Huckabee, One and Done?
January 14th, 2008 by eric
This is not to say that Mike Huckabee will drop out of the race any time soon. He was certainly encouraged by his win in Iowa. And even though he struggles to keep his campaign alive on a shoestring budget, without funds to run many ads or move campaign personnel into primary states, his hopes have been buoyed by polling data showing him in good position in Georgia and South Carolina. He must have strong showings in these early states of Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida to be able to continue to survive into February. Otherwise his credit cards are going to max out and his bus will run out of gas.
It’s only been the past couple of months that the press and conservative talk show hosts have started to reaveal his left leaning, almost Democratic, voting record. Since he has been outed as a r.i.n.o, it might help him in a more liberal state like Michigan and hurt him as they get to know his record in more conservative Republican states. There are a couple of things in the news that are an indication that the “religious left” and even the Democrats are warming up to him. Have you ever heard of labor unions endorsing a Republican candidate? It’s a rare thing these days. They almost always back Democrats. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the International painters’ union have endorsed Mike Huckabee. LaMar Lemmons, a state representative in Michigan has started an organization called “Democrats for Huckabee”. LaMar Lemmons is a Democratic supporter of Barack Obama.
It’s a very troubling matter that the DNC has stripped Michigans delegates and Democratic candidates are not campaigning in Michigan. To see rising Democratic support for Huckabee (and McCain) in a scenario where many Democratic voters are likely to show up on Tuesday at the polling place and cast a “crossover” vote.
Who would have ever predicted in the months leading up to the Iowa caucus that Mike Huckabee would win the caucus and have this surge of momentum? He seemed to be one of those guys that never got much attention from the press. He didn’t have the name recognition of John McCain, Guiliani, or even Fred Thompson. Here’s a guy who doesn’t look as much like a president as he does a hillbilly with those crooked buck teeth and that funny grin. I mean doesn’t it always look like he’s thinking, “I just wanna go out and shoot me a possum for dinner”? But aside from his lack of name recognition or his hillbilly look, he never raised much money which seems to suggest he had very little support. His campaign reported less than two and a half million dollars in total fund raising through the third quarter. Compare that fund raising to his GOP rivals Rudy Giuliani with 47 million and Mitt Romney with 62 million in total receipts. Fred Thompson’s raised more money in a single month (3 million in June 2007) and has raised 12 million through the third quarter.
So how did Huckabee beat Thompson, Romney, Giuliani, and McCain -the guys that the media and political analysts seemed to establish as the serious contenders for the GOP nomination? It still seems a bit of a mystery. But the political pundits said it was the strong support of the evangelicals. In the few weeks leading up to voting day, the national media and Iowa relabeled Huckabee as the “Baptist minister” rather than “former governor”. The evangelicals came out to vote and supported one of their own. Mike Huckabee was the fresh face and the one that people didn’t know much about other than he was that Baptist preacher that the evangelical leaders in Iowa told their followers that they must go cast a vote for.
In addition to the evangelicals that are pushing Huckabee, there’s those crazy “fair taxers” who somehow believe that he’s going to make major tax reform and break up the IRS. Haha haha ha ha. It’s almost so stupid it’s funny.
Was it also part of the vast left wing conspiracy? The media hardly ever printed anything critical of Huckabee. They seemed to promote him as they saw he had a chance to shake things up. It’s the strategy of the “Democrats for Huckabee” that I mentioned earlier to duplicate something that they’ve seen on that reality show Survivor. After all, they thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could run Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama up against a weak and easily defeated Mike Huckabee in the general election.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Aaron Wakling
It’s interesting that you call Huckabee a RINO when it was romney who once said, “I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” Romney was a true RINO when he was “Gov. Romney” of Massachusets.
It was Romney who walked with the Lt. Gov at Boston’s gay pride parade handing out pink fliers that states “Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride Weekend!” Romney was a pro-gay rights, pro-choice, anti-gun, left leaning governor who won in a democratic state because he wasn’t really a “Republican.”
Huckabee won because of a search for honesty. Romney can reinvent himself as a reagan, as an independant, as an agent of change; but he’ll never be what the media saw at least for a moment in huckabee; honest.
If you haven’t seen this ad you should check it out; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elx3UWmyAY4.
I think Huckabee is a total wack. He’d destroy the country but at least he’s honest.
John McCain has been a part of Washington Corruption. He was one of the five Senates who involved in Savings & Loans scandal in later 80’s. It is also called “The Keating Five”.
In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, CA, collapsed. Lincoln’s Chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift’s failure. Keating told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of 1.3 million in campaign contributions from Keating.
This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The Ethics committee’s investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D_CA), Dennis DeConnis (D-AZ), John Glenn (D_OH), John McCain (R_AZ) and Donald Riegle Jr.(D_MI), who became known as the Keating Five. After the investigation, the Committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four. Most of them did not seek for re-election, and John McCain is the only one who left in Senate. John McCain is a part of Washington Corruption. The country is in another Savings & Loans crisis, and how people could forget the Washington corruption that associated with John McCain. IF Republican Party votes for John McCain for the President of United State, we become the party of Washington Corruption.
You are correct abotu Huckabee running out of gas– literally! See the CNN political ticker for Feb 12 “Huckabee Bus runs out of gas”.