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Mike Huckabee was on The Daily Show on Wednesday night and they talked about gay marriage. Jon Stewart does a great job questioning Huckabee and had this to say...
I'll tell you this: Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have for religion? We protect religion -- and talk about a lifestyle choice -- that is absolutely a choice. Gay people don't choose to be gay. At what age did you choose not to be gay?
John Deeth has some excellent analysis about the November election that is even more true after Obama's win in last night's debate...
From here on out this is about running up the score. It's about coattails. It's about the 58th and 59th and 60th Democratic Senators -- and, we hope, the 61st so we can finally consign Joe Lieberman to his own caucus of one. Georgia is in play, and in North Carolina Elizabeth Dole is a goner.
It's about House races on the bubble, like Judy Baker in Missouri 9 and Becky Greenwald in Iowa 4 and dozens -- yes, dozens -- of others. It retrospect, it almost seems like the Republicans saw this collapse coming, and the Palin pick was designed to hold the GOP base vote at x, rather than x minus y (y being a Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin or Stay At Home protest vote) to hold a few seats.
It's about making this a realigning year that finally kills off the Nixon-Reagan era Republican Southern Strategy and consigns the GOP to a Flags, Fags and Fetuses base from which recovery is impossible and reinvention is necessary. The Republicans won the battles of the 80s and 90s by pulling Democrats to the right and making us fight on their turf, and a big 2008 win followed by a 2012 landslide over a Palin or a Huckabee can do the same. I'd rather spend the 2010s battling a libertarian Republican Party than a theocratic Republican Party.
At the Republican debate on Thursday, Tim Russert asked the Republican candidates for President if they plan on staying in Iraq even though over 60% of the American people think the war was the wrong idea. There answers are exactly why Republicans will have a very difficult time winning in November (especially Huckabee comparing Iraq to an Easter egg hunt). Each candidate has their head in the sand, except for Ron Paul, who was the only candidate to get applause.
Keith Olbermann and Sam Seder do a great job analyzing these answers.
Mike Huckabee's latest TV ad in Michigan highlights the struggles of working families and the loss of jobs.
The best line...
I believe most Americans want their next President to remind them of they guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.
I posted my predictions for the Iowa caucuses right before I left work. On the home I started thinking about how ridiculous it would be for Obama to beat Edwards by 8%, so I decided to change them to make it closer. However, when I got home my internet wasn't working and I couldn't.
As it turns out, my predictions were darn close, getting the top 2 exactly right (though I had Richardson and Biden way too high and Clinton too low). My Republican predictions weren't bad either, except I gave McCain too much support and not enough to Fred Thompson.
So here are my predictions for New Hampshire...
Democrats
1. Barack Obama 42%
2. Hillary Clinton 27%
3. John Edwards 24%
4. Bill Richardson 9%
Republicans
1. John McCain 32%
2. Mitt Romney 29%
3. Mike Huckabee 16%
4. Ron Paul 11%
5. Rudy Giuliani 9%
6. Fred Thompson 3%
On Sunday, Mike Huckabee delivered a sermon at a New Hampshire church where he spoke about being part of God's army.
From the Washington Post...
A pastor from Texas was scheduled to deliver the sermon Sunday at a church here called the Crossing.But instead this small evangelical congregation heard from a different special guest: Baptist minister and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who delivered a sermon of more than 20 minutes on how to be part of "God's Army" in the middle school cafeteria where the congregation meets.
"When we become believers, it's as if we have signed up to be part of God's Army, to be soldiers for Christ," Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience.
Matthew Yglesias had an interesting post today that shows Mike Huckabee had a poor showing in Iowa counties with a high Catholic population.
Here are the maps...
Huckabee won the counties in blue, Romney won the counties in red.
The redder the counties, the more Catholics.
Here is a look at the polls in New Hampshire since the Iowa caucuses on Thursday.
From Political Wire...
The Cornbelt Blather Boys have a pretty nifty caucus guide that outlines the pros and cons of the Republican candidates.
As the January 3rd Iowa caucuses approach, it has been reported that many voters are still undecided as who to vote for. Enter CBB’s handy dandy pocket, blog voting guide:
Mike Huckabee: Former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister.
Pros: Lost over 100 pounds, meaning there is less of him to dislike. Figuratively speaking.
Cons: Mike has over a thousand cons, as in he pardoned over a thousand convicts.
Mitt Romney: Former Massachusetts governor and Mormon.
Pros: America can always use another elitist, politician from Massachusetts to govern our lives.
Cons: How many lawyers does it take to invade a nation? Believes a lawyer should be consulted before he would take military action as President.
Ron Paul: Congressman from Texas
Pros: Maybe you missed the part where he’s from Texas? As a bonus, he’s an angry Texan.
Cons: As a strict Constitutionalist surely Ron Paul has observed his Presidency is not mentioned anywhere in the US Constitution.
Rudy Giuliani: Former mayor of New York City.
Pros: He’s been through two nasty divorces which, of course, makes him over qualified to handle diplomatic relations with rogue states like Iran and North Korea.
Cons: He is a Yankees fan.
Fred Thompson: Former senator and actor.
Pros: Starred in such movies as Days of Thunder and Aces: Iron Eagle III.
Cons: Starred in such movies as Days of Thunder and Aces: Iron Eagle III.
Candidates are criscrossing the state and many are holding New Year's Eve parties tonight. Iowa Politics has compiled a list of where the events are taking place...
The candidates are holding New Year's Eve gatherings throughout the state. Here's where they're scheduled to be:
-- Barack Obama is holding a New Year's Eve rally at 8:30 p.m. at the Iowa State University Memorial Union in Ames. The doors open at 7:30 p.m.
-- Hillary Clinton will be joined by husband and former President Bill Clinton at a New Beginnings Celebration at 9:45 p.m. at Capitol Square in Des Moines.
-- John Edwards' New Year's Eve festivities begin at 6:30 p.m. at his Mason City campaign office.
-- Chris Dodd is holding a New Year's Eve party at Happy's Place in Dubuque.
-- Bill Richardson and wife Barbara will hold a holiday event at 8 p.m. at the Quality Inn and Suites Event Center in Des Moines.
-- Mike Huckabee and his family are meeting with supporters at a New Year's Eve gathering at 5:30 p.m. at the Wakonda Club in Des Moines.
-- Mitt Romney and his family are attending the GuideOne ImaginEve celebration at 7:15 p.m. at the Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines.
EJ Dionne of the Washington Post has a story out about the economic populist themes of John Edwards and Mike Huckabee's campaigns. From my experiences talking to Republicans about different issues, one thing we can agree on is that government policy favors corporations and the wealthy over the interests of average people and that big money has too much influence in the process.
Dionne has this quote by Huckabee at a recent campaign event in Iowa...
"I'm not exactly the pick of some of the East Coast establishment Republicans," the former governor of Arkansas said in a nice bit of heartland understatement. "I think they don't understand a lot of us who don't live in their world.""If you ask a hedge fund manager what's he worried about, he's going to give you a very different answer than a guy who just lost his job in a factory in Orange City," Huckabee continues in a quiet voice, referring to a town in the western part of the state. And then he speaks up for "the guy in Orange City" who is alarmed by the price of gasoline, the rising costs of college and health care, the inexorable increases in "deductibles" and "co-pays."
Dionne concludes...
Since the Reagan era, the heroes of the nation's economic story have been valiant entrepreneurs who "took risks" and "created wealth." This narrative advanced the Republican cause and seeped deeply into the Democratic Party. If Iowa is any indication, there is a new narrative in which the old heroes are cast as the goats of the story and the new heroes are people like "the guy in Orange City." There is a thunder out of Iowa, and it is shaking both parties.
Here are a couple hilarious parodies of ads from Huckabee and Romney...
Huckabee's Message to Iowans
Mitt Questions Huckabee's Values
**Update**
Here's one for Rudy...
Before Rudy was getting calls from one of his wives, Huckabee got a phone call from God.
The Wall Street Journal has a story, which was run on the front page of the Des Moines Register over the weekend, about trade being an important issue in Iowa.
Earlier this month, David Sirota wrote about John Edwards and Mike Huckabee that are campaigning on the issue of trade and are seeing results in Iowa from it.Iowa's anxiety stems from a mix of factors, many of which are also at play in other Midwestern swing states. By many measures, the global economy has been good for the state. Boosted by the ethanol and biofuels craze and surging demand for crops and farm equipment world-wide, Iowa's exports are up 77% over the past four years versus 50% nationally. The state's unemployment rate hovers around 3.7%, below the national 4.6% average.
But the past couple of decades have seen a steady decline in once-prized factory jobs, from a high of 252,700 in 1999 to 231,000 today. Just this year, Iowa lost about 1,800 jobs when appliance-maker Maytag, now owned by Whirlpool Corp., shuttered its plant in its home town of Newton. (The jobs moved to Ohio, but foreign competition was a key reason Maytag was acquired by Whirlpool.) Wages haven't kept pace with inflation, and employers here, as elsewhere, have been paring health and retirement benefits.
Many Iowans blame their difficulties on global trade. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll of Iowa Democrats conducted in September found that by 42% to 33% they favored a candidate who believes trade pacts hurt the U.S. economy over one who believes they benefit the economy; Republicans were evenly split at 39%. (The balance said they didn't know or hadn't a preference.)
What explains the unlikely rise of these two dark horses?
It's the populism, stupid.
Huckabee and Edwards are the only two major candidates staking their campaigns on an indictment of economic inequality, corporate power and corruption. As the latest Democracy Corps poll shows, these are the very societal ills angering a middle class whose real-life struggles with stagnant wages, layoffs, debt, foreclosures and health care costs chafe against a pop culture and political system that glorify fabulous affluence. The country, in short, seems ready to embrace Huey Long's "Share Our Wealth" ethos, and these two southerners are resurrecting the best of the famed Louisiana governor's legacy.
Just look at the stump speeches.
"The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we're not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who, for 20 and 30 years, have worked to make a company rich and then watch as a CEO takes a $100 million bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else," Huckabee said at a recent Republican debate. "That's criminal — it's wrong."
Edwards presents arguably the boldest challenge to the political Establishment of any major presidential candidate in contemporary history. Proposing sweeping health care, tax, trade and labor law reform, he says the only way "people who are powerful in Washington" are "going to give away their power is if we take it away from them." The system, he says, is "controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water."
Huckabee and Edwards benefit from facing icons of the very problems they attack.
Mike Huckabee was asked to respond to other candidates saying he was soft on immigration.
"We penalize law-breakers. We don't penalize their children for something they can't help.I absolutely agree with Huckabee on this. You can micromanage immigration and pass laws restricting what immigrants do, but if you don't solve the problem you will always have a problem. Let's focus on solving the problem of immigration instead of trying to criminalize everything immigrants do."If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he's on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn't have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school -- and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you've got to educate a child if he's of child age -- what do you, break your own law and say, `No, you can't come in the schoolhouse door'?
"No, you don't do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don't then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That's not what this country does. We're a better country than that."
Mike Huckabee's ad that features Chuck Norris drew some chuckles, however, it was a horrible way to introduce himself to Iowa voters. I usually like humorous ads, but this was not a good way to introduce himself to Iowa voters. Huckabee is moving up in the polls and he needed to run a more serious ad that would convince Iowans to take him more seriously.
I am not a believer that the candidate with the most money will win, but I do know that you need some money to run an effective campaign. Huckabee was unable to turn his 2nd place finish at the Iowa Straw poll into much money during the 3rd quarter. That is why I haven't been putting much faith into Huckabee's rise in recent polls in Iowa.
However, Marc Ambinder is reporting that Huckabee has increased his fundraising in October by raising nearly $30,000 each day.
The campaign set a goal of $1,034,487 by midnigh ton October 31 -- a Million for Mike. Even one dollar -- "A Buck for Huck" -- is welcomed by the campaign.
The fundraising email states a goal of having $1.7M in the bank by end of November.
Huckabee has some momentum and if he can get money to run some ads in Iowa and organize a solid ground game then he could gain momentum coming out of Iowa.
Mike Huckabee isn't raising much money, only raising $1 million in the 3rd quarter. However, Huckabee has the highest paid campaign manger on the Republican side.
Marc Ambinder takes a look at who the best paid campaign manager on the Republican side is...
Not Beth Myers, Mitt Romney's campaign manager, who takes home about $7,000 a month after taxes, or Michael DuHaime of the Giuliani campaign, who makes $14,386 per month after taxes... it's Chip Saltzman, Mike Huckabee's campaign manager, who makes about $15,000 per month.
Saltzman's estimated $250,000 per year is about seven percent of what Huckabee has raised to date -- $2,345,798.
With Sam Brownback dropping out of the Presidential race today, the question then turns to who he will endorse. Marc Ambinder thinks it will be McCain or Giuliani. I could see Brownback supporting McCain because they have worked together in the Senate for years, however Brownback doesn't necessarily line up on the issues with McCain and Giuliani.
The candidate that is most in line with Brownback on the issues is Mike Huckabee. However, Huckabee and Brownback had a hard fought and sometime nasty fight in the Iowa Straw Poll.
Huckabee was asked last night about getting Brownback's support...
Asked by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson on Thursday if he will seek out Brownback's support, Huckabee said, "I'd love to talk to Sam. ... I don't know of many areas in which we're incompatible. I'd certainly love to have his support and that of his supporters. But that's something the senator will have to decide."
When it comes to fundraising, Mike Huckabee's was basically lobbed a fastball down the middle of the plate after finishing second in the Iowa Straw Poll in August. However, it is looking like Huckabee swung and missed in the 3rd quarter by raising only $1 million.
Marc Ambinder writes...
And Mike Huckabee raised a million. Realistically, with so little cash, he can either run a single flight of ads for two weeks or fund his field operations. His volunteer base has to expand at a rapid pace if he wants to remain viable. The political elites will be very hard on Huckabee tomorrow.
