whole lot of Democrats who are disgusted with the Democratic Party to vote for him also, seriously messing up any predictability in November 2008. I know that my disgust with Harry Reid, Nancy (impeachment is off the table) Pelosi and the Democratic so-called leaders has reached a high level, so that the only reason today to be a Democrat is that the Republicans are headed rapidly towards Fascism, and the Democrats are only assisting them to get there, not actively pushing.

So that's my opinion. Go read Ms. Marsh's article and see what you think.

Republican Party falling apart (Americans should be so lucky)

The Washington Post has reported on what I have felt for weeks. Each of the major Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination represents a strong faction in the national Republican Party, but none of them can break out of the factions and be a unifier for the party.

DES MOINES -- For three decades, the Republican presidential nominating contest has served to unify the national party's coalition of social, economic and foreign policy conservatives in advance of a general election fight with Democrats.

This year, it is ripping that coalition apart.

Is the GOP grounded in the social issues embodied by Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee or the foreign policy experience of former POW John McCain? Do Republicans see their futures in a former CEO such as Mitt Romney, who promises to tackle Washington incompetence, or in a leader such as Rudolph W. Giuliani, who talks tough on terrorism and crime? Should the party embrace anger about immigration or optimism about America's potential? [Snip]

Soul-searching during a presidential campaign is typical for the Democratic Party, which seems to engage in philosophical rethinking every four years. But it is a rarer instance for Republicans, who typically rally around an establishment candidate, a consensus "next-in-line" who would be a shoo-in for the nomination.

That kind of party discipline helped George H.W. Bush win the nomination in 1988, gave a boost to former Kansas senator Robert J. Dole in 1996 and was crucial to George W. Bush's victory in 2000. But finding a successor to President Bush, and a new direction for the party, is proving to be more difficult.

"I'm homeless," said Jack Kemp, a former congressman and housing secretary in President George H.W. Bush's administration and the party's vice presidential nominee in 1996. "There isn't that Reagan sense of optimism, of an inclusionary Republican Party."

"It's about as clear as mud," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), who has talked to Giuliani and has met with Romney and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) but remains undecided.

For conservatives, the flaws of each major candidate are just too glaring, GOP lawmakers say.

Giuliani tends to win them on economic issues, but they cannot get by his stand on social issues. They like Huckabee on the social agenda, but do not trust his economic stands. They like the Romney they see now, but they cannot forget the positions he once embraced in Massachusetts. And they dislike McCain's opposition to Bush's first-term tax cuts and his crusade to overhaul campaign finance laws.

"Everybody's looking for Ronald Reagan, and believe me, I knew Ronald Reagan, and he's not here," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who dropped out of the race for the White House on Thursday and gave his support to Romney. "We're seeing the manifestation of frustrations that have been in the Republican ranks for years. Frustration with the president, frustration with Congress, and nobody sees in us a way out."

Huckabee, in particular, is challenging the three-part coalition that Reagan built, but not only because of the unabashed focus on the former Arkansas governor's Christian faith. He is increasingly casting himself as the champion of "the people" against what he calls the "Wall Street-Washington axis." He said this past week that he wants to represent "Boys and Girls Clubs Republicans" not "country-club Republicans." [Snip]

The chairman of one of the presidential campaigns, a longtime party activist, said, after soliciting a promise of anonymity: "There is no party here anymore. It's just a shell."

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has been at the top of the Republican presidential field in New Hampshire for months, but his competitors have been a puzzle to many in the state. In early summer, an aura of expectation was created about Thompson's candidacy, but his initial appearances fell flat. Then Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, upped his television ads and personal appearances, but he has now canceled some events, cut back his ad spending and is no longer making a major effort.

That has allowed McCain, the Arizona senator, to restart the heavy schedule of town meetings and television ads he had curtailed when his campaign ran out of money early in the summer. Huckabee is thought to have a "low ceiling" in New Hampshire, where far fewer of the Republicans identify themselves as evangelical voters than do so in Iowa.

In Iowa, the race has largely narrowed to a two-man contest between Huckabee and Romney, with Thompson doing his best to surprise people with a strong third-place finish. McCain and Giuliani have all but abandoned any retail efforts in the state.

Party officials and strategists for the Iowa presidential candidates predict that about 80,000 people will participate in the party's caucuses, a drop from the 125,000 who participated in 2004. By contrast, some Democratic Party strategists expect to see as many as 150,000 Democrats gather the same night.

It's been my opinion that the main thing that has unified the Wall-Street Republicans, the Foreign policy Republicans, the Evangelical Republicans and the Libertarian Republicans has been the opportunity they had to take advantage of the power of the Presidency once the Republican candidate took office. This time, though, there is very little prospect that the Republican candidate, whoever he is, can possibly win next November.

That lack of a real prospect for winning removes the glue that made the factions of the Republican Party swallow their pride and agree with the other factions. I think that lack of prospect of winning is what has really torn the national party apart.

Right now this looks good for the Democrats in November. Of course, if the Republicans get really desperate at the losses they face, that very desperation may drive them back into some semblance of unity before November. Could either McCain or Romney sell that? I don't know. As it is, November looks good for the Democrats. November is still a long ways off, though. So things look very murky right now.

But that's not too surprising, I guess, since not a single vote has been cast in the primaries yet. Things that look very murky right now may very well become completely clear on February 6, 2008.

I guess we'll see very soon.

Mitt Romney hallucinates - purpose? to get what he wants - a trophy Presidency

Apparently in defense of the recent racist refusal of his Mormon religion to accept Blacks, Mitt Romney reports that he wasn't one of "those Mormon." He stated:

"I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."

Unfortunately, that never happened. The Boston Phoenix reports that although Romney stated that in his "Religion" speech in College Station, TX and again to Tim Russert, it just wasn't something that really happened. The Boston Phoenix reports an update to its earlier article: "A spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Phoenix that George W. Romney and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 -- although possibly not on the same day or in the same city."

Shades of the spin doctors explaining away what Bush said with the sanitized and vetted version of what his handlers wish he had said!

Romney wants the Republican religious right to accept him as one of them - racism and all - but he doesn't want the independent voters to consider him as personally racist. Like his stance on abortion - Romney will say whatever he thinks the immediate audience he is speaking to will buy, and he leaves it to his handlers to deal with his many, many inconsistencies. It has left most of us wondering what Romney stands for. Who is he really?

Actually that isn't that hard to answer. Romney is another rich man who wants to cap his career with the trophy of becoming President of the U.S. He believes that he deserves it, and he'll say or do anything that will get him that trophy.

He believes that really strongly. Nothing else. Just that he is rich and entitled. He'll say anything - believe anything - hallucinate anything - to get what he wants.

Break up of the alliance of Repub econo/cold-warriors and Repub evangelicals?

Eric Kleefield over at TPM Election Central writes about how the polls of Republicans in the primary states consistently show a sharp drop for Rudy Giuliani coupled with a rapid increase for Mike Huckabee. When we look at the utter horror the Republican pundits are displaying at the growth of Huckabeemania, then it seems likely to me that we are seeing signs that the traditional econo/Cold-Warrior Republicans and the evangelical Republicans are each going to go their own, separate, way in November 2008.

The Republican Party since Reagan has been an uneasy alliance between the econo-Repubs (which includes the foreign policy Repubs - mostly left over Cold Warriors) and the Evangelists, with the Evangelists generally getting federal judges and a lot of lip service from the party, while the econo/cold-warriors have gotten most of the economic and foreign policy power. This has worked as long as the Republican alliance had a reasonable chance to win the Presidency - that meant both sides got enough from the alliance to be willing to put up with the idiocies of the other side. As long as the followers felt that a Republican win was possible for the Repub alliance, they stuck together.

With the Republican primaries starting in three weeks, the rank-and-file Republicans are taking a serious look at the Republican prospects for 2008. No one thinks that the Republicans can win the Presidency, and the possibility of that Presidential power has been the glue that held the alliance together. So the evangelical followers are looking for someone - a purist - who can represent what they believe. Under the old rules Rudy or Romney, representing the econo/cold-warrior branch, could talk Southern religious racism and the Evangelical leaders could convince their follower that since they have no strong candidate of their own in the fight, the econo/cold-warrior candidate offered the evangelicals their best shot at national influence. But that becomes a much harder sell if the Republican candidate has no reasonable chance to win the Presidency. Why should the evangelical rank-and-file vote for and work for a loser who doesn't even represent the religious values that have motivated them to work in politics in the first place?

Neither Rudy nor Romney can deliver a Presidency, and Rudy has come to look worse and worse on a daily basis. Romney still isn't viewed as a Christian by a lot of evangelicals, and for a lot of them that is a deal-breaker. Enter Huckabee, a Southern governor who speaks true evangelical as a native language and who has truly awesome political skills.

With nothing to tie the the evangelical followers to the econo/cold-warrior candidates who have severe religious and moral baggage, the evangelical followers are leaving the Repub alliance and moving towards Huckabee. I think that's is what we see in these statistics, with Rudy collapsing, Romney dropping and Huckabee doing a rocket imitation going up.

Does this present an opening for McCain? Maybe with the econo/cold-warriors, but the evangelicals didn't like him in 2000 and the feeling was mutual. The enmity is not something that McCain can paper over by sweet-talking the evangelical leaders, particularly since the econo/cold-warriors are at best luke-warm about him and he has shown no indication that he can win in November. With Huckabee in the race, the evangelical followers are not going to switch to McCain.

I think we are watching the evangelistic Republicans as they decide they have nothing to win by voting for the econo/cold-warrior candidates. If Huckabee gets the nomination (unlikely) the econo/cold-warriors will sit at home in November. If Romney (or, much less likely, McCain) gets the nomination, the evangelicals will sit at home or run a third party in November. If that happens then the Republican alliance will have broken apart by November 2008. The leadership will try to keep the party unified, but without any hope of winning the Presidency, the leadership has nothing to offer their followers.

Then, just for fun, consider Ron Paul. Dr. Paul is running for the Republican Presidential nomination because it allows him to present his Libertarian philosophy on a national scale. When he ran for President as a Libertarian in 1988 no one ever heard of him. His effort this year has made him a household word. But neither the econo/cold-warriors nor the evangelicals are going to vote for Dr. Paul. Dr. Paul is the greatest hope that the Libertarians have ever had. Ron Paul is going to run as a third party candidate. That will split out the Libertarian Republicans from the econo/cold-warriors.

So we are looking at the strong likelihood that the national Republican Party is headed for a major crackup in November.

That makes the likelihood of a strong win for the Democratic candidate for President very likely. He or she is going to have coattails, too. Add the Presidential coattails to the drag Republicans will face from the now inevitable recession and from the continued fighting in Iraq, and it looks like the Democrats can be expected to win big next November.

Would I expect a Democratic win as big as in 1964? I wouldn't bet on that his far ahead of the election, but if nothing breaks favorably towards the Republicans by late Summer 2008, then I wouldn't want to bet on much Republican success next November. I do think, even now, that the Democratic nomination for President will decide who our next President will be.

2008 is going to be an interesting year.

Did Huckabee become governor of Ark in a coup?

Sandy Levinson at balkinazation presents the story of how Mike Huckabee became Governor or Arkansas.

It's an interesting story. Go read it and ask yourself - was Huckabee's action legal?

What does it suggest about Huckabee's ambition, or his understanding of the Rule of Law and of Constitutions?

A few comments about Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is no longer an unknown third tier candidate for the Republican Nomination for President, so the media has begun taking notice.

Margaret Carlson has an interesting article on Huckabee entitled "Huckabee's Boom May Be Ready to Bust".

Huckabee's Moment

If Huckabee's moment lasts a couple more weeks, he will win the Iowa caucuses. Like an upset win by former Senator John Edwards in the caucuses, a Huckabee victory would mix up the race. It would slow Romney and leave time for Rudy Giuliani to win in big states later, and maybe for Thompson to get a second look from the base.

Huckabee surely must be aware of how quickly the expectations game can flip. A long shot who gets 20 percent in Iowa heads to New Hampshire a hero. A frontrunner who gets 21 percent heads for home.

James Pinkerton of Newsday writes that "Huckabee, like Reagan, wouldn't be an 'easy kill'".

some Democrats maintain that the former Arkansas governor, in particular, has a "glass jaw." Hence the headline in Tuesday's Drudge Report: "Dems Hold Fire on Huckabee; See 'Easy Kill' In General Election." [Snip]

it's certainly true that the Democratic National Committee has focused its fire on Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. So maybe Huckabee is the weakest Republican candidate, and the Democrats just can't wait to get thrown into his Razorback brier patch.

But it's also possible that the Democrats might have miscalculated the Republican race - certainly plenty of Republicans have done so - and now they are spinning, while reassessing.

Pinkerton's argument is that a lot depends on who the Democrats nominate for President, probably either Clinton or Obama. If either of them becomes the Democratic nominee and comes across as an "effete coastal Liberal" and if Huckabee can survive the primary process and get the Republican nomination, then he will be the candidate from the center of America running against the coastal Liberal. Pinkerton argues that the center candidate always wins the Presidential election.

Steven Stark writes at Real Clear Politics "Is Huckabee the New Jimmy Carter?"

For the past 25 years or so, Republicans have made Jimmy Carter and his presidency one of their favorite punching bags -- the modern equivalent of what the Democrats did to Herbert Hoover two generations ago. "Look what happens when you nominate someone without much experience, who comes out of nowhere," they've said. Or, "He was just a little too odd or unconventional to be an effective president."

Now, though, the Republicans may want to keep their opinions of Carter (for whom I worked in the 1976 presidential campaign) to themselves. That's because if they nominate Mike Huckabee -- who this past week was unexpectedly leading the field in at least one national GOP poll and in Iowa -- they're going to be lining up behind someone who looks awfully similar to their bête noir. [Snip]

What made the emergence of both Carter and Huckabee possible was that they adeptly read a shift in the public mood. After Vietnam and Watergate, Carter saw that the country might opt for a complete outsider, whose calling card was his utter lack of connection to anything that had been going on in Washington. Huckabee, too, is benefiting from a similar fed-up public mood, particularly in a party that still has to figure out how to separate itself gracefully from an unpopular president.

In fact, in their quests, both had the hidden good fortune to be as unknown as they were when the campaign started. The bad news about being obscure early in the race is that you don't get media coverage. But the good news is that this allows you to listen to voters and shift your approach and style accordingly before the cameras start rolling. Like Carter, at least in the early days, Huckabee has near-perfect pitch.

From Toby Harndon of the Telegraph is an article entitled " Mike Huckabee apologises for Mormon 'smear' ".

Mike Huckabee has apologised to Mitt Romney, his Republican rival for the White House, for suggesting that the former Massachusetts governor and his fellow Mormons believe that "Jesus and the devil are brothers".

The apology came as the race for the Republican presidential nomination increasingly centred on personal religious faith. [Snip]

"I went to Mitt Romney and apologised to him, because I said, I would never try, ever, to try to somehow pick out some point of your faith and make it, you know, an issue," Mr Huckabee said after the last Republican debate before the January 3rd Iowa caucuses. [Snip]

Mr Romney’s campaign, which has been relentlessly criticising Mr Huckabee on immigration and tax issues and this week hit him with the first attack advertisement against a named fellow-party candidate, turned on Mr Huckabee over the comment.

"It’s hard to read it as anything other than an attempt to stir up anti-Mormon prejudice," said Jim Talent, a former senator and key Romney backer.

Chip Saltsman, Mr Huckabee’s campaign manager, said it was an innocent, offhand remarks made in the form of a question and was in no way intended to be a smear.

I wonder how many of the previously clueless corporate media reporters are going back to read Max Brantley's article on Huckabee at Salon entitled "The dark side of Mike Huckabee?" (Sit through the ad to get a Salon day pass. It's quick and it's worth it.)

Devastating ad exposes Huckabee's clemency for murder-rapist Dumond

This ad is really effective. Huckabee will hate it. The ad has the mother of Wayne Dumond's Missouri murder victim explaining why Huckabee is directly responsible for the rape-murder of her daughter because he released Dumond twenty-five years before his sentence was complete.



Max Brantly at the Arkansas Times reports that it was an Arkansas Republican, Keith Emis, who personally made the advertisement Wednesday, acquired a web site and posted the advertisement Thursday morning. Enis said he had no significant funding and is not supporting anyone in the Presidential race.

Now granted, Huckabee as a candidate for the Republican nomination is a fish in a barrel target - but will a single individual with no financing and nothing but a point to make and access to the Internet be able to effect Huckabee's efforts to obtain the Republican nomination for President? This after the corporate media has made Huckabee their darling-of-the-week?

I'm now waiting for three things.

1. Will the corporate media pick up on this advertisement?
2. Will the next polls on Huckabee's progress nationally and in Iowa be effected by this advertisement? and
3. Will this advertisement lead to Romney winning the Iowa caucuses?

A "yes" answer to any one of these things will demonstrate that American elections have reached a new level because of the Internet, and the campaigns and the corporate media will both have to take notice.

[ h/t to Greg Sargent and David Kurtz at TPM. ]

Best Romney ad yet - he opposes giant flesh-eating rats

Someone is telling us all about Romney.



This looks a lot like the excellent Huckabee ad from yesterday.

[ Again, h/t to David Kurtz at TPM. ]

Huckabee digs hole deeper

Mike Huckabee says this morning that he stands by his 1992 statements about isolating individuals with aids. From Think Progress, here is what he said this morning on FOX News:

Chris, I didn’t say that we should quarantine. I said it was the first time in public health protocols that when we had an infectious disease and we didn’t really know just how extensive and how dramatic it could be and the impact of it, that we didn’t isolate the carrier.

Chris Wallace of FOX made the point

“seven years before” Huckabee “made” his statement, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “said that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact.”

So there are two problems with Huckabee's answers. First they showed how out-of-touch with reality and the public that Huckabee was and remains. His failure to know about the most important foreign policy news of the week, Iranian NIE, late on Tuesday when it had been released at 10:00 AM Monday shows a similar disconnect from and apparent disinterest in important national events. That has been one of Georuge Bush's really bad traits, and we damned sure don't want to elect Bush's clone as President.

Second, as Steve Benen at TPM points out:

Huckabee's comments were ridiculous and offensive, but at least for his sake they were made 15 years ago. Now, as a presidential candidate, he has an obvious course to take -- claim ignorance and explain how far his understanding has progressed since 1992.

This is a man who has been in politics for nearly two decades, and he hasn't figured out how to deal with issues like a Press question regarding a statement he made 15 years earlier? Charming and witty as he may seem, is he really that much of a slow learner politically?

Not only does Huckabee have the necessary skills or staff he needs to run for President, this incidents strongly suggests that he doesn't have the capacity to learn on his feet and adapt to new but predictable situations. What happens is he had to face a new situation for which no preparation was possible and lives depended on his decisions?

Huckabee doesn't appear ready for prime time, and it rather strongly looks like he never will be. He's trying to skate through the Republican Primaries with a smile and depending on God to give him the result he wants as a miracle.

Surely Huckabee isn't the best the Republicans have to offer? Not just a hater with a smile, but even an ignorant and untrainble smiling hater who can't even assemble a decent staff and listen to them? He's beginning to make Fred Thompson look good. (But only in comparison.)

Huckabee's bad week

TPM has a good short article on Mike Huckabee's problems this week.

It's probably fair to say that Mike Huckabee has had a strange week. On the one hand, he's been surging in the polls, picking up religious right endorsements, and is now considered the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses. On the other hand, he's been caught lying about the Wayne Dumond scandal, he's proven that has no idea what the National Intelligence Estimate is, he's completed a dramatic flip-flop on immigration policy, and he's presented himself as literally God's own anointed presidential candidate. [Snip]

Mike Huckabee has some very odd beliefs. He rejects modern biology; he's argued publicly that Roe v. Wade may have created an immigration problem; and he's said that if a man and a woman live together outside of marriage, they're engaging in a "demeaning ... alternate lifestyle."

Then there was the questionnaire Huckabee filled out saying that he believed that AIDs patients should be separated adn quaranteed, and added "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." His comments were made years after it was well known how difficult the transmission of the AIDs viris is.

This is not a man most Americans want to see become President.

I wonder if Huckabee is also a Dominionist? He certainly has all the characteristics. But like Bush, he would never say anything like that in public. It's not likely anything we would know until he took office and started making decisions to turn America into a christian theocracy, building on the work Bush has done in the last seven years. You know a Dominionist politician by his actions rather than by his words.

Huckabee accuses Huffpo of inaccuracy on Dumond; Huffpo hits back

Mike Huckabee complained on MSNBC's Morning Joe:

The Huffington Post, one of the most left-wing blogs in the blogosphere, There are factual errors in what they have printed. Some of it is outrageously incorrect...

Unfortunately, Huckabee offers no example of the alleged inaccuracies.

Ariana Huffington responds

"the Huffington Post just doesn't want to give the whole story of what was going on." Really? Our original story on the Dumond case was over 4,000 words long and offered what even the American Spectator deemed a "detailed, convincingly irrefutable" presentation of the evidence in which HuffPost "backs up every single word." What's more, we included links to a number of never before published documents from the governor's own files.

Huckabee also claimed that in a follow up story "the Huffington Post totally misrepresented and just utterly distorted" the statements of Butch Reeves, his former top aide, who told us that, contrary to his former boss's claims, Huckabee had indeed influenced the parole board to reverse its previous rejection of Dumond's release. Huckabee described Reeves as "outraged," and promised that a statement from Reeves to that effect would be posted on mikehuckabee.com today. It just went up, ten hours later.

In the statement, Huckabee's campaign acknowledges the accuracy of the quotes attributed to Reeves in our story, but splits hairs over whether Huckabee's claims that Dumond's conviction was "outlandish" and "way out of bounds for his crime" (brutally raping a 17 year old cheerleader) were in the context of a discussion about "paroling" the rapist or in the context of a discussion about granting him "clemency" or "a pardon."

Even Huckabee appears vague on the semantics he now considers so important, having told Tim Russert in January: "They asked me did I think that he should be paroled, or something to that effect, and I simply said, "I think that his case has got to be given, you know, a serious look." The campaign now concedes he said more than that.

Most important, Huckabee made it clear to the parole board that he thought Dumond should be free. Does it really make any difference in terms of the tragic outcome whether Dumond would be freed through parole, clemency, or pardon? Isn't the point that Huckabee wanted him freed and that the board, which had recently voted 4-1 against paroling him, reversed course three months later and voted 4-1 for his release.

Tellingly, the Huckabee campaign chose to attack only the Huffington Post for our interpretation of Reeves' comments, even though our reporter Murray Waas was joined on the phone call with Reeves by Brian Ross, ABC News' Chief Investigative Correspondent, who filed a report offering the same interpretation. Yet there is no mention of ABC or Ross in the Huckabee campaign's press release. Why? Is it harder to dismiss ABC as "left-wing," and the charges as part of a partisan agenda?

But none of Huckabee's finger pointing (he mentioned Bill Clinton 12 times while discussing the Dumond case in his press conference on Tuesday) addresses the key questions raised by this tragic story: why Huckabee continued to favor the rapist's release, even after being sent police reports and wrenching letters from several of his victims detailing his horrific crimes (which included raping a woman while her 3 year old daughter lay beside her in bed); and why Huckabee, to this day, continues to insist "No one could have predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out" when we can read for ourselves the words of his victims predicting that the man would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.

Huckabee is playing to the Republican base, with an absence of facts and a lot of rhetoric blaming Clinton and the left-wingers for ... well, in the absence of any facts from Huckabee, apparently he his blaming them for accurate reporting of an embarrassing event from his past. This is quite clear from his repeated use of Clinton's name and his attack only on the Huffington Pose, when the core of the recent reporting on how he handled the Wayne Dumond cast him has come from Murray Waas.

It seems to me that he is willing to do or say anything at this time in order to win the Republican nomination for President, and if he can get that, only then is he going to concern himself with the problems he is laying up that will come out to bite him in the campaign for the general election.

The other thing that Huckabee makes clear, as did Mitt Romney yesterday in his "I'm one of you" speech to the Republican religious right, the religious right dominates the Republican Party and will not accept a candidate who is not in thrall to them.

In 2000 George Bush ran the "I'm one of you" campaign mostly under the radar, with the over focus on the "Compassionate conservative" theme for the general public and independents. Except for the momentary threat from McCain, Bush had won the Republican primaries in the "money race" prior to any votes in the primaries, so the exposure of his extremist right-wing religious views were never put on display as then have been this year. This year, with no anointed candidate going into the primaries, the Republican leaders have been unable to reach a consensus before the voters vote in the primaries, and the true extremism of the religious right has been placed on display.

The result is that the Republican leaders have been unable to conceal the warts that characterize the Republican Party. Huckabee? Romney? Giuliani? Thompson? Ron Paul? Tancredo? It's an sick farce. An asylum is missing its inmates. They are all on the stage and they are all off their meds. And Bush and Cheney both fit right in. What kind of organization IS the Republican Party that this is the collection of misfits it throws up as potential leaders for the United States?

Huckabee can be quite charming. He has offered a lot of smiles and sweet words, but his reaction to the journalists beyond his control who expose and question his past has forced him to expose his real personality. He really doesn't like not being in control. It is also becoming clear that he fits in with the misfits presented by the Republican Party.

Romney's "I'm one of you" speech to the Republican religious right extremists

Romney is running for President as a representative of God and religion, but he refuses to explain his religion because the Constitution forbids a religious test for those who hold office.

He is trying to have it both ways. A vote for him is a vote for God, but don't ask him about his minority religion which many consider a non-Christian cult.

From his speech:

Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America's greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my Presidency, if I were elected.

"There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams' words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

That's just a sample. That's running on the proposition that America should be led by someone who represents religion. Here is where he speaks directly to the evangelistic Republicans:

"As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' – the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your President, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.

"There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers – I will be true to them and to my beliefs. [Snip]

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

He is stating how very important religion is to America. Then he shows exactly what he is promising the evangelical Republicans - religious, yes, but secular, no.

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

"The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God' and in God, we do indeed trust.

"We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'

So he'll give religious people their due, but for those who do not profess a Christian faith, he withdraws government. He is saying that America has only a religious - and Christian religious at that - history and no one else will be consider worthy.

That's exactly what the evangelical Republicans want to hear. He offers Americans freedom for religions, but not freedom from religion. He just doesn't want to be penalized by the Christians for belonging to a non-Christian cult. He makes it clear - he's one of them!

The audience he is speaking to should remember, though, that he was pro-abortion before he became anti-abortion. Mitt has a long history of saying whatever his audience wants to hear, even when it conflicts with what he told previous audiences. But I'm sure that when he has watched all the lies Bush has told in the last eight years, Mitt feels that he is fully qualified to carry on that tradition.

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Addendum 10:20 PM CST
Digby got it right.

The religious right has managed to make it an unspoken test that a president must be not only a person who claims an approved religion, but that they are personally deeply religious. (And Democratic advisors are working overtime to get their candidates to join them, unfortunately.) [Snip]

Kennedy successfully tempered a long standing anti-catholic bias held by a rather large number [in his 1960 speech that put to rest the fear many had that electing him would place the Pope in charge of American policy.]in this country by appealing to the fundamental American belief in a separation of church and state and by reassuring them that he would make decisions based on what his conscience tells him is in the national interest "and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates." Romney will be trying to temper an anti-Mormon bias among a sub-set of the Religious Right by assuring them (through coded conservative Christian language) that he is just as biased against other religions and non-believers as they are and will definitely bow to outside pressures or dictates --- from them.

Kennedy's speech was given 60 days before the general election and was designed to put to rest the fears of the general election voters. Romney was speaking solely the Republican radical evangelist reich-wingers because Huckabee has been making major gains among the likely Republican primary voters who don't want to vote for a Mormon. Romney's problem is that the rest of us heard him tell the Republican evangelists that he was their puppet.

If Romney gets the Republican nomination he will spend the entire campaign trying to dig out from under the promise he just made to the radical Republican religious bigots (also known as the Social Republicans.) Mitt might get the nomination, though, since the entire field of candidates for the Republican nomination seems to have fractured the Republican party to an extent that is hard to believe.

Huckabee's rush to release a rapist who then raped and murdered another woman

Mike Huckabee was convinced by the right-wing press that Wayne Dumond had been castrated and railroaded for a rape he did not convict. (See my previous post Mike Huckabee shouldn't be allowed to run for dogcatcher.) When Dumond was released he promptly raped and murdered another woman.

Huckabee, when asked about his poor judgment in working so hard to get a convicted rapist released from prison, has stated that "he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public."

But Huckabee did have very good reason to believe that Dumond was a dangerous predator and a further threat to the public! Women who Dumond had previously raped told Huckabee (and they told the Parole Board Huckabee was pressuring to release Dumond) in no uncertain terms what would happen if Mike Huckabee let Dumond out 25 years before his sentence was completed. According to Murray Waas,

confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.

In a letter that has never before been made public, one of Dumond's victims warned: "I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time." Before Dumond was granted parole at Huckabee's urging, records show that Huckabee's office received a copy of this letter from Arkansas' parole board.

The woman later wrote directly to Huckabee about having been raped by Dumond. In a letter obtained by the Huffington Post, she said that Dumond had raped her while holding a butcher knife to her throat, and while her then-3-year-old daughter lay in bed next to her. Also included in the files sent to Huckabee's office was a police report in which Dumond confessed to the rape. Dumond was not charged in that particular case because he later refused to sign the confession and because the woman was afraid to press charges.

The Huffington Post has posted some of the letters sent to Mike Huckabee by women who had previously been raped by Wayne Dumond.

Huckabee ignored women who had been raped and instead did as he was asked by the extremist rabid right-wing press. This rather strongly suggests that Huckabee does not listen to women. It also demonstrates that he is in thrall to the radical right-wingers as well as to the Evangelical Republican right wing. In either case, his lack of good judgment in the Wayne Dumond case makes him totally unsuitable for the office of President.

Romney, Huckabee, both want government to prevent access to contraception

I missed this previously. Mitt Romney has been saying to the public "I fought to define life as beginning at conception rather than at the time of implantation."

That is a code phrase to the Evangelical Republicans saying that Romney opposes Contraception. We know that Romney opposes Row vs. Wade and abortion. But that statement shows that, as his Mormon religion requires, he also opposes contraception.

Christina Page explains.

Todd Gitlin points out that Mike Huckabee agrees with Mitt Romnney on this. Huckabee also wants to ban access to contraception for American women.

What is happening in the run-up to the 2008 election?

Want to get a really good analysis of the current stage of the 2008 elections? Digby has the best analysis I have seen yet.

Huckabee - more to confirm Brantley's report

My previous post about Mike Huckabee was mostly based on the reporting by Arkansas reporter Max Brantley in Salon. Brantley describes a man who has few ethics, a real imagination about how to use his power as governor of Arkansas to line his own pocket, and little proof that he is much of an executive. Here is confirmation of Brantley's reporting and some additional information about his wife that is similarly not all that flattering.

Check out these confirming reports:

• Huckabee goofs may not bode well for 2008 from MSNBC. Here is a part:

  Huckabee said he doesn't see any ethical problems with accepting the gifts, which are allowed as long as they are worth less than $100 - unless based on a "bona fide personal, professional or business relationship."
  
  Politics
  Click here to share your thoughts on political matters, including the presidential campaign, fundraising, the Iraq war, immigration and a potential international conflicts.
  
  Gifts to spouses are allowed if not used to bypass the law. Wedding gifts are allowed, too.
  
  Huckabee said the gift registries were set up under "weddings" because Target and the Dillard's department store did not have a registry for housewarmings.
  
  Ethics Complaints
  The state Ethics Commission has investigated 14 complaints against Huckabee and validated five. Two pertain to unreported gifts - a $500 canoe and a $200 stadium blanket - and three to cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report:
  
  * $43,150 from his 1994 lieutenant governor's campaign for use of his personal airplane,
  * $14,000 Janet Huckabee received from his 1992 U.S. Senate campaign, and
  * $23,500 from a tax-exempt organization he incorporated with others in 1994, but whose funding source isn't known. The Action America organization, Huckabee said, was set up to coordinate parts of his private-sector speaking schedule during his three years as lieutenant governor.

  
  
• Slush fund - Huckabee tapped mansion acount for himself.
  Huckabee was caught using the state fund to maintain the governor's mansion for personal expenses for himself and his family.
• Then the American Spectator writes:

  Ask lots of folks in Arkansas, including Republicans, and a fair number will probably tell you that Huck is for Huck is for Huck. National media folks like David Brooks, dealing in surface appearances only, rave about what a nice guy Huckabee is, and a moral exemplar to boot. If they only did a little homework, they would discover a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics. [Snip]
  
  Once, Gov. Huckabee even had the gall to file suit against the state ethics commission. He lost.
  
  Fourteen times, the ethics commission -- a respected body, not a partisan witch-hunt group -- investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And, as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at any real length, there were lots of other mini-scandals and embarrassments along the way.
  
  He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a "charitable" organization he set up while lieutenant governor -- an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious "charity."
  
  Huckabee has been criticized, reasonably so, for misusing the state airplane for personal reasons. And he and his wife, Janet, actually set up a "wedding gift registry" (they had already been married for years) to which people could donate as the Huckabees left the governorship, in order to furnish their new $525,000 home.
  
  According to the Arkansas News Bureau (Feb. 1, 2003), "Huckabee's personal lawyer, Kevin Crass of Little Rock, has said Huckabee believes there should be no limit on gifts short of a bribe." After all, said Janet Huckabee, public officials like her husband should be automatically trusted: "Until you absolutely positively know that the man has outright lied to you, it should be enough that the man's word is that everything was done appropriately, legally, to the best of his knowledge to the letter of the law."
  
  Of course, her reasoning refutes itself: If one is precluded from even questioning "the man's word," how can one possibly find out in the first place whether the official "has outright lied to you"?

So Huckabee is apparently an ethically challenged individual with a large desire to line his own pockets. He also has not demonstrated any real executive ability.

But he looks and sounds good on TV. And he is from Arkansas, like a previous President, without that nasty disability of being a (shudder) Democrat! In the absence of an anointed Republican candidate, what more could the corporate media ask for as a potential President? They papered over or ignored Bush's excessive alcohol and drug use before age 40, his going AWOL from the Air National Guard, his failed businesses, his incompetence in the weakest governorship in the U.S. and his DWI conviction. Surely they can do the same for Huckabee (even if they can't for Giuliani.) But things have changed since 2000. Many more of us have Internet access.

The information reported her MIGHT reach the corporate D.C. based media before they make fools of themselves pumping up the religious grifter, Huckabee.

Oh, wait. It's too late for that, isn't it.