That’s okay. I think his campaign’s been running on Aqua Velva, Bay Rum, Moxie (the soda, not the attribute) and the sheer hormonal power of Chris Matthews’s mancrush for at least three months now…
There is a major upside to Huckleberry’s run at the nomination, and that is the populist factor. Even as I find his views…ah, lets just say “disagreeable”, (since we don’t really have a “run screaming from the room” smilie…) he deserves his shot simply because registered Republicans want him to. At this point, it seems to me, his main obstacle is not so much the Secular Atheist Alliance as it is the Republican leadership. Their chickens have come home to shit upon them and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. They have exploited the Knucklewalking Right for years to benefit the Corporado Right. The Trogs are rightly sick of it, and are demanding their day.
It is similar to how the leadership of the Dem party seem intent on Hillary, even as the enthusiasm of the base leaves a lot to be desired. Such as enthusiasm.
Got a nickel that says most of the horrific revelations being dug up about Ol’ Huck are being offered by Pubbie operatives, on the Fife Principle (“Nip it in the bud, Andy, nip it in the bud!”).
There will be great weeping, and gnashing of teeth, and tearing of hair, and Mayonaisse Mitt will be nominated, being the least offensive of a bad set of choices. Myself, I haven’t laughed so hard since they shot Ol’ Yeller.
(Yeah, i’ve used that line before, I’ll use it again, its mine and I like it, so bite me.)
I’m predicting it will be Giuliani versus Clinton, with Giuliani in a narrow win. I’d be happy with either one.
Sure you’re laughing now, but what if Huck gets the nom and he ends up beating Clinton with his folksy ways and good humor? How many really thought Bush would get re-elected? I didn’t think the Dems could nominate such a poor candidate to make it possible, but they did.
I would really prefer to have a reasonable Republican get the nom and so the worst case scenario is a semi-fascist like Rudy who is at least socially liberal or McCain who is palatable. Huck vs. Clinton scares me, as HRC might lose. That is a scary thought. He scares me more than Romney or Thompson who I consider frightening enough.
Jim
Mike Huckabee is a George Bush clone. He’s a social conservative, and a fiscal liberal. That means he’s going to employ big government to promote his social conservatism. That should scare the crap out of liberals and libertarian/Republicans.
Look forward to many more ‘faith-based initiatives’, a renewal of the war on drugs, a crackdown on the internet, all kinds of extra spending on seniors (a big constituency), and a chaotic economic policy that will pay lip service to capitalism while closing borders and instituting trade protections.
As I said, he scares the hell out of me.
I don’t believe Huckabee is as committed as Bush is to cutting taxes for the rich in perpetuity. I think he’s more likely to have a sound economic policy than others in the Republican field. He seems genuine in his concern for the poor and unlike the others, has compassion for the illegal immigrants. For these reasons, the Republican establishment will never allow him to be the nominee. The Bible Belters may have served their purpose in the last 20 years. but the Pubbies will throw them out on their ears if they try to actually run the show.
Huckabee’s very popular with the most-voting contingent of Republican voters. It will be interesting to watch the Corporate Republicans have to actually steal their OWN election…
Indeed. Looks like Rove will start doing his voodoo about 9 months early. It appears that the marriage of convenience between corporate types and evangelicals may be near its end. This could be a major realignment election.
Giuliani is employing a brave new tactic to win the nomination, lose ALL the primaries.
Honestly, this is the hardest nomination race to call I have ever seen. All these guys look like losers.
Romney blew his lead in Iowa to the point where he has to try and make 2nd look good. Now he’s losing his sure-fire lead in NH as well. His “Mormon speech” does not seem to have calmed fears on the Christian right and his 180 on abortion and gay rights is not going away. And he looks like the favorite right now.
McCain is on fire, by which I mean he has no shot in Iowa, he might win NH, he has very little of a shot in SC and he has little money which will be huge on super-duper Tuesday.
Huckabee will win IA and looks good for SC, but he is a non-factor in NH and he has little money or organization.
Thompson- is he still running?
Paul won’t win, but he might get a significant chunk of delegates.
What if no one wins? What if none of these guys can get an edge going into St. Paul? I mean what if the top dog has like 30% of the delegates in a five or six-way mess? It could be the return of the smoke-filled room to determine the nominee. What if they turn to someone else entirely as a compromise candidate? I don’t even know if the rules allow for such a thing.
I’ll bet Bill Frist is kicking himself right now. He could have hung in there with this bunch. Not that he would be a front-runner mind you.
Oh, how sad, I didn’t know his dog was dead…
Actually, he’s napping. His campaign manager says that he has a busy morning tomorrow shaking his cane and yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
And this just in…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20071227/pl_bloomberg/aw4kadle4bu
Offered without comment, unless grinning counts as a comment…
Schadenfreude can be so emotionally rewarding, can’t it?
I wouldn’t wallow in it just yet. The Huckster may talk a good game of economic populism, but he doesn’t believe the government should actually do anything that interferes with big business. Global warming, health care, corporate abuses - he’ll deal with it all, but it won’t involve a single new regulation. It’ll be magic.
So I think the money-cons will eventually learn to love the Huckster. I’m surprised they haven’t already done so.
Fortunately, the D.C. pundit class is sufficiently appalled by Huck that I can’t see them making him look good relative to the Dem nominee the way they boosted Bush and dissed Gore in 2000. And Huck’s sufficiently far out there that he’d need their help to win the election.
Anyway, back to the nomination contest: a week or more (depending on which state) without new polls is starting to give me jitters: things were changing so fast during the first few weeks of December that who knows what the shape of the race really is, right now? Huckabee might be a mile ahead in Iowa, or Romney might’ve overtaken him. Romney might have a comfortable lead in NH, or McCain may have blasted past him. Who knows, until we get some fresh data?
If Huck is still a mile ahead in Iowa, then NH is Thunderdome for Romney and McCain: only one of their candidacies will emerge alive. (Looks like I put my 2¢ on McCain, and I’ll stay with that.) The Iowa-NH-MI-SC series of caucuses and primaries will be split at most two ways. (A third candidate might win Nevada or Wyoming, but will anyone care?) That bodes poorly for Rudy, who really needs a multi-way split to have a chance in Florida and beyond.
McCain’s challenge would be to win a second primary after NH and before Super Tuesday. Even if he wins NH, how’s he going to contend nationally if the Huckster wins Iowa, Michigan, SC, and Florida? Romney’s got a better shot at doing that: if he wins NH, he’s back on his home turf in Michigan the next week. If he loses NH, he loses Michigan too, given that he and Huck were tied there, the last time anyone looked. But McCain was still ~12% in Michigan at last report, so he’d have a harder time than Mitt in turning a NH win into a Michigan win.
Polls, dammit. I want polls.
I asked, and it was given unto me. 
LA Times-Bloomberg polled in Iowa and NH from 12/20 to 12/26, and GOP polling shop Strategic Vision polled Iowa on 12/26 and 12/27. But as Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com explains, a lot of people are away over the holidays, and the travelers aren’t a representative subsample of the population. Which means that those at home to answer the pollster’s calls are a skewed sample as well. How much it affects the results, we don’t know: most polling shops shut down over the holidays for that reason.
The L.A. Times shows Huckabee over Romney in Iowa, 36-28, while SV has them at 29-27, respectively. The L.A. Times has McCain and Fred at ~10%, SV at ~15%. Could be sampling error and nonresponse bias, or it could be that SV’s later polling window indicates movement. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
In NH, the L.A. Times shows Romney having jumped out to a 34-20 lead over McCain. Again, is it real, or is it nonresponse bias? Hell if I know.
I think campaigning as an economic populist is a genius move on Huckabee’s part. A lot of people who have been voting Republican for years on “values” issues are finding themselves in dire financial straits (what with dropping home values, rising gas prices, credit card debt, etc.) These folks are going to be very receptive to a message promoting religious conservatism coupled with some good old-fashioned sniping at the rich.
Huckabee was on Joe Scarborough’s show this morning, and Joe asked him how he felt about the fact that “Wall Street doesn’t 
Huckabee.” I think Joe expected Huckabee to be contrite and to make conciliatory noises. Instead, Huckabee went on the attack, saying that it’s time for tax cuts to be geared toward the middle class and not the wealthy.
It’s certainly an interesting spin on Republicanism, and I think it’s going to resonate with a lot of voters. I suspect Huckabee will be very tough to beat in the general election.
I don’t see him being tough to beat. The Republican electoral success has been due to a combination of an unholy marriage between fundamentalists and the super-wealthy as well as a great deal of election fraud. If you tell a major part of your coalition to get stuffed then you need to get a whole lot better at cheating to win the election.
There’s a bunch of new polls from Iowa that show Mitt either tied with or back ahead of the Huckster.
Two of them are by my favorite whipping boys, ARG and Zogby. But Mason-Dixon and Strategic Vision are reputable outfits. SV is a Republican polling shop, but unless they’re working for one of the GOP contenders, I’ve got no reason to believe they’re slanting their results.
The poll listed as ‘Quad City Times’ was conducted by Research 2000, another reputable polling shop.
It does seem like some of Huck’s supporters in Iowa are drifting back to Mitt; the real question is who’s right about how big a snowdrift it is.
If both Mitt and Hillary win big in Iowa (they have her up by 7% on the Dem side), I’m gonna have to eat serious crow about ARG. 
I think the Votemaster at electoral-vote.com at one point called his approach “compassionate conservatism on steroids” and I think that’s the best way of summing it up I’ve heard so far. Huckabee scares the bejeezus out of me (policywise, not in terms of electability so much).