I was listening to an interview with Florida governor Charlie Crist following his endorsement of John McCain tonight. Among all the glowing compliments he had for McCain was that McCain is a great conservative. I continue to hear this same thing parroted from all manner of so called conservatives. It makes me wonder whether these people are attempting to redefine conservatism or if they have any idea what conservative even means.
The so called conservative pundits have been doing the same thing of course. And McCain characterizes himself as a conservative as well when he knows very well that he is not. And through all of this it appears that the electorate is buying the story. I suppose the old saw that voters have short memories is true.
The point of this post is to point out how contrary to conservatism John McCain’s record and rhetoric really is. In act after and and statement after statement John McCain has demonstrated himself to be anything but a conservative.
A great place to start in examining that record is a piece by Mark Levin at National Review Online entitled The Real McCain Record. In that article Levin chronicles McCain’s record and a plethora of issues. Beginning with McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform (which limited the only class of free speech the founders had in mind, political speech) Levin demonstrates how far from conservatism McCain is and has been. The list includes the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, the McCain-Lieberman anti America global warming bill, the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards trial bar bill masquerading as a patient’s bill of rights and McCain’s attempts to decimate the America pharmaceutical industry by importing drugs from Canada.
Then there was McCain’s opposition to both Bush tax cuts. Today McCain claims his opposition was based on his desire to also cut federal spending. Even that reasoning is weak considering that penalizes tax payers for the government’s excesses but that was not his rhetoric at the time. Rather, McCain engaged in typical liberal class warfare rhetoric.
According to Levin, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee “McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.” Then there’s McCain’s role in the “Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.”
Levin then goes on to McCain’s defense record. Of course, McCain supporters claim that he will vigorously prosecute the war against radical Islamic fascism. McCain’s record, however, suggests otherwise.
His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain’s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petreaus’s strategy. Where’s the evidence to support such a claim?
Moreover, Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9/11. How does McCain fare in that regard?
McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).
According to Gun Owners of America, McCain voted in 2004 to force gun owners to purchase trigger locks when they purchased a handgun. In 2004 he offered an amendment to a gun show bill that would have banned the private sale of handguns at gun shows unless a background check was run. The article includes numerous incidents of McCain treading on the second amendment. That should come as no surprise considering his view of the first amendment.
The Club for Growth said, “While Senator McCain’s economic record contains a number of pro-growth positions, such as his support for school choice and free trade, and his steadfast opposition to wasteful government spending, his overall record is tainted by a marked antipathy towards the free market and individual freedom.”
Let us not forget the Keating Five scandal of 1980s. This from Wizbangblue.com:
Few remember that John McCain only narrowly survived the Keating Five Scandal of the 1980’s involving the corrupt dealings of Charles H. Keating and the Lincoln Savings & Loan. Keating was responsible for the collapse of Lincoln, yet gave McCain and four other members of congress over $1.3 million in political contributions to help influence banking and other legislation. McCain later attempted to whitewash his role in this scandal by becoming the poster boy in the congress for campaign finance reform.
Slate.com has a pretty thorough explanation of what happened and it isn’t pretty for McCain. Charles Keating ended up going to prison for bilking depositors in his Lincoln Savings and Loan out of billions of dollars. It was the biggest of the savings and loan scandals and McCain was wrapped up in it. Keating contributed large sums of money to McCain’s campaign and sought McCain’s assistance with federal investigators. McCain claimed he was just making sure a constituent was being treated fairly but Keating was McCain’s long time friend as well as contributor.
John McCain’s record is one of corruption, consistent opposition to the Republican Party and conservative ideals. He has a reputation for fits of anger and anyone in Washington knows that you cross John McCain at your own peril because he will do everything in his power to get even. He is dishonest and will do and say pretty much anything to get elected.
Much has been said over the last few days about Rush Limbaugh’s assertion that he may not vote for the Republican nominee this year. I’ve had my disagreements with Rush during this campaign season but on this I’m in agreement. If John McCain wins the Republican nomination I will not vote for him. I’ve written about being careful about what you say regarding other Republicans because you may find yourself having to vote for them. In this case I’m not worried about it because there is no conceivable circumstance where I would vote for McCain. He is in the same category as Lindsey Graham. In McCain’s case I won’t vote for the Democrat nominee but I will either vote third party or not vote at all in the presidential race. There is simply no way I can, in good conscience, vote for this man. And I’m convinced that there are many like me.
That brings us to the widespread claim that John McCain is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton (or Obama). I don’t believe McCain can beat either of them. Despite what the polls may say, McCain is the least electable of the Republican candidates. He does not inspire the rank and file of the Republican Party. There is so much bad blood that he would only serve to divide the party. And the claims that those in the middle, the so called moderates, would vote for him in large numbers is, I think, simply untrue. By and large those people will break for the Democrat candidate. McCain will get some of them, to be sure, but not enough to do the job. As for the Republican base, many will stay home. Others will vote third party. Some may even vote for the Democrat in protest. But at the end of the day, McCain will not have the support of the base. He will not have the support of conservatives.
And all those “conservatives” endorsing McCain today are, I believe, doing so because they believe the claim that he is the only one who can win. It is a lie perpetuated by the left with the help of the media. As Rush pointed out to a caller on Friday, what good is the endorsement of the New York Times? Does anyone believe they will endorse McCain over the Democrat nominee? Of course not.
UPDATE:
For even more details about McCain’s record of dishonesty and liberal policies, see Ann Coulter’s column, ‘Straight Talk’ Express Takes Scenic Route to Truth. The more you learn the more you realize McCain is a scoundrel!
It seems the race for the Republican nomination is in some disarray. Some pundits are predicting a brokered convention. Some Fred heads are talking write in votes in an attempt to force a brokered convention. What are the likely scenarios through Super Tuesday?
Giuliani had a solid lead in Florida before the early primaries. Some polls had him over 36%. Then the early primaries happened and Giuliani was not playing in any of them. That changed the political landscape. Now Giuliani, who has spent heavily in Florida, is tied for third with Huckabee who hasn’t spent much and isn’t campaigning there. Pretty much everyone believes that if Giuliani doesn’t win Florida his campaign is over. I think it likely he’ll come in forth.
The polls show Romney and McCain in a statistical tie for first in Florida. I suspect Romney will handily defeat McCain in the sunshine state, giving McCain a likely second place finish. Of course, the large liberal northeastern snow birds could tilt that the other way. Second is as good as last in this winner take all state and if that is where McCain ends up it hurts him a lot. Huckabee will be third which will give him no delegates but it will still energize his campaign because he will again have done it without much money, meaning he has real, solid support.
What does all that mean going into Super Tuesday? I think it will be a three man race at that point with Romney leading the pack. McCain and Huckabee will be fighting for second place.
There are, of course, some wildcards in play. Where will Thompson supporters go? They should go to Huckabee since both Huckabee and Thompson were going for the same constituency. Some will go to Romney because he is the most conservative of the front runners (if you don’t consider Huckabee a front runner). Some, like ALa of Blonde Sagacity, seem determined to go with McCain, primarily I think, because of his war record. I’m mystified by that since these people consider themselves conservatives but they can ignore McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, etc. But many of them bought pretty much anything Thompson said and Thompson attacked Huckabee relentlessly. That was no surprise considering Huckabee was his main opponent. They were, after all, reaching out to the same constituency. Once again, violation of Reagan’s eleventh commandment takes its toll.
Then there’s the small group who supported Duncan Hunter. Hunter is now endorsing Huckabee, which has to really irk some of the pundits on the right as well as Thompson supporters.
I still think Huckabee has a decent shot but I concede he has an uphill battle and the odds are against him. If, as I am predicting, Giuliani comes in third or forth in Florida, he is toast. His support has already shrunk considerably and without a win in Florida it will pretty much dry up. That leaves a three man race with Romney, McCain and Huckabee going into Super Tuesday.
I am convinced that McCain cannot win overall in states that have closed primaries. In the South Carolina primary McCain did not do well among those who consider themselves conservative or very conservative. He also did not do well among those who are pro-life. Additionally, Protestants and those who attend church regularly went largely for Huckabee (Source). I said last week, McCain barely won South Carolina and it took independents crossing over to give him that win and had Thompson not been in the race Huckabee would likely have won anyway. None of this bodes well for McCain going forward. The best thing he has is the claim of momentum coming out of South Carolina and I’m not convinced he really has any momentum, though the media has worked hard to generate some.
Based on what is known now, I believe Romney is the most likely winner on Super Tuesday. How well Huckabee does will depend on his ability to stretch a dollar and enlist the active support of the organizations that already exist in the FairTax community and the evangelical community. That carried him in the Iowa Straw Poll, it carried him in the Iowa Caucus and it has the potential to carry him on Super Tuesday. The question is, will those organizations mobilize? If they do Huckabee could defy the odds and the pundits and be positioned to take the nomination. If they do not, Romney wins on Super Tuesday. Either way the best McCain can hope for is second and that would mean the end of his candidacy. Indeed, if Romney is the clear winner after Super Tuesday he will likely be the nominee. As much as that thought does not appeal to me, it is infinitely preferable to a McCain win. Still, I have hope, if not giddy optimism, that Huckabee can pull this off.
If, by some miracle, McCain emerges from Super Tuesday a winner, the Republican Party is in real trouble! More on that possible outcome in another post.
I don’t mind saying I’m disappointed. I’ve had harsh words for John McCain and my opinion has not changed. I really thought South Carolinians would not be fooled by him but I was wrong. Of course, independents are what pushed McCain over the top. If you didn’t know, South Carolina has open primaries, something I’ve always disagreed with. Among Republicans and particularly conservatives, Huckabee won. But independents went strongly for McCain.
Because it was still quite close I don’t think second place does too much damage to Huckabee. And, because independents won it for McCain, I’m not convinced that will translate to states that hold closed primaries. I certainly hope it won’t because McCain is many things but conservative is not one of them.
Thompson came in a distant third. Had he been a close third he might have still had a decent position but he was 13-14 points behind Huckabee. In my view that pretty much ends it for Thompson. He may hang in there a little longer but his campaign is effectively over.
Listening to FOX News the consensus seems to be that after today the race has been reduced to McCain, Romney and Giuliani. I pray that isn’t the case considering none of them is conservative. They further believe that if Giuliani doesn’t win Florida it will be down to McCain and Romney If that eventuality occurs, I’ll have to do some serious soul searching about how I will respond. I am a conservative and I don’t know that I could vote for McCain under any circumstances.
I simply do not buy the argument from most of the talking heads on FOX News that this is the end of the road for Huckabee. Second is not what he wanted but the fact is he’s still viable. Florida is next and neither Huckabee nor McCain is going to win there. Next is Super Tuesday and lot of states do not have open primaries. I don’t believe McCain can win in the south without independents and Huckabee will win in those states. What is more likely in my judgement is a spread of delegates following Super Tuesday that has Huckabee squarely in the pack along with others, none with enough delegates to take them over the top.
It’s going to be a while before we know who the Republican nominee is and it could end up in a brokered convention, something we haven’t seen in some time. If that happens who knows what the outcome will be? At that point anyone could get the nomination, even Fred Thompson.
For weeks now Rush and others have been decrying the fact that all the Republican candidates claim the Reagan legacy when none are actually conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Then, of course, Huckabee advisor Ed Rollins had the audacity to say the Reagan coalition is gone. That sent Rush over the edge.
Now Newt Gingrich is saying much the same thing. From This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era. We’re at a point in time when we’re about to start redefining — as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine — the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs.
Rush just didn’t know what to do with that. He’s been a Gingrich supporter for years and Newt says something like that. It put Rush in a spot.
Rush had this to say on his show today:
Every one of these Republicans is starting to talk about redefining the party, and this has been going on since the early days of this, not just now. If you recall, all during last year, I told you this was my big concern: that Reaganism and conservatism were going to be redefined so as to fit the mold of whoever these guys on our primary roster are. One of the things that Newt said is "redefine the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs." Something about that rubs me wrong. Something about that sort of grates on me. The Republican Party is supposed to sit out there and I guess (slurps) moisten its index finger, stick it in the air, find out what people want, and be that? That’s not who we are! Now, it may be who populists are. In fact, it is exactly who populists are. Even if you have no intention of following through on what you plan to do as you promise all these wonderful things to your supporters, as a populist. But this is not what the Republican Party has been. It’s what the Democrat Party had been.
This fits right in with what’s been going on with the Republican race for the nomination. The lines are drawn, the assumptions have all been made and everyone is hearing what they expect to hear rather than what is actually being said.
Newt was on Hannity and Colmes tonight and Sean asked him about the comment. Newt went on the explain that the Republican Party cannot continue trying to hold on to the issues of the eighties. He pointed out that most of the major concerns we have today didn’t exist when Reagan was in office. Gingrich made the point that if Reagan was in office today he’d be tackling today’s issues, not the issues of the eighties. In effect, the Reagan era is over and it’s time for a new era if Republicans want to win.
Newt was NOT denigrating the Reagan legacy or conservatism. He made it clear that he was always a Reagan supporter. But what Rush and others seem to want is Reagan himself. Too bad.
No one is a bigger fan of Ronald Reagan than I am. Reagan stood for conservatism long before it was fashionable and he is the model of conservatism. But we aren’t facing the Soviet Union, Reagan defeated that. We aren’t facing many of the problems we faced in the eighties. We have a whole new set of problems and we have to face them head on as a party and decided how we’ll deal with them and articulate that to the electorate. We can’t do that if we’re constantly bickering over Reagan.
It’s not going to happen but Rush, Laura Ingraham and the rest of the right leaning pundits need to stop living in the past and take a look at the present. Reagan is dead. We aren’t going to return to the eighties much as some of those pundits might wish we could.
I want conservatives in office. But if every candidate that takes a look at the changing landscape ends up characterized as a populist we’re facing a long uphill battle.
The South Carolina primary is a week away and at present Huckabee is projected to win here. Thompson, however, had a very good night in the debate on FOX News Thursday and McCain is pulling out all the stops to prevent a repeat of 2000. What is the likely outcome?
Regular readers will recall that I was an early Thompson supporter. To this day I believe Thompson is a more conservative candidate than Huckabee is, excepting his position on the FairTax. But Fred took so long to enter the race and when he did, he was all but invisible by choice. He gave few interviews and was not to be found in the media. At the same time Mike Huckabee was making his name known and moving up.
I believe that Fred’s showing last Thursday was too little too late. He threw everything he has at Huckabee because they are going after that same voters. It wasn’t enough. Huckabee has the lead and I don’t expect he’ll lose it. In fact, I expect that after the South Carolina primary we may see Fred Thompson drop out of the race. If he doesn’t come in at least second his viability will be in serious jeopardy. If Thompson drops out, who does he endorse and where do his supporters go?
The safe money is on Thompson backing his long time friend McCain. But I suspect many of Thompson’s supporters will have a difficult time moving over with him.
There are plenty of people calling John McCain a conservative. I remember a little online political test I took that said the candidate I agreed the most with was John McCain. That might be true on rhetoric alone but it certainly isn’t true when it comes to his record. John McCain is not a conservative, he is the maverick he’s portrayed himself to be. He’s unreliable when it comes to advancing the conservative agenda. How can Thompson supporters support McCain after Thompson drops out?
If they do not support McCain, where will they go? I can’t see them going with Giuliani who is a social liberal and opponent of the second amendment. What about Romney? Perhaps. But he’s a long time RINO recently converted to conservatism when it suited his ambition. I don’t trust him and I don’t see when conservatives in general should. What does that leave? It leaves Huckabee.
The problem is, Thompson supporters have joined the Huckabee bashing bandwagon. It will be difficult for them to support a guy they’ve invested so much into destroying.
All of you who hate Huckabee need to think about what you will do if he ends up being the nominee. Just like I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’ll do if any of the current slate of RINOs ends up with the nomination. This thing is pretty wide open right now. I think as a party we need to give some serious though to how we’re going to win in November, not just how our candidate can win the nomination.
Watching the caucus returns Thursday night one thing stood out. Virtually all the pundits credited Huckabee’s commanding victory to evangelicals. It was often noted that Huckabee didn’t have his own ground team in Iowa. Rather, he had the natural ground team of local churches. This, they said, made the difference in Iowa but they speculated that Huckabee wouldn’t be able to count on such an organization in other states. I want to challenge that view.
Yes, evangelicals and churches mobilized in Iowa and that certainly helped Huckabee. But the assumption that they mobilized because Huckabee is “one of them” is, I think, misleading. The fact is Huckabee came in a strong second in the Iowa Straw Poll several months ago, not because of churches and evangelicals, but because of his strong support of the FairTax. It just so happens that for the most part evangelicals are also strong supporters of the FairTax. but they are not the only strong supports of the FairTax.
It may well be that Huckabee won’t win in New Hampshire. But I think it quite likely that he will do well even if he doesn’t win. Moving on the South Carolina puts Huckabee back in the drivers seat again because there is an incredible FairTax organization in South Carolina and the vast majority of those FairTax supporters are also Huckabee supporters. I know this because I’m part of the South Carolina FairTax organization.
I was at the FairTax rally in Columbia, SC back in May. It was held across the street from the Koger Center where the Republican debate was taking place the same night. We had something like 9,000 people at that rally. We marched around the Koger Center, silencing all other groups while we marched. Indeed, small groups of supporters of the various candidates were in awe of the crowd we had. Many spoke to me, completely amazed that we had such support and so many people there.
The media virtually ignored that rally. Watching debate coverage that night it was striking to see video of numerous pockets of supporters for each candidate and no video whatsoever of the FairTax marchers. We were ignored.
We are still being ignored by the pundits on both sides and the media. With few exceptions the FairTax and its supporters have been given virtually no credit for Huckabee’s meteoric rise. But the reality is it is FairTax supporters that brought Huckabee that strong second place in the Iowa Straw Poll and it is FairTax supporter who have lifted Huckabee to the national stage. And so long as Huckabee continues to be the most articulate supporter of the FairTax, they will continue to lift him up.
I heard this verbalized yesterday on a radio talk show. I can’t remember which show it was but the guest was saying that both Thompson and Romney has looked at the FairTax and liked it but bowed to advisors who convinced them it was a losing issue. He claimed that both regretted listening to that advice. I don’t know if that is true or not. Having attended a couple of Thompson events it seems unlikely to me that Thompson ever even understood the FairTax, much less liked it. All I know is, the FairTax is a winning presidential issue and Huckabee has tapped into it.
To be sure there are lots of other very important issues and over the next few weeks Huckabee will be thoroughly scrutinized on all of them. He may or may not survival that scrutiny. But so far the myriad charges against him haven’t stuck and he’s continued to rise in popularity. Rush has said that Huckabee supporters aren’t interested in hearing anything negative or factual about Huckabee because they’ve made up their minds. Perhaps. But the same could be said (and I will say it) about all those “conservative” pundits who have been slamming Huckabee the last last few weeks. Some of them have slightly moderated their tone in the last few days. I suspect that’s because they are realizing that not only have they been unsuccessful in derailing Huckabee but they are going to have to deal with him going forward and that might be a little easier if they don’t have such an adversarial position but that’s pure speculation.
That bottom line is, the pundits and opponents of Mike Huckabee will continue to underestimate him so long as they don’t understand why he’s doing as well as he is. The FairTax is the biggest key. Yes, evangelicals support him and that helps. But that wouldn’t support him if there wasn’t a lot of common ground on key issues and one of those issues if the FairTax.
It’s late on caucus night and I’m about to go to bed. I’ll have more to say tomorrow but I didn’t want to close the evening without a few comments about the Iowa caucus and my predictions.
I nailed Huckabee. He won with a significant margin. I was off on Romney and McCain. McCain didn’t get the bounce I expected because Thompson did better than I expected. While I would have liked to see Romney come in third, I’m not at all unhappy with the outcome. I’m glad Thompson ended up in a tie with McCain and I’m really glad Huckabee did so well.
I don’t know that Thompson will be able to hold on past New Hampshire. He did better than I expected today but I don’t think he did well enough. At this point I still think Huckabee is the best bet for conservatives, despite all the claims by Rush and others that he’s not a conservative. No, he’s not Reagan, Rush is right about that. No one in this race is Reagan. But I’m excited about Huckabee.
Just a note about the Democrat caucus. That Hillary came in third is HUGE! I’m no fan of Edwards (he’s totally vapid) but I was rooting him on tonight. Hillary’s campaign is in no way derailed but this is a real hit and she’ll have to rethink he campaign strategy now. It will be interesting to see what she does next.
More tomorrow.
To voters in primary states the Iowa Caucus is not well understood. That’s because a caucus doesn’t work the way a primary works. In a primary everyone comes out and votes for their candidate and the one with the most votes wins. In some states if no one gets a majority of votes there may be a runoff to pick the candidate. The big difference in a caucus is that something like a runoff occurs as part of the caucus itself. Here’s how it works.
Caucuses don’t exactly involve votes per se. Instead caucus goers gather in a large room around their candidate. Any candidate that doesn’t have at least 15% of the caucus goers is ruled not viable and their supporters physically move to the area of their second choice. That’s where it gets interesting and it’s what causes pundit predictions to sometimes be incredibly wrong. Predicting who will have less than 15% isn’t too difficult but predicting where their supporters will go is not so easy.
On the Democrat side Dennis Kucinich has already told his supporters to support Obama should he not make the first cut, which is likely. Indeed on both sides there will be a number of candidates who will not meet the 15% threshold and all their supporters will move to someone else. That makes predictions difficult.
I don’t plan to make predictions on the Democrat side, primarily because I don’t really care. I’m much more interested in the Republican caucus.
Mitt Romney has spent a boat load of money to buy the Iowa caucus and a couple of months ago the conventional wisdom was that he would walk away with it. Today Romney finds himself in a dead heat with Mike Huckabee even though he’s outspent Huckabee by something like 20 to 1. The pundits are pretty much universally saying everything depends on turnout. Which candidates can get their voters out to the caucus will determine the outcome. I agree with that to a point but I think there is more at play here.
The Iowa Straw Poll in August was an eye opener for many. Romney was widely expected to win, as he did, but no one predicted Huckabee to come in second. Since the Iowa Straw Poll is mostly about buying votes Romney clearly had the edge. No one could compete with the money he could spend on the effort. Huckabee, on the other hand, had virtually no money to spend, yet he came in a strong second. There were a couple of reasons for that showing and keep in mind that Huckabee supporters pretty much had to pay their own way to the poll unlike Romney supporters.
First, Huckabee’s very outspoken support of the FairTax was probably the primary reason he showed so well. FairTax supporters are well organized and they mostly support Huckabee because he supports the FairTax so strongly and articulately. While there has been some acknowledgement of the roll of the FairTax by the pundits in the media, I believe they broadly underestimate how big that roll actually is.
Second, Huckabee unapologetically supports the issues so called “values voters” care about. He is pro life, pro family, pro second amendment and against gay marriage. He’s also an outspoken Christian and makes no bones about it. That scares some people who think any Christian will usher in a theocracy but evangelicals by and large are behind him.
The latest polls all have Romney and Huckabee in a tie while no one else has even 15% in the polls. So Romney and Huckabee will certainly make the first cut. Who will be out after the first round?
Giuliani and Paul will not make the first cut. Predicting where their supporters will go is somewhat difficult. Giuliani supporters will likely split between McCain (should he make the first cut) and Romney but Paul supporters are anyone’s guess. As rabid as those folks are they could pack up and go home, not moving to any candidate. If Thompson does not make the first cut his supporters will almost universally go to Huckabee. Romney is viewed as a RINO and Thompson supporters are real conservatives. They will not support the RINO.
McCain has more than 15% in only one poll but I think it likely he will make the first round. If he does not his supporters likely will not go for Romney because Romney has now gone after McCain in some of his ads. That gives most of those supporters to Huckabee if it comes to that in the first round.
Back to the turnout question. Remember how FairTax supporters buoyed Huckabee in the Iowa Straw Poll? I predict the same thing will happen in the caucus. I believe that in the first round Huckabee will have a significant lead over Romney. That will have some impact on the second round as the supporters whose candidates don’t make the first cut decide where to move their support.
Thompson is really the wild card. If he makes the first cut Huckabee could be hurt in the second round and it is then possible that Romney or even McCain could take the lead. I consider than an unlikely but possible outcome.
I predict the first round goes to Huckabee by a fairly wide margin. Romney will be second and McCain third in the first round. All of Thompson’s supporters will go to Huckabee, Giuliani’s supporters will split between McCain and Romney and Paul’s supporters (those who stay) will go to McCain.
In the second round Huckabee’s support grows the most because he gets all of Thompson’s supporters. Romney gains the least in the second round and McCain ends up in the middle.
The end result will be Huckabee first, McCain second and Romney third. That will leave the Romney campaign shell shocked and scrambling to regroup for New Hampshire. Romney will dramatically increase spending in New Hampshire and the number of negative attack ads he runs will increase dramatically as well.
These are, of course, only predictions. They could be wrong and indeed, almost certainly will be wrong in some details. I chose to be pretty specific about how this will go which increases the opportunities to be wrong. But I think the analysis is pretty sound and it will be interesting on Thursday to see how it turns out and how close I come to the actually results.
Stay tuned for caucus results analysis.
Happy New Year to you all. It’s 2008, election year. Last year saw this blog really slow down in terms of posts. I hope to change that this year with the primaries looming and the elections in November. I even got a little flack from my dad today for my lack of posting. So I’m going to try to pick up the pace a little, starting with the Iowa caucus coming up on Thursday.
It’s going to be an interesting years. Who will win the White House? Will the Democrats expand their margin in Congress or will the Republicans be able to capitalize on the missteps of a lack luster Democrat Congress? These an other questions will be addressed in the weeks and months ahead. I hope you’ll come along for the ride and maybe even participate rather than just read what I have to say.
It has always been my goal to stimulate conversation and discussion, not just get readers. That’s why I have comments open, I want to hear what you think. I’m open to Democrat opinions too, just don’t expect me to agree very often. But I’m open to discussion.
As for the conservatives in the audience, we have to buckle down and get to work if we’re going to bring the Republican Party around to our way of thinking. We have to support conservative candidates with our money and our energy. Without that support we will have nothing to complain about when RINOs run the party and conservatives aren’t elected. It’s up to us folks.
I’m looking forward to 2008. I’m looking forward to following and blogging the primaries and the election. It’s going to be a very interesting year!
For months Mike Huckabee was ignored by the pundits. Then suddenly, Huckabee began to look like a viable candidate and the long knives came out. There has been much speculation about why this might be. Huckabee’s camp speculates that many had already picked their candidate and when Huckabee began to surge he was perceived as a threat. I lean toward that interpretation myself.
I’ve been a Huckabee supporter for some time now. I’ve heard most all the criticisms and I’ve heard Huckabee’s defense of those criticisms. Take ethics charges in Arkansas. Like attacks against Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay on the national level, Democrats always resort to spurious ethics charges when when they can’t defeat a Republican on the merits. I have no problem believing this is the case in Arkansas. In the case of the wedding registry issue, Huckabee’s explanation is completely credible and sensible. Opponents who stick to that charge look stupid, just like Giuliani’s constant charge that Romney hired illegals when he did no such thing. Giuliani looked stupid then and Huckabee opponents look stupid sticking with spurious and silly charges.
On the immigration question I take issue with Huckabee. I think he is wrong about the children of illegal immigrants but I respect his position because I have anguished over the question of what to do with kids who’ve been here nearly all their lives. They don’t know any other country and they are not responsible for the situation they are in, their parents are. I disagree with Huckabee’s approach because it rewards and encourages illegal immigration but I understand where he’s coming from and this one issue is not a deal breaker for me.
There is one charge, leveled by Ann Coulter and others, that Huckabee wants to use the government to implement Jesus’ plans for the poor, that gives me serious pause. If true that would be a real deal breaker for me. I have no patience for social gospel advocates and I won’t have patience for Huckabee if I find he’s a social gospel adherent. But so far I’ve seen no evidence that it is true. Indeed, Huckabee has said that he’s running for President, not pastor in chief. Yes, he will make decisions based on his worldview. That seems to scare the pants off some people. But the fact is, everyone running will make decisions based on their worldview, Christian or not.
I’ve been reading the criticism and looking for evidence but so far I’m not seeing it. I’ve been quiet for a while now because, honestly, I was afraid some of this stuff might be true. But so far all I see is accusations. In every case Huckabee has responded and responded well. The one time he seemed somewhat flummoxed was in a interview with Laura Ingraham. But the reality is Ingraham was extremely combative from the start and Huckabee has little chance to finish an answer. It was clear to anyone listening that Ingraham was gunning for Huckabee.
Coulter also got some mileage from Huckabee’s plan to bring music and the arts back to education. She carries on like that’s just the silliest idea ever introduced. But it seems to me that Huckabee is simply talking about a liberal arts education, something most of our founding fathers strongly supported. There is something of a resurgence of the idea among private schools today and it’s an idea I support. The idea is that you cannot have a well rounded education without covering arts, literature, music, foreign language, history, science and math. Modern thinkers want to focus solely on science and math and maybe a little language thrown in for good measure. I believe the liberal arts approach is superior and it was unbecoming of Coulter to treat it like it was silly. I’m not sure where she got her undergrad but I suspect it might have been a liberal arts school.
Now let me be clear. I’m a fan of Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and many others who are taking pot shots at Huckabee. In virtually every case it seems clear to me that they have already made up their minds for someone else. Ingraham is a case in point. I’ve heard her interview Mitt Romney. She threw softball questions one after the other. Not once did she go after him on anything. Clearly Romney is her guy. Now that’s fine but she isn’t being real honest about that fact. She’s acted as if she’s unbiased regarding Republican candidates when she clearly is not. It’s human nature to see anyone who threatens your chosen candidate as the enemy but that alone doesn’t make the criticism valid. It requires evidence and there seems to be precious little of that.
So far the only one I’ve seen who truly seems unbiased is Rush Limbaugh. If he’s picked a candidate I am hard pressed to tell who it might be. The Huckabee campaign takes on El Rushbo at their peril.
I will continue to watch the situation carefully. If there is something that might change my mind about Huckabee I want to know about it. Yes, he’s my guy. But I am willing to switch if he turns out not to be the real deal. To date I’ve seen nothing to sway me. And lest you think I’m not as willing to change as I say I am, recall that I started out supporting Fred Thompson so I’ve already switched once. I’ll switch again if new information comes along that convinces me a I should.
For now I’m just disgusted with the constant “conservative” attacks on Huckabee. I think it’s a mistake and it’s damaging to the party.
