Huckabee praises Obama speech

Either proving it was a great speech, or proving politicians know how to see where the wind is blowing, Mike Huckabee has praised Barack Obama's "race speech" and has defended him against critics of Reverend Wright.

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..."

This goes along with some discussions I have had offline and with some comments made by BowHunter yesterday. For all the "sound and fury" surrounding the Reverend Wright, I think Obama will be able to recover and turn this into a positive... at least until the Reverend gives a NEW sermon with the same words in it. And if he is like the other pastors I have known, he is sure to do so eventually. He can not be silent.

McCain makes it official

Last night's wins finally clinched the Republican nomination for John McCain. It had been obvious since Mitt Romney dropped out, but now the obvious has become the mathematically determined. And, as promised, Mike Huckabee has dropped out of the race once the math proved even a brokered convention impossible. Now, the question comes whether McCain can get ANY media coverage while the Democratic race remains so close and exciting.

Huckabee on SNL

Don't worry, friends. Even if Mike Huckabee gets the point and drops out of the race, I am sure Alan Keyes and Mike Gravel will stick around.

Obama wins every state on Saturday

Pundits have been saying that the remaining primary and caucus states favor Obama, but I am not sure any of them truly expected him to sweep every state awarding delegates this weekend! This has got to be scary for Senator Clinton who has spent every waking moment since leaving the White House, trying to prepare her party for a return.

Obama's winning margins ranged from substantial to crushing.

He won roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands.

Nearly complete Louisiana returns showed Obama with 57 percent of the vote, to 36 percent for the former first lady. As in his earlier Southern triumphs in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, Obama, a black man, rode a wave of African-American support to victory in Louisiana. Clinton won the white vote overwhelmingly.

In all, the Democrats scrapped for 161 delegates in the night's contests.

In incomplete allocations, Obama won 72, Clinton 40.

On the GOP side, Huckabee took Kansas and Lousiana (though he won no delates from LA, since he did not cross the 50% threshhold). The battle for the nomination may be essentially over, but the battle for the heart of the Party of Lincoln is just heating up.

Dobson endorses Huckabee

The story here. I have to wonder if this a true "endorsement" or merely Dobson trying to find ANY way to stop McCain. I strongly believe it is the latter.

Huckabee's cash is going the way of Fred Thompson

It is being widely reported now that Mike Huckabee's campaign is critically short of funds with many workers accepting no salary or simply quitting for lack of payment. With Florida coming, which requires expensive television advertising, and Tsunami Tuesday after that with multiple states to cover in a very short time period, questions are being raised as to whether Huckabee can go the distance.

Campaign contributions continue to come in, he said. But he acknowledged that Huckabee is stretched thin as he tries to compete in Florida's primary and many of the two dozen states holding contests Feb. 5.
Huckabee's campaign has stopped arranging charter flights, hotel reservations and other means of helping journalists keep up with his movements. News organizations pay their own expenses, but empty seats on charter planes were costing the campaign money.
"We are running our campaign in a very frugal manner," Huckabee said. "We have operated in the black. If we don't have it, we don't expend it."

This, of course raises the question of whether Social Conservatives will have a horse left in the race for Tsunami Tuesday. Could the race be transformed if they are forced to embrace Mitt Romney, to avoid voting for Rudy Guiliani or John McCain? Or will one of them be able to make the argument and re-form the Reagan coalition? Or will Mike Huckabee see a miraculous comeback?

And I have to wonder, if not for McCain-Feingold, would Huckabee be able to stay in the race longer?

Why I Should Vote For McCain

For about a month and a half now, I have been considering voting for McCain. Saying that sounds so completely foreign to me, that I have spent this time trying to both find reasons not to vote for McCain and reasons to vote for one of the other candidates. CRChair has both asked why he should vote for Huckabee and stated why he won't be voting for McCain. Here is my logic for why I should vote for McCain.

First, let's start with the field of candidates:

Rudy Giuliani - His decidedly pro-abortion stance and liberal views has knocked him out as a candidate in my mind.

Mitt Romney - I just don't trust him. He reminds me too much of Kerry. He'd probably do a great job if he would pick a side and stick to his guns, but I can't vote for him without knowing who he is.

Ron Paul - He has many online supporters and I'll probably be blasted for this, but he's crazy. When I hear his ideas, I think, "That would have been great information to have when we were making the wrong decision." Getting us back to the gold standard just won't work without a complete upheaval and revaluing of things. Personally, I don't want my house value to drop just so we can get back on a gold standard.

Alan Keyes - With less visibility than Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo, Keyes may be the only person who seriously thinks he's running... and even he may not think that. Besides, he's already lost to Obama once. Going up against Clinton would be even worse.

Fred Thompson - I like Fred Thompson. He's one of my top three picks. Unfortunately, he's rumored to be leaving the race. Even if he doesn't, he's not running like he wants to be president. Clinton would chew him up in the general election. I'd like to see him make a strong run or even be the VP on the ticket, but I don't see it as a winning ticket.

Mike Huckabee - He's a second of my top three picks. He's got support, especially among religious conservatives. Unfortunately, while he's socially conservative, he's fiscally liberal. Huckabee would be like having four or eight more years of GWB, but with less foreign policy experience than GWB currently has. I feel like I voted for the social conservative and got duped the first time GWB ran, so I'm hesitant to vote for the same thing again. I do like the idea of not having an income tax, but a national sales tax promotes saving, not spending. I don't know if our economy could handle less spending.

John McCain - That leaves John McCain. I hate to vote for someone because they're the last one left. After all, he could just be the last one I looked at and be worse than the other candidates.

First, I'll answer Matt's points.

Age: Yes, McCain is the oldest candidate, but then, so was Reagan when he ran. People are living longer and McCain will be younger than when Reagan left office. That being said, age isn't really that important. Health is. If McCain is healthy enough to be president for one term, then age shouldn't be a factor. After all, President Harrison died of pneumonia shortly after taking office. None of us are guaranteed life, that is why we have measures set up to take over the office if the president should fall sick or die.

Immigration: Yes, McCain has been soft on immigration, but he also realizes that we need to fix the problem of illegal immigration by securing our borders before we start kicking people out. Otherwise, we'll just have to kick them out again and again.

Fiscal Responsibility: This is actually one of the reasons I am voting for McCain. He is against pork spending and realizes that we need to be good stewards of our money. Yes, he did vote against the tax cuts, but that was because we needed to cut spending. Cutting spending means that someone is upset about not getting as much federal money. Tax cuts resonate well with constituents. McCain wanted to make sure that spending was cut rather than furthering the national debt and knew that without a tax cut, spending wouldn't be cut.

Pro-Life: Yet another reason that I am voting for McCain. The National Right To Life PAC has up a PDF with the candidates views here, but the do not appear to fully quote McCain. While McCain is OK with stem cell research on existing lines and in cases of in-vitro fertilization, he is not OK with creating new stem-cell lines. Would I like him to be against all stem cell research? Yes. Personally, I haven't seen evidence of neonatal stem cell research taking off. The advances seem to be in adult stem cell research. That being said, McCain does make the point "I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It's a tough issue. I support federal funding." I have an easier time agreeing with babies that will be discarded. I, admittedly, have a hard time agreeing with purposefully destroying babies that are in a frozen state. I'd much rather see them used for couples that desperately want to have a baby, can't, but would be willing to carry another's baby from their in-vitro attempt. You can see McCain's voting record and his National Right To Life report card.

McCain-Feingold: I agree with McCain that political votes should not be bought. Having contribution limits is one way to do this. The other part of the bill, the part that limits free speech is the bigger issue in my mind. This part should be overturned by the courts.

The McCain Surprise: McCain is a maverick, but he's a maverick that sticks to his guns. If we realize what it is we're voting for, I don't think there will be too many surprises. He also has a lifetime conservative rating of 83% from The American Conservative Union. In comparison, Fred Thompson has an 86% rating.

Is McCain a perfect candidate? Absolutely not. As I stated above, McCain-Feingold, while good intentioned, should not have passed as it restricts free speech. I'd like to see McCain not only be anti-abortion, but also be anti-stem cell research. I don't agree with him on his views on the environment.

I do think that he will vote conservatively when it comes to abortion and I do think he will help rein in the federal budget, which will in turn help cut taxes and bring about a turn in the economy. I also think he can win. He won conservative South Carolina. Rasmussen Reports gives him an over 50% chance of becoming the Republican nominee. At the end of December, they had him beating Clinton 49% to 43% (Google cache).

What worries me about McCain? First and foremost, in the past McCain has not been known as being the friend of the conservative. Why am I leaning towards McCain? What am I missing? Second, I fear that he will choose Joseph Lieberman as his running mate. Lieberman is more liberal than McCain which would trouble me. Hopefully McCain will choose a more conservative running mate who has the heart of the evangelical voters... perhaps a McCain-Huckabee ticket? This would bring in the evangelical voters while giving Huckabee the foreign policy experience he would need to make a run for president following McCain.

Will I vote for McCain? As far as I can tell, I think I should. He appears to fit my views more than the other candidates and he has a chance to win. That being said, why should I vote for your candidate instead?

Is it possible to create a biting parody of yourself?

Rolling Stone on Huckabee

I know it is petty, but I still have a hard time taking seriously any candidate who shares a name with the movie I Heart Huckabees which was a horrifically-bad film from a couple of years back. Still, Mike "The Other Man from Hope" Huckabee has been steadily gaining in the Republican nominee horse-race, and is wooing the Religious Right as a man who truly can represent their values. For me, however, it has been hard to really get past the "image" that his campaign and the media put out there, and into the real man.

Somehow, Rolling Stone Magazine has been the first to put out a truly balanced piece on the man. (Warning: There are several points of profanity in the piece, so if you are sensitive to such things, don't click thru.) It lays out both his strengths (populism, likability, appeal to both the religious rich and religious poor) and weaknesses (he is a true-believer in born-again Christianity, he accepts and expects lots of "gifts" from friends, and can be sensitive and petty at times).

I am still not sure whether I would vote for the man, but I feel like I would now understand better what I'd be "buying".