Day: December 13, 2007

If waterboarding is no worse than doing the backstroke, as this evil man says, then why don’t we force prisoners to do the back stroke in order to get information from them?

Everyone who remembers the 1980 presidential race — when supporters of Pres. Jimmy Carter cheered after an elderly, out-of-touch, warmongering former B-movie actor won the Republican nomination — knows that the old adage “be careful what you wish for” applies one hundred-fold in politics.

A likely predictor of the arc of the Huckabee campaign over the next few months is the 1988 campaign of TV preacher Pat Robertson.

While tempting the gods of irony can invite ugly surprises, no matter how hard Democrats might pray for heaven to confer the 2008 GOP nomination on Mike Huckabee, it ain’t gonna happen.

Still, polls indicate that Huckabee could well win the Iowa caucuses, in part because he is the flavor of the month among the God squad and because as many as 40 percent of Iowa Republicans are evangelicals. Whatever happens at the caucuses, however, Huckabee will stall in New Hampshire, where Southerners are not very popular.

This loss will empower the winner in New Hampshire — quite likely Mitt Romney, who was the governor of an adjacent state — while simultaneously hobbling Huckabee in South Carolina and beyond. In the Feb. 5 “super-duper” primaries, Giuliani will likely clean up in big “blue” states like New York and California, after which, if the nationwide polling holds, the Giuliani juggernaut will likely sweep aside Huckabee and the other also-rans.

In fact, a likely predictor of the arc of the Huckabee campaign over the next few months is the 1988 campaign of TV preacher Pat Robertson. Huckabee and Robertson have much in common. Both are Southern ordained ministers and both have long careers in both evangelical business circles and conservative politics. And Robertson surprised the pundits in 1988 by coming in second in Iowa, behind then-Sen. Bob Dole and ahead of then-Vice Pres. George H.W. Bush. But Robertson came in last in New Hampshire behind Bush, Dole and former Rep. Jack Kemp, after which his campaign faded.

There are differences between Huckabee and Robertson, too, of course. Robertson’s political views are a mix of libertarianism and theocratic fascism, whereas Huckabee’s theocratic fascism is tinged with old-time Southern populism. And, unlike Robertson, Huckabee does not operate a television network nor does he sit upon vast financial resources, including diamond mines in Africa. On the other hand, while Robertson’s core persona — a holier-than-thou jerk — shines through even when he’s straining to be at his most beneficent, Huckabee masks his finger-waggling behind a pleasant-seeming folksy manner, which can snooker some of the people some of the time, as we have seen among the Northeastern media elites lately.

Now however, these same elites are finding that Huckabee’s smooth oratory and down-home bromides can’t drown out the loud rattling of the skeletons trying to bust out of his political closet.

In the right hands — say, for example, the Clinton campaign — if Huckabee’s skeletal record in Arkansas is presented aggressively, members of key voting blocks, especially fiscal conservatives and moderate independent swing voters, will find something not to like:

[…]

A pattern is emerging as the countdown to the Iowa caucuses brings out the desperation in presidential candidates: slam your opponent under the guise of playing devil’s advocate, then profess, “My bad!” and claim you’re really about the politics of hope.

Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton are the latest to fall into the “Whoops” category. Huckabee is apologizing in advance for an article to be published in the New York Times Magazine this weekend. Possibly after watching the YouTube video which makes Mormonism look even wackier than conventional religions by explaining its foundation, Huckabee asked a question, just purely wondering, you understand, about Mitt Romney’s chosen faith.

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

…Huckabee said he offered the question to the reporter during a conversation about Mormonism, not as a statement or a backhanded way of raising Romney’s religion as a campaign issue.

“I asked the question because I had heard that, and I asked it not to create something,” he said. “I never thought it would make the story.”

Yeah, who would have thunk that?

Meanwhile, Clinton is expressing remorse for one of her supporters musing about how the other side, not them of course, might question Barack Obama’s past drug use.

Billy Shaheen…told The Washington Post that should Obama get the Democratic nomination, “one of the things Republicans are certainly going to jump on is his drug use.”

In his 1996 memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” Obama wrote candidly about his high school-era drug use: “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though.”

Shaheen said Obama’s having been so open…will “open the door to further queries on the matter.

“It’ll be, ‘When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'” Shaheen said. “There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It’s hard to overcome.”

I’m sure Barack appreciates Billy’s concern and that of the Clinton camp. No doubt a thank you note is already in the mail.

Such widespread “I’m just sayin'” negativity is a new tactic in politics. We’re betting it will be more effective than the old school open attack strategies of the past.