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.

Mike Huckabee, John McCain | 1 Comment »

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.

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

Just like it’s impossible to boycott Iran, Burma, or Communist China, one ex-Fred Thompson staffer’s effort to boycott Chuck Norris seems doomed to failure:

I want you to join me in boycotting all of the products that Chuck Norris endorses and some of the national companies that run advertisements on the show in which he starred and currently rerunning on the USA cable network, Walker, Texas Ranger. I also ask that you tell these companies why you are boycotting them. (See list to the right with contact information and post below for a sample e-mail.)

Darrell Ng reasons that Norris is endorsing Mike Huckabee, who at one time favored rounding up people with AIDS, and doesn’t believe in evolution, and that deserves consumer oppobrium.

Ng targets Total Gym, Geico, and KFC. Oh, and Tylenol, which advertises during reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger on USA. Which is a shame because watching reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger to find out who actually advertises during the show would give me a headache.

He’d better hope Aleve and Advil don’t run commercials in that time slot, too.

Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee | No Comments »

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 »

That is the important question that needs answers based on Paul Kiel’s report on a new anti-Hillary group, excerpted below:

A couple of days ago, a group called Citizens United Not Timid filed papers with the IRS as a “527″ organization….

[…]

It’s this simple: it’s all about the group’s acronym, which, used in conjunction with Hillary Clinton, is supposed to be irresistibly humorous. That is the beginning and the end of it. The group will not be running ads in any form and will not be making any robocalls. They’ll be making T-shirts. That’s it. You can buy them for $25 on their website

Oh my. Hillary’s got no hopes of overcoming this onslaught. But even if they choose other candidates, we can imagine the possibilities:

Citizens Lose if Obama Triumphs

Help Edwards Reap the Presidency, Eat S**t

So, I think the only solution is to come up with some acronyms to counter the GOP candidates:

Giuliani Reeks Of September Sorrow

Choose Huckabee And Fight Evolution

McCain Earns Republican Disdain Everytime

Romney Always Flip Flops, Is Still Here

It’s a start toward acronym-based victory.

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

It’s unquestionably true that the same South Carolina dirty tricksters who stopped John McCain’s Presidential bid in 2000 are out this year. The latest revelation is that Mike Huckabee’s army of robo-callers and push-pollers are spreading that McCain supports experiments on unborn children. Actually, Huckabee’s outfit is push-polling all his Republican rivals in the state. There is one charge specific to McCain, however: a mailer from a group called “Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. It’s pretty weak stuff, accusing McCain of collaborating with his captors. Only thing is, the mailer wasn’t mailed anywhere.

Recently, the group sent a mailer to approximately 80 newspaper editors in South Carolina accusing McCain of selling out his fellow POWs in Vietnam. On Tuesday, the McCain campaign (which is working hard to appeal to vet voters) made one of McCain’s former fellow POWs available to the media to respond to the smear. The story, picked up by the AP and Wall Street Journal among others, got national play — undoubtedly more play than the group would have been able to get on its own.

I spoke to the founder of Vietnam Veterans against John McCain, Jerry Kiley, yesterday. He told me that the group hasn’t “actively sought donations at this point,” and that the next step for the group will be mailings “going out to our network,” with the intention that the mailing would then be forwarded on to local media there. The group just doesn’t have the funds to send mailings directly to voters — nor, as they declared they would in their statement of purpose, to run radio and TV ads. Things “could change,” he told me, “if we received a sizable donation,” but he wasn’t holding out much hope.

Instead, they’re planning “an email campaign.” Groups of like-minded vets throughout the country will get the email chain started, he said, “so it will spread very quickly throughout the country.”

So, this is an unfunded group trying to get some media attention. The McCain campaign went nuclear on it, to “prove” that groups are out to get him in South Carolina. I have to say that this is NOTHING compared to what Rove and the boys did to McCain in South Carolina last time. That was an establishment attack. These are a few guys with a flyer and some time on their hands. The question is, does McCain run the risk of over-publicizing this smear to the extent of it actually rebounding back on him?

Mike Huckabee, John McCain | No Comments »

Mike Huckabee gave an interview to BeliefNet. And the legalization of gay marriage came up. Oh, look what he said! Who exactly is this line from the Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor intended for:

I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic. [Emphasis added]

It’s a love letter from Huck to Rick Santorum, that’s what it is!

Let’s not forget Rick Santorum, 2006 Senate election loser who hyped the danger we all faced from “man on dog” sexy sex if Chuck was allowed to marry Larry:

In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.

Santorum has not yet made an endorsement. He slammed John McCain recently on the radio, and if this column in the Philadelphia Inquirer says anything, he could believe that Mitt Romney is his main orange-colored man. But he has also said all the candidates had “serious problems,” on Fox News and predicted a brokered convention this summer. And Huckabee may be hoping that by waving the Santorum-smeared shirt of hot bestial inter-species action, he might be able to pick up some of those Pennsylvania delegates with the help of the gay and lesbian communities favorite ex-senator.

Or, it may just be that he doesn’t particularly care for gay men.

I could go either way.

Mike Huckabee | 2 Comments »

Mike Huckabee has a tendency to open his mouth and let strange, strange things fall out. Here’s a video of him telling Joe Scarborough about how he used to fry squirrels in his popcorn popper back in his college dorm room.

Wow. First dog torturing, and now this? We’ve got a long way to go until the nomination is decided. Anyone want to wager some predictions about the next Huckayuck we’re going to have to endure?

Oh, and is it just me, or did Huckabee lick his lips a little bit right after he dropped the fried squirrel bomb?

(Hat tip: Cliff Schecter)

(Cross posted at The November Blog)

Mike Huckabee | 2 Comments »

Sometimes Mike Huckabee will come out and say something that just scares the fuck out of you.

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

This is a guy who’s telling you that the Bible will be his Constitution. People tell you who they are. And this is why young evangelicals are flocking to him, as opposed to the evangelical leadership which is really more concerned with keeping power than anything the living God has to say. Huckabee represents a movement to quite literally take back the nation for Christ. I wonder, however, if he missed the memo on the commandment that says “Thou shalt not bear false witness”:

I got a call from Huck’s “independent” push pollers [Friday night]. It was a robo-call with a script that was micro-targeted for my Democratic union household. The robo-voice, which asked “poll” questions and left me time to answer, was an African-American male voice. Wanted to know if I was aware that “there is no real choice in the Michigan Democratic primary this year” and encouraged me to vote in the Repub primary instead.

Also asked if I was aware that the Machinists Union had endorsed Huckabee “for the first time in history…” (I assume by tonite they will add the Painters, too.) And if I knew that Huckabee was a fighter for working families, etc.

At the end, the robo-voice said the poll “was not affiliated with or authorized by any candidate or committee,” but all the “questions” were designed to communicate positive information about the Huckster.

It’s a classic ploy for these types of calls to play on ethnic and racial stereotypes — though in this instance, the pollsters seem to have chosen their voice with the idea that a typically African-American male voice would appeal to Democrats. (When I asked Common Sense Issues’ executive director Rick Davis whether it was accurate to characterize the voice in these calls as “an African-American male voice,” he said “it could be.”) Former dirty trickster Allen Raymond writes in his book How to Rig An Election that he had an array of actors available to portray a range of stereotypes, including “angry black man,” which was deployed to frighten middle-class whites.

Huck’s boys even called Republican Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, which was probably a bad idea.

I’m sure the Christian leader can reconcile dishonest push polling and robocalling in some way. Maybe Jesus worked phone banks!

Mike Huckabee | 1 Comment »