Most pols are dirty. Rudy is filthy and I do not know how much he can suppress. Plus he is trying to convince a pool of voters he is like them. I don,t think he can.
Thompson is not running for president, he is walking. He is far back and can not catch up.
Romney has to convince voters that his religion is main stream. I do not think he can pull it off.
Huckabee was interviewed on Charley Rose for an hour. He showed some weird ideas. They will come out.
Lets go back to the good old days when convention brokering and many votes determined the candidate.
Huckabee was on ITV news last night. He looks very like the actor Robert Lindsay, but his eyes seemed beady, not expressive.
I dunno, I’d think it would be much better for Rudy to have the two early states each go for one of his main opponents then have Romney win them both, which is what seemed the most likely scenario before Huckabee’s current surge in the polls.
I agree with you that if he hasn’t won anything by FL’s primary, he’s toast though.
Nah. A candidate who can’t win either of the 2 states they’ve been concentrating the hardest on is toast already.
But it won’t take long, not this year.
I agree, Romney winning both is the worst outcome for Rudy to wake up to, a month from tomorrow morning. Because then it’s odds-on that Romney sweeps the entire month of January.
I should have been more clear that I was working within the “what if Huckabee wins Iowa?” scenarios, since I’d pretty much done all the “Romney wins Iowa” scenarios earlier in the thread. And I don’t see those as having changed much - if Romney wins Iowa after Huck’s surge, then that’s at least as good for him as if he’d won Iowa without Huck ever getting out of single digits in the polls.
I was about to say this: *it’s better for Rudy if Huck wins both Iowa and NH than if Huck wins Iowa and Romney wins NH. If Huck wins both, then Romney’s weakened, and Rudy holds onto his lead in MI, and a win there boosts him to a win in NV, which means he’s in pretty good shape coming into FL even if Huck wins SC. And Super Tuesday is Rudy v. Huck. * Except that then I checked to see if there’d been any new polling in Michigan, which had only been polled once since the first week of October. And, holy cow, there has: Rasmussen shows Rudy, Mitt, and Huck in a three-way tie in MI. Previously, Huck had been a nonfactor in Michigan, and I’d assumed he still was. Oops. 
So now if Huck wins IA and NH, he probably runs the table in January, and I can sell lots of Huckabee/Dumond '08 bumper stickers. 
Fortunately for Mitt and Rudy both, Huck’s still not polling real well in NH.
Thanks. The more I look at this, the more important MI and NV appear likely to be.
Only 26 days until Iowa. Get ready to fasten your seatbelts, everyone!
I think on the face of it Rudy is in tactically good shape with Huckabee’s rise. It has to be in moderation though - he has to fear an early total Romney collapse IMO because:
While I agree that the Huckabee surge is the number one story of this week, McCain’s quiet rise to number 2 in New Hampshire is my number 1a story … also, at least in New Hampshire, McCain is the biggest beneficiary of a Romney collapse . If Romney should disappear as a viable candidate (and were he to lose badly to Huckabee in the early primaries I see that likely happening) and McCain stay viable, the scenario of Rudy vs. Huckabee is a fight I think Rudy wins BUT Rudy vs. McCain vs. Hucakbee has to be a scary thought for Guiliani’s team
I think Huckabee will start to slide back down now. Until now, he’s gotten support from the ‘values’ voters because of his consistent social conservatism. But economically, he’s more of a big government type.
In fact, Huckabee strikes me as George Bush Lite. He’s a ‘compassionate conservative’ who spends a lot of money and believes that government should be used to promote ‘values’. Once Republicans figure this out, his support will start to wane.
I still think it’s Rudy’s race to lose. Romney helped himself with his speech the other day and defused a lot of the problems the Christian Right has with him. But I think his Mormonism is still going to cause problems. And if he wins the nomination, you can bet the dems will go after his Mormonism, which is going to cause a real problems for the country. There are a LOT of Mormons out there, and if they perceive their religion to be under serious attack they’re going to fight back. It’ll basically be a new front opening in the culture wars. The country will be even more polarized.
I wouldn’t count Fred Thompson out yet. He’s been quietly picking up a lot of support from various groups who have a lot of pull, and he has a history of being a serious come-from-behind candidate (in his first Senate run, he went from being 20 points down to 20 points ahead). Furthermore, Thompson is relatively palatable to almost all wings of the Republican party - he’s a fiscal conservative, almost libertarian. He’s pro-life, but his beliefs in Federalism won’t allow him to support statewide abortion bans. He’s solid on ‘values’ without being a bible-thumping Christian himself. He’s strong on defense, without having the baggage of being involved ini any of the Bush plans.
In short, on paper he’s almost the perfect candidate, who just hasn’t met up with the expectations people have had with him. Maybe he’ll continue to fade, or maybe after all the front-runners continue chipping away at each other they’ll all look like damaged goods and ole’ Fred will ride his pickup truck to the front of the line.
But he’ll have to do it soon. There’s only a few weeks left until the primary season kicks off, and peopel won’t be paying attention through the Christmas holidays. So time’s running out for Fred.
Same with McCain. He’s been resurging, in part because he’s managed to take credit for the surge in Iraq while placing the blame for the failures in Iraq on Bush (and it’s a fair claim - he has been calling or more troops and a ‘clear and hold’ strategy for years). He’s also coming across as the serious, calm grownup when all these candidates are on stage, and people are noticing that. But time’s running out for him as well.
This year overall is starting to look like a real crapshoot. There are four or five candidates within 10 points of each other, with the polls swinging wildly. It may come down to little more than who happens to be carrying the momentum in the first and second week of January.
What will be really interesting is if a wild card winds up winning the primaries, and then turns out to be seriously damaged goods. Will that spark a protest from Republicans? Trouble at the convention? The rise of a serious third party from the right?
Thiis is going to be a very interesting election year coming up.
I posted this on October 21st. Permission to feel smug, Captain?
Granted. Now, report to the transporter room and join the away team. Ensign.
I agree. I don’t think I’ve heard a single bad thing about Huckabee in the press till a week ago, and I’ve heard three negative stories since.
Unlike Bush, however, Huckabee understood that bigger gov’t needs to be paid for and raised taxes in Arkansas rather then just pass a bond. In my opinion, that makes him a better candidate, but amongst Repub primary voters its far from a positive, and I think its the real reason that he hasn’t done well in polls until now despite being a more logical choice in a lot of ways then Romney or Guiliani, and why he ultimately won’t get the nomination.
Well, at the least, he’ll rent a pickup truck and ride it the last block. 
I agree, it’s a really interesting race. It’s easy to come up with reasons none of the candidates can win, which basically means that any of them can.
Yeah, well I posted this
on the same day. Really called that one, didn’t I? :smack:
I predict Romney and Rudy will become locked in a deathmatch in the final weeks before Iowa, resulting in Huckabee taking Iowa, and McCain taking New Hampshire. Rudy plays the Comeback Kid when the big states vote on SuperTuesday, but Mitt is toast. Rudy by a head.
Who cares? Newt isn’t going to run, you know. No Newts. Shit.
And I keep waiting for the sex scandal to break out, so I can call him Huckleberry Horndog. But he continues to disappoint.
Sam has a point about the corporatist wing of the Forces of Darkness lacking any enthusiasm for Huck, but its a prison of their own devise. They forged this alliance with the knuckle-walkers, they exploited their enthusiasm and their committment, and now they’re stuck with it. They need the Trog Right desperately now, they may hold the difference between defeat and catastrophe, between merely losing and having the living snot kicked out of them.
(Why, yes, I do rather relish that prospect, funny you should ask…)
I think the corporatist wing will press for Romney because he is the candidate with as much baggage as everyone else, but reflects a sensible regard for business, that is, abject adoration. Thing is, Huckleberry reflects a semi-rural populism, which has no special affection for “Eastern business” types, the unjust vexation of capital gains taxation is not a particular concern.
Now, in the past they have always won these power struggles, they were always able to buy off the Trog Right with sweet nothings, grandiose promises of an Ozzy 'n Harriet America reanimated. Just do as we say, one more time, and this time, we’ll have enough clout to sweep away the secularist homotarians. And they’ve always had their way with them, dinner and a show, and boinka boinka boink!
But maybe not this time, this time it is the suit Republicans who are needy, and coming beggin’. They’ve totally alienated the honest Conservative contingent (as witnessed herein, on these very boards, the Conservatives whose opinion I respect have yelled “Geronimo” and hit the silk. Both of them!)
Maybe the Trogs stand up and say “Not this time, screw me six times, shame on you, screw me again, uh, well, no…” They might just ram their guy down the suit’s throat. In a manner of speaking. And the wing-tip wing has no place to go.
But no Newt. So really, how much fun can that be?
That’s pretty good, but I posted this back on February 14:
And this back on January 25:
Moreover, I posted this back on May 17:
Oh, and I posted this back on February 8:
Prompting this response from John Mace:
Dagnabbit. Should have had the courage of my convictions. Still in a gambling mood, John?
You have earned the right to “out-smug” me Spoke…
(dramatic pause)
for the moment.
Huckabee’s getting a lot of attention now because he’s adding some interest to the campaign. But I predict that like Howard Dean, he’ll fade away if he actually reachs the top spot. He’s got too many negatives for a front-runner - his unabashed conservatism will make him a target for liberals and his economic policies will cost him corporate support. No Republican candidate can survive on just the family values voters; they need some cross-over votes. I still think Huckabee’s main contribution to this election will be making Romney look bland in comparison.
How’d I miss the gloat-fest? On January 18, in John Mace’s thread Can Chuck Hagel upset McCain, and…
My response was:
Discussing religious conservatives, I followed this up on January 21 with:
And:
Then on January 27:
I’d ask, “What do I win?” except I’m running third at best in this contest. A strong second goes to MilTan for his OP, What’s in the water in Hope, AR (Mike Huckabee related) on January 11, 2007.
But first prize goes to Hippy Hollow back on October 6, 2005. Answering the question, " Who would you pick as the Republican Nominee in '08?" he said:
I’ll have to go looking, but I have been talking about Rudy & McCain in some combination since I joined the board. As Rudy is still leading and McCain could still stay relevant enough to grab the VP spot, I feel pretty good about speaking for the non-religious right wing of the Republican Party.
It was before I joined and before the Dems made the mistake of nominating Kerry, but I though Bush & Co. might be so desperate last election to have Cheney resign for health reasons and add Rudy to the ticket then, just to capitalize on his status as a talk tough, crime fighter and hero of 9/11 that could appeal to the independent voters.
Jim
10-02-2005, 08:30 PM http://208.100.26.199/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6644869
09-08-2005, 12:24 PM