This is a very weird story. So the primary coverage was bouncing along Saturday, with Mike Huckabee trouncing John McCain in Kansas and winning a squeaker in Louisiana. The race in Washington appeared to be going down to the wire, too. And then… the Washington GOP just stopped counting and gave McCain the victory. Leading to this exchange between the head of the state GOP and Huckabee’s lawyer (and his daughter-in-law):

Finally, Luke Esser, the chair of the state GOP party, returned the Huckabee campaign’s call, saying the final results would be determined sometime within the week.

The only hitch? The state chairman had already declared John McCain the winner last night, with only a 242 vote lead. In a written statement last night, Esser said, “Congratulations to Sen. McCain for a hard-fought win, his second caucus victory in the 2008 presidential nomination process. And congratulations to Gov. Huckabee for his strong second-place finish.”

Huckabee campaign lawyer Lauren Huckabee (daughter-in-law of the candidate), who is skeptical of the fairness, asked for a lawyer to monitor the resluts.

The state GOP denied the request and hung up on Lauren Huckabee, according to the campaign. Campaign adviser Ed Rollins will be sending lawyers to Olympia, scheduled to land this evening, to investigate the matter.

At a hastily arranged press conference in a hotel room, Rollins was steamed.

“You don’t get to announce the votes until they are all counted. And obviously, by his attempts to project without any statistical data or even if he had statistical data, it’s irrelevant: we’re entitled to a fair, full count,” Rollins said.

“Our lawyers attempted to contact him today, finally did so about ten minutes ago. He said, ‘Well I don’t know where the precincts, are, I just sort of did it. How dare Mike Huckabee challenge – he has to trust us. We’re going to count the rest of the votes today in the office.’”

“We asked to have someone go in to the office with them and count the votes and he refused us. He said he would have to notify the other campaigns.”

Huckabee called it Soviet-style tactics and he’s not wrong. The Republican Party is a top-down establishment outfit, and they clearly have an interest in wrapping up their race with the utmost speed. But stopping the counting? McCain is playing dumb about it and trying to say “trust the state GOP,” but it’s kind of hard to do so when they shut down the election and declare a winner before all the votes are in.

John McCain, Mike Huckabee | 1 Comment »

So Mitt Romney, who was embarrassed in California, a beaten third all over the Southwest and really only strong in states he had a house in, has decided to spend Tagg’s future kids’ college funds and stay in a futile quest for the GOP nomination. And the bureau chief at Pravda Online Hugh Hewitt decided to make an analogy to commemorate this bold (some would say ignorant) decision. Now what public figure from the recent past do you suppose Hewitt would use in said analogy to describe Romney’s choice?

I’ll give you ten seconds. Hum the “Match Game PM” theme to keep time.

….

Give up?

Like Reagan In ‘76, Romney Is Staying In

Congratulations! Hugh Hewitt, you’re the proud recipient of the Reagan Library’s “One Billion References to Reagan” Award! We’ll fly you and a guest first-class from Reagan National Airport to Simi Valley for a tour of the Reagan Library! That’s right, you’ll drive down the Ronald Reagan Freeway and onto Ronald Reagan Drive, where you’ll take in the Reagan Oval Office, the Reagan legacy, and the Reagan Reagan, a special of this prize package!! And we’ll give you a stack of Reagan dimes and a DVD copy of the CBS miniseries “The Reagans” for you to burn!! Reagan Reagan Reagan 9/11 Reagan!!!

Sheesh, if they could re-animate St. Ronnie’s corpse… he’d do better than Mitt Romney. And actually that’d make at least 3 corpses running on the GOP side this year.

Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

I’m watching this speech with Rudy Giuliani endorsing John McCain, and afterwards McCain gets up there and mentions 9/11 three times in his 5-minute speech.

It’s like a disease that’s catching.

p.s. The end of the prospect of Rudy Giuliani in federal government should bring howls of joy across the nation and maybe even the world. The man was a psychotic with post-traumatic stress disorder, and an authoritarian narcissist who would have been the worst possible outcome for any logical human being. The idea that he would be in any kind of McCain veepstakes is beyond crazy. Um, what great campaigning skills does he bring to the table? Would he compel a strategy of sitting out the general election and waiting for a December run-off?

John McCain, Rudy Giuliani | 21 Comments »

It’s about a 99% bet that the winner of the Republican nomination will be announced tonight in the Sunshine State. Even St. Rudy of the 9/11 admits this. Sure, the Super Duper Tuesday votes won’t yield a clean sweep; Mike Huckabee is trotting out a Southern strategy that has him leading in Tennessee. But given that No Republican candidate is on the air with ads in any Super Tuesday state, the free media boost out of Florida for Mitt Romney or John McCain will be extremely important, especially for McCain, who soaks up the media love like no other candidate. That’s why it’s been so acrimonious; both sides know that Florida is really the end of the road for this race. So Romney and McCain lob charges of “You’re the liberal! No, you’re the liberal!” at each other, trying to appeal to conservatives in this closed primary.

Mr. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, began attacking at dawn, accusing Mr. McCain of allying himself with liberal Democrats in the Senate and betraying conservative principles on legislation involving immigration, the environment and campaign finance.

“If you want that kind of a liberal Democratic course as president, then you can vote for him,” Mr. Romney said at a Texaco gas station in West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. “But those three pieces of legislation, those aren’t conservative. Those aren’t Republican.”Mr. McCain volleyed back by describing Mr. Romney as a serial flip-flopper who had taken multiple positions on a variety of issues, including gay rights, global warming and immigration. “People, just look at his record as governor,” Mr. McCain said at a shipyard in Jacksonville. “He has been entirely consistent. He has consistently taken two sides of every major issue, sometimes more than two.”

Josh Marshall comments on how close the polls have been, and the winner is really up in the air. But with what’s on the line being so clear, Florida voters aren’t likely to throw away their vote. Expect moderates to move to McCain, and conservatives to line up with Romney, and the result will reveal itself in which faction has those numbers.

UPDATE: I don’t know how else you can read this robocall:

“Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn’t changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now, it’s something different.

Look, McCain knows what he’s doing. He saw how dirty attacks propelled George W. Bush to victory in South Carolina in 2000, and he’s following that path.

John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani | No Comments »

Mitt Romney went into his oppo research bag of tricks and found this obvious nugget:

Republican Mitt Romney took aim at John McCain Monday over reports he once considered signing on to John Kerry’s presidential ticket, the latest effort by the Massachusetts Republican to paint his chief rival as an inconsistent and unpredictable conservative.

“I do recall a story that he was thinking about being John Kerry’s running mate — he gave that some thought,” Romney said at an early-morning rally in West Palm Beach. “Had someone asked me that question, there would not have been a nanosecond of thought about it — It would’ve been an immediate laugh. And of course, if someone asked him if he would consider me as a running mate, he would have also laughed immediately.”

“So, we are different,” Romney continued. “I’m conservative.”

I know that everything St. McCain has done immediately goes down the media memory hole, but in 2001 he was openly talking about leaving the Republican Party, and in 2004 McCain actually approached Kerry about joining the ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee.

Romney is obviously pulling out all the stops, because in recent days McCain has regained momentum in Florida, due in part to endorsements from Senator Mel Martinez and the popular governor Charlie Crist. But it is a closed Republican primary, and this re-hash of McCain’s past flirtations with the Democratic Party can be combined with this column alleging that McCain would never nominate an open partisan like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to confirm the suspicions many Republicans have about the Arizona Senator.

Fund wrote that “Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because ‘he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.’”

Commenters at conservative blogs such as the The Corner on National Review Online have been churning all morning:

McCain has got to explain himself to conservatives now, on Alito for sure, and on much else as well. While I’m unquestionably concerned about what a McCain nomination might mean for the Republican coalition, I’m not one of those who feels it would necessarily be disastrous. On the contrary, I can see scenarios where McCain and conservatives could patch things up rather well. But this Alito thing is serious. It bugs me, and I need to know more, quickly. McCain needs to forthrightly address conservatives concerns on this and other issues, and he needs to do it before Super Tuesday.

It seems to me that this all is coming a bit late. The winner in Florida is going to absolutely have a leg up going into Super Tuesday, and the time for Romney to stop McCain’s momentum was a few days earlier.

Florida, John McCain, Mitt Romney | No Comments »

Turns out St. John of the Straight Talk, the maverick from Arizona who will never compromise his ideals, is a politician.

Senator John McCain stepped up his attacks on his Republican rival Mitt Romney on Saturday, accusing him of once wanting to withdraw from Iraq and likening him to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in his approach to the conflict.

In response, Mr. Romney lashed back, saying Mr. McCain was being “dishonest,” and demanded that he apologize.

Mr. McCain’s comments marked the second straight day of going on the offensive against Mr. Romney, and they came as polls showed the two men locked in a tight race in Florida, where the Republican primary will be held Tuesday. […]

“If we surrender and wave a white flag like Senator Clinton wants to do and withdraw as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos,” Mr. McCain said to reporters in Fort Myers on Saturday morning.

At a town-hall-style meeting later in Sun City Center, a retirement community, Mr. McCain reiterated his accusation. “My friends, I was there — he said he wanted a timetable for withdrawal,” Mr. McCain said.

Romney has wanted a lot of contrary things, and has taken a lot of contrary positions, but he has never, ever, wanted a timetable for withdrawal.

I’m also wondering how the myth of “straight talk” squares with the farcical old man peddling a secret plan to capture bin Laden.

So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy.

“One thing I will not do is telegraph my punches. Osama bin Laden will be the last to know,” he said today while riding on the back of his bus between Florida events. In other words: he’s not telling. Why not share his strategy with the current occupant of the White House? “Because I have my own ideas and it would require implementation of certain policies and procedures that only as the president of the United States can be taken.”

That response, of course, echoes Richard Nixon’s campaign promise in 1968 to stop the Vietnam War. Nixon also declined to say what his plan was. America’s involvement in the Vietnam war continued until 1973.

So, to recap: when McCain’s talking straight, he warns that there will be other wars (especially if he has anything to do with it). When he’s saying practically anything else, he’s not talking straight.

John McCain, Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

It’s a little useless to be pounding on Mike Huckabee, given that he’s flat broke and is pulling out of Florida. But he’s using a Southern strategy to pick up lots of Super Tuesday delegates (Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia), and he’s still a potential Vice Presidential candidate should McCain or Romney want to pick up evangelical support. So it’s important to understand that yesterday he compared America to Nazi Germany.

In a speech to the Florida Renewal Project Monday night, which in an unprecedented move was live streamed on the American Family Association’s Web site, Mike Huckabee compared America to Nazi Germany. He first implored the audience to renew their “commitment to Christ” and “to our nation, to its heritage, as well as to its future,” adding “do we expect the seculars [sic] to do it? Do we expect the unbelievers to lead us, and if so, how will they lead us and where?” He then engaged in an extended description of his visit to the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem with his 11- year-old daughter, who asked, “why didn’t somebody do something?” Huckabee, who has called abortion a “holocaust,” then issued a dire warning:

… I pray that no father ever stands over the shoulder of his own daughter and after her witnessing the decline and the fall of a great nation, writes, and sees her write these words, “why didn’t somebody do something?” You see, I believe the reason we’re here is because we are the somebodies. And we’re to do the something and if we don’t, who will? And if we don’t act now, when will it happen, and will it be too late? You leave this conference with this haunting question, and pray that no one would ever ask of you or of me, why didn’t somebody do something.

It is beyond dangerous to give someone with this worldview even a slice of federal power.

Mike Huckabee | 2 Comments »

NBC News is reporting that Grandpa Fred is out of the race.

So ends the laziest candidacy in American history. They’re showing b-roll of Fred “campaigning” on MSNBC and they literally can’t find anything more interesting than him eating a bowl of soup.

Remember, this was the “conservative choice” beloved by the Internet right, the man who the Republicans saw as a savior when he first entered the campaign.

Hilarious.

Fred Thompson | 3 Comments »

“Who Let The Dogs Out” is not exactly a new reference. In fact, it’s just what a clueless white guy would say in front of a bunch of black people to try and “relate”. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mittens Romney, and a supremely awkward moment on the campaign trail.

As he posed for a picture with a group of young people, the typically old-fashioned Romney was relaxed enough to quote from a popular hit single from a few years back.

“Who let the dogs out?” he called out, as he stood there beaming in his shirt and tie. “Who! Who!”

There’s actually video of this at the CBS site.

You can almost hear the gears grinding inside Mittens’ head, with his brain repeating in Homer Simpson-like fashion “Say something street, let them know you’re with it,” and then when he busts out with the Baha Men tune, the brain saying “That’s it, I’m outta here.”

Update: Noah Noah here. The video is now available on the You Tubes, and I’ve pasted it below for your viewing (dis)pleasure. Notice at the very end, where Mittens goes up to a baby and, commenting on the baby’s necklace says, “Oh, you have some bling bling there.”

Wow. I think Mittens needs to rush home and ask son Josh how he can gain more street cred. As you will see from the image below, Josh is really trying.

Word!

Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

I was in Nevada covering the Dems all weekend, so I kind of neglected the twists and turns of the Republican race. I’m not talking about fringe candidates like Rudy Giuliani (even his money men in New York are jumping ship), but the ones who actually still have a chance of winning the thing. And I think it’s coming down to a two-person race.

Rasmussen is showing Romney opening up a lead today. But he’s been up with ads, while McCain starts them today. So that’s subject to change as we get a week-plus of pretty intense campaigning down there, which will only be on the Republican side since the Democrats are forbidden from doing so as part of the state breaking DNC rules with their primary.

Romney or McCain will be the nominee. Huckabee’s loss in South Carolina, aided by Thompson going all-out there and taking away some of his votes, seems to me decisive. If he can’t win in a Southern Baptist state, after throwing every bit of dirt he could and associating homosexuality with bestiality and trying to make the frickin’ Confederate flag an issue, then there’s not much hope for him replicating the Iowa victory, where he was basically squeaky clean.

Florida is unique to all the states that have voted so far, in that it’s a) a closed primary and b) winner take all for delegates. I don’t think Romney has lost to McCain among Republicans in any state where he’s actually competed. And Giuliani, who will get some votes, probably hurts McCain, in the same way that Thompson hurt Huckabee.

Romney would, obviously, be a great general election candidate for Democrats to face, simply by virtue of the fact that the media hates him so, and that he’s been so successfully defined as a flip-flopper. But electability aside, I think he has a shot in Florida because the top issue in these primaries is starting to be the economy, and even though Romney actually does better among brainwashed Republicans who think the economy is doing great, at least he has an argument to make that he knows what he’s talking about. McCain actually doesn’t have a clue. After admitting that he doesn’t know much about the economy at all, he’s tried to catch up and take on these conservative ideas which are ill-fitting to him.

John McCain recently acknowledged, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” He added, however, “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

I’m quite certain The Maestro isn’t helping. In South Carolina, McCain told an audience a couple of days ago, “Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues.” As a matter of reality, McCain was talking gibberish.

A few days prior, at a Republican debate, McCain said, “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong.”

Now, McCain, who presumably would have learned something about economics after serving in Congress for the last quarter-century, blamed government spending for creating an economic decline that he didn’t believe existed less than a week ago.

Government spending simply isn’t a factor for a destroyed subprime mortgage market, the credit crunch, and sluggish consumer spending. He literally has no idea what he’s talking about; the same with saying that tax raises cut revenues, which is from the planet Not True. I know the media covers for McCain as much as they cover for Brett Favre, but seriously, this is going to seep out.

But we shall see. Patrick Ruffini, a conservative, has an excellent roundup of the race. A quote:

Mitt Romney is fast becoming the candidate of conservatives in the suburbs and the exurbs. In Michigan, he dominated Oakland and Macomb counties with 46% of the vote in a multi-candidate field. In Nevada, he won most convincingly in Clark County. In Iowa, he did better in Des Moines than elsewhere in the state.

The Romney and McCain coalitions also overlap. They represent two different sides of the establishment coin, with McCain representing an older, mainline establishment — the Republican Party of Gerry Ford, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole — and Romney representing the brasher, post-Reagan establishment that was built on the tax issue and whose alliance with modern-day Huckabee voters allowed them to take control of the party in 1994 [...]

The trouble for McCain is although he has probably secured the moderate berth in the finals (sorry, Rudy), he hasn’t made many inroads with the base and his vote still looks decidedly unlike what that of a GOP nominee should look like. To say that conservative South Carolinians somehow embraced McCain is to ignore the fact that McCain lost conservatives, pro-lifers, and Evangelicals, and eeked it out against the most divided field to date.

With Romney’s suburban base secure, for McCain to start racking up victory margins in the 40s — which he’ll need as candidates fade or drop out — he’d need to add votes from the Christian conservative base — from supporters of walking wounded like Huck and Fred. Because of their candidates’ personal animosities towards Romney, that is a distinct possibility that such an alliance could be forged — but it would be an alliance of opposites — of pro-life and pro-choice, of liberal and conservative, of secular and evangelical. I don’t know if conservatives are going to overlook that fact.

In the traditional middle of this fight is Mitt Romney, who strives to represent a sort of Goldilocks conservatism. The question is if center is big enough to hold this year.

I think it’s really anybody’s guess. I wouldn’t be surprised with Romney or McCain as the nominee.

Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani | No Comments »